Course Locked In
I ended last Sunday’s sermon with these words:
"these times call us to heed the lessons of the cycle of earth’s seasons… each in its time. Let us be eager and unwavering in our pursuit of the remedies nature’s ways might teach us, fearless and joyful in turning our learning into action for the transformation and salvation of the world."
This week I’m still pondering what we might and probably should learn from nature. I’m also struggling a bit, wondering if there are limits to the lessons we can draw and the ways we can and should emulate nature’s way.
You see, a member of one of my previous congregations was a biology professor. From time to time I’d declare “life is precious” from the pulpit, and during coffee hour he’d always counter with “life is cheap.” Theologian vs biologist repartee. I was right and he was right. Life is sacred, miraculous, too precious to be squandered or pushed to the edges of humanity’s realm of concern or beyond. And life is cheap–the earth is teeming with life, more species and in greater numbers than the layperson or even all the biologists in the world can know.
Thinking about those exchanges reminds me that our perspectives matter. Whatever perspective we bring to the consideration of an object, event or situation–the totality of our culture, education, faith tradition, gender, life experience, profession—that perspective matters. Theologian and biologist, engineer and painter, prison guard and chaplain, classroom teacher/ parent/administrator–even when we focus on the same topic, object or situation, our conclusions, our convictions, our actions may vary wildly one from the other, without either being the one and only right way. Life is precious and cheap. The Eiffel Tower is a feat of engineering and an endless source of artistic inspiration. An incarcerated person may have been convicted of a crime (though not always) and has inherent worth and dignity full stop. A story may further a teacher’s goal of a welcoming and inclusive classroom, and undermine a parent’s attempt to raise their child in accordance with their belief system, and threaten an administrator’s desire to make it through the year without a lawsuit. This last example is tricky because as Unitarian Universalists we have pretty firm convictions about censorship and book banning, and many of us are itching for a fight about bigotry vs faith, but that doesn’t change the core of my argument. Perspective matters even and perhaps especially when we don’t want to consider any perspective other than our own.
This week, reflecting back on those life is precious/life is cheap exchanges also reminded me that though we are a part of the interconnected web of all existence–a part of Life–our human development and consequent behaviours and actions, over the millennia, have set us apart from the rest of the interconnected web of all existence in many and not insignificant ways. The paradox that we are simultaneously a part of the web and apart from the web is an illusion, yet it is an illusion we dwell within and operate from. And it suggests to me that our attempts to draw wisdom from the natural world, and to try to model our lives and actions on it, might not always serve our best interests. Or rather, that we would do well to at least temper our emulation of nature with a measure of caution.
Consider my colleague’s lovely poem Unconcerned. I’ve gone round and round with ever since she posted it a few weeks ago and I reprinted in our August newsletter. I want it to be as true and wise as it is lovely.
the deer are profoundly unconcerned,
quietly munching through the graveyard.
The ferns and the salal
could not be less worried, and the madrones
are not losing any bark over it. …
The water is not even ruffled, and the mountains,
with or without an icing of snow,
are entirely at peace.
My soul recognizes the beauty and power in those images and believes there is truth in Lynn Ungar’s words, yet my mind protests, yes, but we’re not birds or ferns or deer, not water or mountains. We come by our concern, our profound concern honestly. We know what we, collectively, have done to one another and our planet. It’s one thing for deer to head unhurriedly into the forest. It may be tempting, even, for us to head into a forest or other wilderness, too. But the forest and the wetlands and the prairies that haven’t already disappeared at our hands are even now dying at our hands. We are part of the natural world, our Earth home, and we are apart from, and it is mostly our inability, our refusal to fully accept our place within it that drives our false sense that we are separate from it and allows us to destroy it.
The same is true of that smaller portion of the interconnected web of all existence, that is the interconnected web of all humanity– described by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, as “ an inescapable network of mutuality,” We–whoever we are, as individuals, as societies, as classes, or genders, or citizens of a particular country–we, driven by fear or the lie of scarcity or ages old prejudices, set ourselves apart from the rest of the web of humanity, over and over again. And it is our inability to fully comprehend that we are “tied in a single garment of destiny,” that allows us to cause harm to other parts of that network, seldom realizing that because “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” we’re causing harm ourselves as well.
Walking unhurriedly into the forest is fine for the deer, but the human landscape is too big a mess–a mess we made of it–littered with forgotten, starving people, failing small businesses, under-resourced public schools, war-torn and occupied lands. We can’t just walk unconcerned along a path toward safety or food or whatever it is the forest holds for the deer. We can’t. We can’t. I’ve been arguing with myself and the poet all week, that that lesson from nature is a lesson too far for us to follow.
