We have Science to know the Natural World. For this we are grateful, this allows us to be informed through Reasons rather than Superstition. This allows us, to some degree, to protect ourselves, to protect civilization, and only sometimes to protect the Natural World from us. Though, at this point, to less and less effect.
Sometimes, though, Science has led us to arrogance. Has led us to a mechanical understanding of the Natural World, a world view of the Natural World that has gotten us into this disastrous relationship with our climate. It’s not just Science that has led us here. Some religions, not all, but some, with a dominion worldview and some Economics, not all, but the dominant ones, with a worship of endless growth, have landed us here, too.
Yet a religious approach need not be predicated in Mechanics, but can be sourced in Mystery. Can be rooted in kinship, in relationship, in acknowledgement of the living essence of the Natural World – of Naturals Worlds – which some call Gaia.
There are ancient and moderns ways in which spiritual traditions call us to be in right relationship with the Natural World. Pagan, Neo-Pagan, and Wicca traditions are Earth-based, exercising a relationship not of dominion, but of equals and collaboration. Liberal religious strands of larger traditions denounce dominion and seek a different way. Indigenous culture and practices from all around the globe and across the ages have insisted that Nature, that this planet, that this cosmos, is a living entity of which we are a part.
For me, I look to Buddhism. I know the enlightenment story of the Buddha, how in response to challenges and temptations and complexity, he touches the Earth. I know the wisest teachers guide us to recognize the delusion of Separation, that the very basis of the nature of reality is Interconnection.
And I think about Unitarian Universalism. In particular, my mind goes to Transcendentalism, which basically blossomed a generation after Unitarians emerged from the orthodox Protestant Christianity on offer in New England in the early 19th century. The Transcendentalists, in addition to being dedicated practitioners of pluralism, did not so much as reject written ancient scripture, as deem that method lacking in comparison to the “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.” If that language sounds familiar to you, it’s because it’s from the first of our Six Sources of Unitarian Universalism.
Here is my favorite quote from the Father of Transcendentalism, my colleague as a Unitarian minister, Ralph Waldo Emerson (though, it must be acknowledged that his views related to Native Americans and women were quite problematic).
I say all this because starting next month – in fact, starting on January 1st – we are rolling out the Earth Teacher Project. It’s an opportunity for spiritual practice – either on your own or in community here – that invites you to deepen your relationship with a particular Earth Teacher – some aspect of the Natural World that has gifts to share, knowledge to lend, inspiration to spark. Each month, close to the 1st of the month, alongside the Soul Matters magazine, The Path, you will receive an email with that month’s Earth Teacher packet.
The Earth Teacher packet will be a document filled with poems, passages, quotes, meditation seeds, jokes, links to music, and sometimes visual images. You can use this on your own or with your own circle of friends. Or you can sign up for the monthly, online reflection session that will be offered, typically on the 1st or 2nd of the month. Sign up through Realm to get the Zoom link to these 75 minute sessions. I’ll be co-facilitating these sessions with FUUSB member, Meg Randall who thinks – maybe, no promises but just maybe – that in the spring, she may offer Earth Teacher reflection sessions in-person.
We have already identified the Earth Teachers for the rest of this congregational year. January is gravity. February is stones/rocks. March is acorns. April is – it’s rather apt – mud/muck. May is focused on the Champlain watershed. And June is dandelions. Family chapel which returns in the new calendar year on the first Sunday of each month, will incorporate the Earth Teachers, which I think is way cool. And if it turns out that there is interest and momentum, we’ll create a two-year cycle of Earth Teachers. Kinda exciting.
The Earth Teacher Project does NOT replace Soul Matters but complements it, resides alongside it. We are not the only UU congregation finding a way to bring Earth Teachers into our communal life, though each congregation is developing their own way to do this. I’ve recorded an introduction to the Earth Teacher Project – it’ll be in this week’s eNews.
But just to make sure you don’t miss out: the first one is on Monday, January 1st at 11am. An excellent way to launch the new year. Sign up on Realm. Have with you a way to journal, a chalice to light, and space that allows you to reflect in an undistracted manner.
The Earth Teacher Project. I hope you will check it out. I hope it will help you connect with what we are shifting to calling the Inspirations of Unitarian Universalism. As I preached in August and will co-lead an adult Faith Development class in January and February, we are shifting our language from Sources to Inspiration. Here is what the proposed language from the Article II Study Commission sounds like:
Direct experiences of transcending mystery and wonder are primary sources of Unitarian Universalist inspiration. These experiences open our hearts, renew our spirits, and transform our lives. We draw upon, and are inspired by, sacred, secular, and scientific understandings that help us make meaning and live into our values. These sources ground us and sustain us in ordinary, difficult, and joyous times. We respect the histories, contexts, and cultures in which these sources were created and are currently practiced. Grateful for the experiences that move us, aware of the religious ancestries we inherit, and enlivened by the diversity which enriches our faith, we are called to ever deepen and expand our wisdom.
