“The Church of the Earth” – May 14th, 2023

READING: Adapted from “The Moor,” by Welsh poet R.S. Thomas

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God was there made [themselves] felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said…

I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.

SERMON:

Last night, enjoying the meal we shared together, and sitting in this packed sanctuary singing, dancing, laughing, hugging one another. So sweet. And so much sweeter, am I right, after having lived through what we have? I can’t help in moments like these to return to 2020. Spring of 2020. When this sanctuary was empty. And the world felt tilted. I can’t help these days, as we continue to return to one another, to take a beat and lift up some praise. I know that we are not healed from this, and many of us are still not okay, AND let us lift up some praise, nonetheless. Right?

I want to return for a moment to spring of 2020. And what got me through. I’m so grateful for the recent pandemic storytelling gatherings that we had where some of you shared with me what got you through. And I’ve heard over the years so many different stories about how folks survived this time. If I could distill them down: art and music was one way people survived; staying connected to people in some way–the creative ways people stayed connected got us through; and time spent in Nature. These are what I hear about most as the life-savers. So often Nature was the common denominator across these life-savers. Expressed in art, sung in music, enjoyed with people, or the place we went to find peace alone. Nature.

A delight. In April of 2020. Just about three-ish weeks in. A public health announcement out of Iceland began sweeping the media. I’m not sure that Icelandic press does this much–go viral. But this did. On April 10^th, 2020 the Icelandic Forestry Service launched a nationwide public health announcement with this headline: Forest Service Recommends Hugging Trees While You Can’t Hug Others. But this wasn’t a joke. Or some fluff piece. It was a public health announcement. Forestry rangers across Iceland were given the tasks of clearing snow-covered paths to ensure that people could get to the trees. A forest ranger was quoted as saying: “When you hug [a tree], you feel it first in your toes and then up your legs and into your chest and then up into your head… close your eyes while you’re hugging a tree,” he says. “I lean my cheek up against the trunk and feel the warmth and the currents flowing from the tree into me. You can really feel it.” And another ranger offers the prescription: “People should take their time to reap the full benefits of their tree-hugging…Five minutes is really good…you can also do it many times a day – that wouldn’t hurt. But once a day will definitely do the trick…”

By April 17^th–in a mere 7 days after the announcement went out–this was picked up by every major media outlet around the world. Like, the big ones. BBC big ones. Not counting the endless shares and retweets on social media, which is how it came to me. Through Facebook.

And I remember thinking, when I read it, Dang. Maybe, when you get down to it, the root of the root of this thing called life, all the questions and mysteries and needs and hopes, religion and humanity’s great purpose–so many arguments and divisions and opinions about this: maybe it all comes down to…this. That when all feels hopeless, hugs are the most important things. And when human hugs aren’t available, wrapping your arms around a tree trunk, pressing your cheek up against it, closing your eyes, and feeling the warmth and the currents flow into your body…maybe to quote the hokey-pokey song: that’s what it’s all about.

That’s what it’s all about.

Have any of you ever done this? Hugged a tree? Shall we make it our homework for the week? Five minutes a day will do the trick they say! How terribly cliché of me. Your UU minister is trying to convert you into being tree-huggers.

But in all seriousness, that moniker ‘tree-hugger’ which has been reduced to jokes and caricatures and stereotypes–some of you might think that it came to be in the 60’s and 70’s, out of hippie culture. But it actually comes from India in the early 1700’s, where 350 or so men and women belonging to the Bishnois branch of Hinduism died while attempting to protect the trees in their village. They literally clung to the trees that foresters cut down to build a palace with. And afterwards were referred to, and became jokingly known as, “the tree-huggers.”

Important to note here is that one of the most fundamental and guiding principles of Hindu theology is that there is no separation between the Divine and the world of Nature. Because of this, Hindus revere rivers, mountains, animals, trees…as sacred. And treat them as such. They are willing to sacrifice their lives for them. So, they weren’t just clinging to trees, they were clinging to…God. God-huggers?

I can’t help but think about the great Naturalist John Muir, who left his strict Scottish Presbyterian home in the Midwest and practically walked to California, arriving at the Yosemite Valley in 1830 where he said, “this glorious valley might well be called a church, for every lover of the great Creator who comes within the broad overwhelming influences of the place fails not to worship as they never did before…all the world turns into religion…the mountains altars…the pine trees preach… And so I might go on, writing words, words, words; but to what purpose? Go see God and love them, and through God as a window look into Nature’s heart.”

You know, our UU faith has been holding a really important question these past many many years: JUST WHAT IS AT THE CENTER OF OUR FAITH? Is there a unity to be found amid our theological diversity? And so many of our best and wisest minds these past few decades are warning us that if we don’t get clear about what this is, we risk fizzling out as a faith.

And, and. There is a theological unity to be found among us.

In the book Justice on Earth–it was our faith’s congregational read in 2018­–Rev. Sheri Prud’Homme, who is a celebrated scholar of Transcendalist Theology and Philosophy writes about our UU faith as being united by ‘ecotheology,’ which she defines as belief in “the radical interdependence of all existence” (that’s our 7^th principle!) and the accompanying mandate to view humankind as embedded in this complex web of relationships with other organisms. And she puts forward the idea of healing, liberative and unifying possibility coming from God and Earth–which is a word for all life, including us–“God” and “Earth,” as being interchangeable words. Ecotheology.

We can get behind this. For who among us has not marveled at the majesty, the inexplainable mutuality and power, of this regenerative, phenomenal, healing, hopeful Earth? Creatively unfolding and adapting for billions and billions of years. Cells replicating. Rivers forming and forging new tributaries. Tectonic plates creating mountains. Oceans rising and receding. Human hands building and inventing and sculpting; moving and migrating and painting and singing…

Oh yes, mountains are altars! Oh yes, the Pine trees preach! We UU’s can get behind this.

We’ve got a center. We do! I believe our work as Unitarian Universalists is to apply a clear and guiding language of faith and reverence to this shared marveling, and intentionally revere it all as sacred. Read it all as sacred text. And let it guide our actions and interactions; work for justice and healing. Imagine if we believed every living thing to be sacred? From trees to bees to waterways to food and animals to soil and sea to bodies…people. All Heavenly Bodies. Knew ourselves to be of the same heavenly-ness. Imagine.

If we truly believed this, which I think we do and can, every encounter, every purchase, everything we ate, all that we fought for and on behalf of would be motivated by a ferocious, faithful protection of the most Holy. Not unlike our tree-hugger siblings in India.

Collective crisis, that pandemic, really did put our minds in touch with the most important stuff–like what you believe, what you need and what is worth fighting for. Everything else fades–the filler and the fodder I like to call it. Go hug a tree. For five minutes. “You feel it first in your toes and then up your legs and into your chest and then up into your head… close your eyes while you’re hugging a tree…I lean my cheek up against the trunk and feel the warmth and the currents flowing from the tree into me. You can really feel it.”

This week, while the bounty of spring and life explodes around you, I hope you will take a bit of time to lift up some praise and to worship it. The Church of the Earth. And learn from it. Listen to it, lay in it, breathe it in, dig your fingers into it, hug it. Be transformed by it. Become fluent in it. Pray it, praise it. Move gently, with reverence, upon it, as you would upon the most sacred of grounds. For it is. And so are you.

Let’s return for a moment to our poet’s wisdom:

“The Moor,” by R.S. Thomas

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God was there made [themselves] felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said…

I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.

It was like church to me…

May it be so. It IS so. And amen.

Let’s sing. #207 Earth Was Given As a Garden