“When Our Hopes Collide with Our Nature”
by Reverend Charles Blustein Ortman
December 11, 2005
This morning’s sermon is based on a theme chosen by Jerry and Karen Fried. The Frieds won the right to select the topic by having the winning bid for it at last year’s service auction. In their normally gracious manner, the Frieds haven’t really pushed me to get going on this. But since they won the same prize at this year’s auction a couple of weeks ago, I figured I’d better get going on last year’s order before I start running behind on their choice for this year. I recently received an email note from Jerry giving me guidance for this morning’s effort.
Jerry wrote:
“So, here are a couple of related thoughts about the December 11th sermon. Your title ‘When our Hopes Collide with Our Nature’ is good. I'm looking for some UU musing on evolution: specifically the evolution of civilization that we hope will create a safer, more peaceful and harmonious world. Our faith in both the inherent worth and dignity of all people and the interconnected web seem to me in question.
“On what should we base our hope? The patterns of global warming, species extinction and depletion of resources are undeniable and cataclysmic. Through our overuse of resources, aren't we "hopers" really more a part of the problem then the solution? How should we judge the meaning of our own life in light of these developments?
“OK, that's a bit to chew on. Feel free to go anywhere you like with any of this. I'll be happy even if you end up WAY off this topic. If we're to trust in a positive loving life-force moving through us, we need to feel that we're part of the solution.”
I only wish I were up to the task of answering Jerry’s questions. I wish there was someone, anyone, who could. My fears in relation to his questions are threefold, while my hope is quite singular. My fears are: 1) that there may be no affirming answers; 2) that humanity may have chosen the wrong set of answers; 3) that time is running short. My hope is that Margaret Mead was right when she said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” I hope that she was right and I hope that there are those who want and are willing to make the changes that are needed. So, short of answering Jerry’s questions, I will simply try to address them as I best I can.
Unitarian Universalist musings on evolution, specifically the evolution of civilization… I believe that each of us lives our lives within the context of our own personal mythology. We see ourselves as rebels or pilgrims, as noble or ignoble, as Don Juans or doofusses, tarts or Madonnas, and we live out our lives within the context of our perceived script. It’s not so much that we consciously play out these roles; it’s that we’ve been convinced by those around us and by our experiences that we are those characters whose scripts, to some lesser or greater extent, we are living out.
I’m a middle born child. My script says that makes me a peace maker. It’s not that I to try to be a peace maker; it’s just that I tend to try to make peace. I feel at home in that role; it fulfills what my family and others expected of me. There were other things they expected too. It’s just that this was sort of a root expectation. The role of peacemaker is what I’ve come to expect of myself.
The experiences that I’ve had at doing it have reinforced that. I suppose you could say that I took it to extremes by becoming a Conscientious Objector and an even more radical extreme by becoming a minister… of all things. Yet each of these steps has been a further affirmation of who I am in this myth that I have accepted as my life story. We all live out our individual stories, the narratives in which we find and make meaning along the way. Sometimes our myths help us to live productive lives and sometimes they encourage debilitated ones.
Together, as a culture, we live out our cultural myths in much the same way. As transformation and communication shrink our planet, they enlarge the development of a world culture with its world culture myth. Daniel Quinn, in his book, Ishmael, talks about the “Mother Culture” and its myth. If you haven’t read, Ishmael, I recommend it highly as one of the best paradigm altering experiences to come along in at least the last quarter of a century.
In it there is a Socratic teacher/student relationship between the two main characters. The dialog between them encourages readers to dispel their own doubts and delusions in order to see more clearly the global myth that we share and are fed by the Mother Culture. By the way Ishmael, the teacher, happens to be a gorilla, which – while it may seem a bit incredible – provides the story and its message an extra-human dimension. By stepping out of our human perspective, we are invited to see ourselves within a much larger context.
Ishmael’s point to his student is that the myth by which humanity lives is that through all of existence, from the instant of the first nano-second of time, through all the billions of years since, the goal of evolution has been the production of humankind. We are it. We are the reason being came into being.
The world wasn’t created for the plants and animals with which we share it. According to the myth they were created for us. And while on some level we may question the reality portrayed by this myth, we tend not to question it deeply enough to change the behaviors that the myth encourages us to enjoy.
Ishmael chastises his student: "You're really not thinking, I'm afraid. You've recited a story you've heard a thousand times, and now you're listening to Mother Culture as she murmurs in your ear: 'There, there, my child, there's nothing to think about, nothing to worry about, don't get excited…this is no myth, nothing I tell you is a myth, so there's nothing to think about, nothing to worry about, just listen to my voice and go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep. . . .'"
But finally, the student does begin to see the truth of Ishmael’s assessment – that humanity, including himself – does believe in the myth of itself as being the ultimate and final product of evolution and creation.
There are other compelling but not necessarily competing myths that are a part of the Mother Culture. Christianity, with its roots in Judaism, was a major factor in the development of the Western worldview.... A basic Christian belief was that God gave humans dominion over creation, with the freedom to use the environment as we saw fit. Another important Judeo-Christian belief predicted that through Armageddon and the Rapture, God would bring a cataclysmic end to the Earth sometime in the future. One interpretation of this belief is that the earth is only a temporary way station on the soul's journey to the afterlife. “Because these beliefs tended to devalue the natural world, wrote Donald G. Kaufman and Cecilia M. Franz in Biosphere 2000: Protecting Our Global Environment, “they fostered attitudes and behaviors that had a [very] negative effect on the environment.”
If any of you are early risers, you may have heard on the BBC this last week, reports coming out of the environmental conference being held up in Montreal. One of the reports, issued by the same group of scientists who first reported on the phenomenon of global warming, indicated that we have not yet reached the point of no return on CO2 emissions. But they warned that we have narrowed the window of possible response time down to ten years. In ten years time, they claim, we will have warmed the planet to such an extent that we will have put in irreversible motion the processes by which we will have made of planet earth an environment no longer capable of sustaining human life and much of the plant and animal life that we know.