Perhaps I was wrong last week. Perhaps these times don’t call for us to follow nature's ways. Perhaps now is the time for us to look for guidance elsewhere, like Star Trek. Perhaps, if we’re going to wrest the train of democracy and decency back on the track, we have to lock in a course that will allow us to stop the harm, repair the breach, heal our world, the inescapable network of mutuality and the interdependent web of all existence.
Even as my internal argument with Lynn’s poem was raging, I heard BA Park, of NPR’s Codeswitch interview Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, author of A Protest History of the United States–published by the way, by our own Unitarian Universalist publishing house, Beacon Press. I recommend listening to the interview and reading the book (though I have not yet). Professor Browne-Marshall highlights the difference between what she calls TV protests and real life protests. In televisions or the movies–think Selma, for example–there is a problem, a couple planning meetings, an unsuccessful first protest, a dark night of the soul, and then a second protest that is victorious and resolves the unjust situation. A vastly condensed and oversimplified timeline. In real life, the Montgomery Bus Boycott began on December 5, 1955 and didn’t end until December 20, 1956–more than a year later. And the Civil Rights Act wasn’t enacted for another nine years after that, the Voting Rights Act not until the year after that. Similarly, though President Grant issued a proclamation in 1869 regarding an 8 hour work day, most workers in the United States did not benefit from it until the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Protest, successful, lasting social change, is a long game. Long and costly. Requiring laser focus, unwavering commitment, eyes on the prize and hands to the work.
Perhaps, I came to believe, the only wisdom in Rev. Ungar’s poem lies in the lines that have nothing to do with the serenity of the deer and the birds, the mountain and the water.
Nothing is fixed
says Baldwin in his wisdom. Nothing
is fixed in place, nothing is resolved,
nothing has reached its inevitable conclusion.
There is truth here when I don’t get distracted or misdirected by the deer. The forgotten, starving people, failing small businesses, under-resourced public schools, war-torn and occupied lands–none of this is fixed in place, nor has any of it reached its inevitable conclusion. This observation echoes the words of Reinhold Niebuhr we heard earlier. It also harkens back to Eleanor Gordon, one of the Iowa Sisterhood of late 19th/early 20th century female Unitarian and Universalist ministers, who preached about what she called the Glory of the Imperfect–the unfinished and flawed nature of the universe that allows us to be co-creators with God.
Epiphany time.
When I looked away from those unconcerned, unhurried deer for a moment, I understood their lesson for us: because nothing is resolved, we are allowed to be, if not unhurried and totally unconcerned, then at least less frantic and more deliberate in our course. The mess we’ve made of our human landscape and the natural landscape will be here tomorrow and next year and well beyond. Yes, we have to stop the harm, repair the breach, and heal our world, the inescapable network of mutuality and the interdependent web of all existence, but we don’t have to complete the task this afternoon, and probably one compete it in this lifetime, and certainly won’t complete it alone. Yet if we attend to the task with deliberation and a minimum of frenetic, unfocused energy we’ll survive for the long game. And if we attend steadfastly to the long game in our time, within our personal and communal capacity, we will be saved by hope and faith and love.
Rebecca Solnit, in this morning’s second reading, doesn’t tell us what made the well worn paths, the width of a dinner plate she followed toward but not to infinity. For a time I imagined them to be left by mountain bike tires, dozens of bikers creating and following a course over time. And then I imagined them as deer paths or the tracks of another creature, the tall grasses worn away over decades of walking the shortest, safest path to food sources and watering holes and hiding places. There are well worn paths through our landscape, too, leading us to sustenance and safety and restoration in our proper place in the web. Theologians such as Niebuhr trod some of them. Preachers and social reformers such as Eleanor Gordon trod some of them. Others have been left to us by protesters, artists, musicians, visionaries of bygone eras. Poets such as Lynn Ungar tread some of them. And some are even now being blazed through unnavigated terrain by young leaders, as if on so many speeding mountain bikes, who see the situation and the way forward with a clarity of perspective we can’t possibly comprehend but that is full of possibility for precisely that reason.
So many paths toward stopping the harm, repairing the breach, and healing our world. While the enormity of the task calls for our unwavering commitment, we need not, after all, lock course on a single path, but rather follow the way until it doesn’t lead forward any longer, and then follow another way, sometimes in solitude, sometimes in community, trusting that together we will some day arrive at the infinite and it will be vast and beautiful, abundant and serene for all. Amen.
