“Blessed Be the We” – January 23rd, 2022

“The Earth speaks in many languages, but only in one voice.” These are Enrique Salmon’s words. Salmon is of the Raramuri peoples who live in the Sierra Madres of Chiuhuahua Mexico., and a beautiful writer. He goes on: “this one voice, is a voice that emanates in unison from every living thing on Earth. It binds our breaths, and nourishes our integration. The loss of only the tiniest member of the union weakens the voice, which may soon become a whisper unless we begin to speak for those whose languages are not heard. The unheard includes not only plants and animals, place or open spaces, streamsides or oceanscapes: they include people…”

Enrique Salmon wrote these words in an essay called, “Sharing Breath,” which is a part of a wonderful collection of diverse voices in a book called “Colors of Nature.” I read this book as a part of an immersive study I did back in 2019 that looked to communing with Nature as both an act of personal spiritual healing and opening–a way to get closer to God–as well as one of collective liberation. A place to practice Justice. Both.

Salmon’s words, like so many others that we studied back in 2019, taught us of the great and swelling call rising up right now that is asking for our ears, begging for our attention. A call emanating from the too long unheard voices of marginalized peoples, from the Earth and all of Her living things, and a call rising up from within our own bodies. My sense is that these voices are saying: we are out of balance. The great web of interdependence with which we are ALL a part is in need of repair. It cannot hold like this. We cannot hold like this.

We closed our many months study back in 2019, with a pilgrimage that took us to Mt. Desert Island in Maine, to many this land is known well as Acadia National Park. The purpose of this pilgrimage was to, as Salmon writes, bind our breath to the breath of that land. Don’t just read about it. Feel it. Seriously. We were there to integrate. And to do so with reverence and humility. We were taught to walk and move gently. To listen for the whispering voices.

I had never hiked like this. Not many of us move like this…ever. On one particular climb we were taught about lichen. We gathered at the trailhead and learned about this fungus/algae for nearly an hour–and listen, there are like 3600 species of lichen. You’ve seen it climbing up trees, attached to other plant-life. It’s a super complex life form that we move past all the time giving it little to no notice, but that we couldn’t live without. Lichen protects trees and plants from harsh environments, they absorb pollutants, they convert carbon dioxide to oxygen.  And the lichen we learned about up in Maine was the kind which makes a home on the massive boulders and rocks that make up so much of Mt. Desert Island–rocks we were about to traverse. Lichen that grows on these glacier rocks create ecosystems that sustain the soil between the boulders, which are connected to the nearby trees and their root systems, and ultimately the far-reaching forests…a complex system of interdependence and mutuality existing so far beyond our human senses. But on Mt. Desert Island, the balance of this system is being compromised. Because well-intentioned hikers, like myself, continue to step on the lichen as they scramble up the boulders on the way to the summit to take in the view and enjoy themselves. And it’s killing the lichen. We looked at thriving lichen and lichen on the trails and the difference is stark. So on this trek, we climbed with this unheard, species in mind– the “tiniest member of the union,” as Salmon writes.

And let me tell you, trying to climb a mountain and NOT step on the lichen is…a challenge. It completely changes how you move. It slows you down, and it altars your relationship to the environment. So often we humans are mainly tending to ourselves on hikes like this: our experience, our breath, our chosen footing, our awe at the view, our comfortable pace. It’s not easy to give some of this up. Not stepping on lichen means that your head is down…pretty much for the whole of the hike. And it’s not all about you. And suddenly you find that this small, seemingly inconsequential, utterly tramp-able life is so much bigger than you. And there you are together–trying to work things out. 9^th century Celtic philosopher John Scotus Eriugena regarded the whole world–all of creation–as, what he called, a thin place, where Divinity illuminates and enlightens ordinary matter.