Though Mother Culture tells us otherwise, on some level we know that the universe can learn to get along without us. I daresay we cannot get along without it.
“Where is the outrage?” scientists and others are demanding. “How can humankind take this information in stride, while drinking our lattes and speaking knowingly of it with each other over the top of the page of our New York Times?” Where is the outrage? Mother Culture has soothed us into believing that our dominion over the earth as opposed to our partnership in it – is the natural order of things. It has assured us that if we do something (whatever it might be) if we do it and enjoy it, then it must be a natural part of evolution, our birthright.
What keeps us from experiencing the outrage that might spur us on towards saving this planet for future generations is our arrogance. It is our arrogance in believing that this incredible creation is here merely for our pleasure and that we have no real responsibility for seeing it as a legacy – not one left for our consumption – but for our responsible use, on loan from the generations yet to come.
“Through our overuse of resources, aren’t we ‘hopers’ really more a part of the problem?” Jerry asked in his email note. If all we are is ‘hopers’, then we are much more a part of the problem than the solution. Hoping is not enough. We live in a dark age, my friends, and it’s growing darker. Soon it may grow into total darkness, if all we have to offer is hope. Our hope must give way to determination and action.
“On what should we base our hope?” Jerry asked. Our planet has abided us and our myths of entitlement nearly as long as it possibly can. We need hope, it’s true. But part of that truth is that we must become the cause of our own hope, we ourselves. Through our vigilance and awareness, our commitment and our actions, we must become the reason for our hope.
A question that Jerry didn’t ask but might have is – what is the role of evil in a culture that unnecessarily depletes its resources, bankrupting the planet? Just as I think it’s foolhardy to think that some kind of God will pull us out of this one at the 11th hour, it’s equally and dangerously idiotic to think that there’s a devil in the works who is deceiving us into believing the myth of the Mother Culture. Evil exists, but it is of our making.
To be human is to know pain and separation. To be evil is to promote pain and separation, through our actions or our inactions, through our intentions or our assumed ignorance. Evil is to hold ourselves aloft, taking for ourselves that which we own in common – with each other and with the future. Evil is a human concoction that is born of arrogance and fraught with complacency. If we are going to engage in the evolution of civilization instead of our de-civilization, we will need to forgo our arrogance and we will need to stir ourselves and each other from our complacency to action. And the clock is ticking.
I don’t begin to think that Unitarian Universalism holds all the answers to the questions we are asking. In a few minutes we’ll sing our closing hymn, “Life is the Greatest Gift of All.” You may wonder why we always sing words that I adapted to that song several years ago. It’s because the words that are printed in our hymnal for Hymn #331 are so incredibly arrogant that it used to make me quite sick to sing them to the beautiful melody of Brother James’ Air. The third verse is especially the height of the kind of arrogance that I’ve been talking about this morning. “We are of life, its shining gift, the measure of all things…”
Rubbish! Until we learn that we are merely one of the players in a system that requires great diversity for its health and well-being, we will continue to abuse and deplete our partners in this enterprise, on whom our own well being is dependent. That’s where I think our UU principles are right on target. Our 7th principle says it most clearly, “We affirm and promote the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.” There’s no arrogance there, only the intention to take responsibility for the impact that we have in all of our relationships.
Jerry asked about the first principle, too. “We affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” I can’t help but think that what this says is not only right but that it’s also important. We need to be focused on our human relationships and in affirming and promoting every human being. But perhaps Jerry’s point is, and I would have to agree, that the statement should go even further to say that we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every living thing. And that’s a responsibility that we don’t get around to articulating until that seventh principle.
Even when we find our religion to be limited though, we are called by it to rise to whatever challenge may have called us… to find and promote the unity of all things within that challenge.
“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space,” said Albert Einstein.” “He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole [of] nature in its beauty.”
From where I’m sitting, Unitarian Universalism is a religious path that provides the greatest spiritual support for seeing the unity in all things. This is a church that stands for unity. And we will have found the answers to the questions raised by Jerry Fried when we no longer simply stand for unity, but when our entire lives are dedicated to the promotion of it.
On the Christian calendar, we are in the season of Advent. Advent is a time of expectancy, a waiting for the birth of hope. I said before that my greatest hope is that Margaret Mead was right. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” I pray that she is right and that we are willing to recognize how much we are needed to be agents of the change that is so sorely needed.
Jerry ended his email to me with a closing paragraph that I’ll use to close with here. Nothing could state my hope more clearly. Nothing could illustrate my belief in the interdependent web so completely.
Jerry wrote, “One last thought, from Rebecca Solnit's book, ‘Hope in the Dark,’ an inspiring book written to help those who want to help but feel despair over the way the world seems like it's headed:”
"I once read an anecdote by someone in, “Women Strike for Peace,” the first great antinuclear movement in the United States in 1963, the one that did contribute to a major victory: the end of aboveground nuclear testing with its radioactive fallout that was showing up in mother's milk and baby teeth. She told of how foolish and futile she felt standing in the rain one morning protesting [in front of] the Kennedy White House. Years later she heard Dr. Benjamin Spock – one of the most high-profile activists on the issue then – say that the turning point for him was seeing a small group of women standing in the rain, protesting at the White House. If they were so passionately committed, he thought, he should give the issue more consideration himself."
We are indeed a part of a most amazing web of being, one that sings and works with incredible harmony. It is up to each of us to take up our rightful, responsible place with in it. May we too come to be catalysts for the changes that are waiting. May we too become creators of a new myth, a new life story, that will be sustaining for us, and more, sustaining for the generations to come.
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