The thin place on this particular trek, for me, revealed itself in that ordinary lichen. And my trying to work with it, see it, feel it. This might sound strange to you, but it felt like we were conversing with one another–the lichen and I. This might sound really strange to you but after several hours of hiking, I began to feel bound to that Lichen, like the Lichen was both a part of my thriving, that my treading carefully was a part of its thriving, but that I was the Lichen and the Lichen was me too…

Have you ever had that happen to you in Nature?

You know last Sunday’s service, where we looked more closely at the 8^th Principle and it’s bold call to action in our faith,  I know that much of it can leave one feeling confused. For how can we simultaneously look within, cultivate spiritual wholeness for ourselves– know one’s self to be loved and enough, while also waking up to the immense amount of work we need to do in the world. For some of you this might feel contradictory. And many of you might be asking, which one is it? All is well and I am enough or get to work and get changing?

And my answer to you is this: just like the simplicity that is the lichen needing to be cared for on those rocks so that the massive, sprawling forest ecosystem can thrive, so it is with us. Needing to be cared for so that we can thrive, so that, in turn, we can help others thrive.

Lauren offered us deeper insight into our 7^th Principle, and so often this glorious statement: respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, so often we make a profound mistake when we limit it to merely an environmental idea or charge, out there, because it is SO MUCH MORE. It is the balancing place between the individual, I need care, and the wider world’s needs. The collective needing care. And we are bound up in each other’s care and thriving. When we know ourselves to be a part of the interdependent web of all existence than we no longer are merely consumers, takers, or even saviors or protectors or diehard givers, but are rather balanced in voice and in need. And when anyone living being in the web is out of balance, we all are out of balance.

So, you believing yourself to be not enough, or unlovable, means something, touches the souls of all living things. Your suffering is our suffering. Returning to our lichen–the mindless trampling and decimation of the lichen decimates a part of us. And while our thriving depends on thriving forests. And in turn, depends on thriving lichen. those careful, communing steps I had to take up the mountain were also an opportunity to know the lichen as myself. Precious and vulnerable and worthy of care and love. For isn’t the human spirit mighty and wondrous and so very precious and vulnerable? Nature offers us these mirrors most everywhere. And we need only trace our fingers over nature’s cycles and systems to know ourselves a bit better, and to humbly know our place in the order of things.

This is how I am coming to understand interdependence. And it’s a helpful way to find our way towards the WE-ness, and away from just the I-ness, or the YOU-ness. The WE bind you and I like those threads do in Lauren’s story. But here’s the thing: there is no WE when one only is outward focused and leaves themselves, their own care, out in the rain; and there is no WE when we only consider ourselves and leave our fellows out in the rain. And I am not just talking about human relationships, but our relationships with all living things. A good question to ask is whether your life, your relationships, the way you move through your environment, what you consume, what you buy, what you notice, is it with the WE in mind? The depths of one’s own soul and the souls of all that live and breathe about us?

Can you believe me when I tell you that you don’t have to choose between these two? Honestly, the spiritual wholeness that the 8^th Principle is calling us towards is just that: wholeness. Integration. ONE VOICE. Nothing and no one left out.

I was taught on Mt. Desert Island about balance. I caught a glimpse of it. And I think this lesson is everywhere. Not just on the majestic peaks of that blessed island. It’s in our interactions with one another, how we talk to one another–the words we use, how we listen, how we share of ourselves, how we receive others and care. How we are made uncomfortable. How we hurt. How we hurt one another. How we say sorry. I want to be someone who embodies good balance and presence and intention. Don’t you? I want to be someone who moves gently over this our Earth and with my fellows and with myself. I am striving for this. And failing. And trying again.

But this I know. I am not alone in this. And neither are you. Blessed be the WE right? Here’s what I ask: Keep at this. Write down the 7^th Principle and put it up somewhere in your house, or in your car. And consider this WE-ness. And this precious web with which we are all a part. Let it remind you to look for the lichen. Slow down. Move gently. Feel around for it. Know it as you. Know it as me. Know it as WE.

If ever you would like to take a walk with me like this, I would love it. Name the day and place and I will be there. Blessed be the WE. And so I say to you may it be so and AMEN.