This is the third week of our focus month, Sustaining the Spirit/Sustaining the Web. This morning we will continue our attempt to seek beauty, the beauty of our earth, and to seek ways of reconnecting the beauty of the world around us with that which we might find in our own minds, hearts and spirits. So that we might be sustained in spirit; so that we might do our part to affirm and promote the interdependent web of creation, especially that part we know best, our earth.

We seek beauty both within and without. That’s why we’re here in religious community. And in order to find beauty we need to listen carefully for her guidance, both from our inner voices, voices that yearn for wholeness, and from the voices of nature, where we might also hear those same yearnings for wholeness. And we especially need to listen at the place where those voices, those inner and outer voices, converge.

A quick review of the last couple of weeks:

Last week, in what I’ve been told by many, was an excellent lay led service, you explored the possibility of what it might mean to convert our church to a Green Sanctuary, one that is environmentally friendly and responsible. I had a chance to read over the text of that message, and I think it’s a compelling the idea with great merit. And I want to come back to that idea in a few minutes.

Two weeks ago, as we first began to explore our theme of sustainability, I attempted to link the physical peril of our planet with the spiritual depletion of our postmodern souls. I tried to reconstruct some of the damaged bridges that bond spirit to substance, and that connect each of us — intimately and ultimately — with all that is. We looked at how traditional Western religion has done much to impair the relationship between humankind and nature. We especially looked at the mistaken and dangerous religious notion of individual salvation.

In attempt to reconstruct bridges to our future, I tried to show how true religion and spiritual integrity cannot divide reality into stratified partitions, but must instead show the way to oneness and to interdependence. I tried to establish that sustainability, both of the spirit and of the web, is an inescapable, deeply rooted, religious issue that touches and impacts upon each of us. As such, there are no areas of our lives that are not affected by this issue. There is no place on our planet that is safe from our denial of it.

To think that we are above the fray is arrogant self-denial; it’s a denial of the world around us. We may not have created the mess our world is in, but we do continue to recreate that mess everyday in which we fail to realize that our inability to sustain the world is a "failure to thrive."

Following the worship service two weeks ago I received three pieces of feedback that will provide much of the direction I’d like to follow as we continue our journey this morning. The first was an email that came from a church member who said,

I, too, am a believer! I, too, am an optimist! I believe in humankind’s ability and will to survive most any problem. I believe with all my heart that humanity will rise to meet the challenges created by a culture that’s now bent on unsustainable development. I also believe though that, if my faith in humankind’s adaptability is to prove warranted, some very serious choices need to be made, and now. If my faith in humankind’s adaptability is to prove warranted, some very difficult transitions need to begin, and soon.

If we want to put an end to hope for any future for our planet, we need only continue the charade that we are not bound–body and soul–to one another and to this beautiful world. If our exploration into sustainability yields any benefit at all, let it be optimism. Let it be hope! We cannot afford false hope, though. No one else is going to get us out of this mess.

Our hope lies in our willingness to commit to sustaining the spirit and the Web. Hope is cause for action not inaction. Hope is cause for determination not denial. In its most absolute sense, the future of life as we know it depends upon our hope and on our commitment to realize that hope.

The second piece of feedback, which I want to respond to, was overheard from someone walking out the back of the church after that service two weeks ago. "Okay," a woman said. "I get the seriousness of the situation; I get the connection between the spirit and the web. Now what? What am I supposed to do about it?"

That kind of response to a sermon often makes me feel that I’ve accomplished my goal. I don’t think we come here to adopt someone else’s answers, and then try to make them fit our own lives. We come more to be inspired, and to find the questions that might bring transformation into our lives.

The airwaves and printed media are filled with ideas about what we ought to do. Many of them are excellent ideas and are things we really ought to be doing. On some level though, I think this is part of the problem: there is just so much to do. If we are willing to step out of our denial, to accept that there is a major crisis, one demanding resolution and atonement, we are immediately faced with the enormity of the problem and the impossibility of doing all the things that need to be done. It is overwhelming, and its daunting enormity often scares us enough that we retreat back into a place of denial.

The threat is real. The enormity of the threat is monstrous. What can any of us do?

There’s a little prayer in our hymnal that says, "I’m only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

Have you ever been so severely struck by grief or by depression that you can’t even move? You can’t even get out of bed? You might spend your time there wishing that you could just somehow get your life back, or somehow you could feel some of the fullness you once knew. It’s a very great distance from ruination to satisfaction, though. Many, if not all of us, have made this journey, or someday will. And we know that it’s one made step-by-step.

It’s a journey guided by our determination and by our hope. Our hope is then strengthened as we begin to see our progress along the way. First there is determination; then there is a step; then there is progress; then we begin to have faith in our progress; now there is faith working with our hope. And finally, thank goodness, there is another step, and another, and another. And then one day we find that we’ve moved out from the shadows and we’re living in the light.

We’re not going to recreate a sustainable world in a day, or in a week, or even in a year. But if we are choosing, day by day, step-by-step, to do whatever we can, we will build confidence; we will create hope, and we will sustain our faith. We will, little by little, stop destroying our planet and start rebuilding it.

While I’m not here to tell you what you ought to be doing to bring this about, I am here to offer suggestions, maybe even hopeful suggestions, as to what we can do, especially as a congregation, to promote sustainability. Before I do though, there is the third comment I received two weeks ago that like to bring into this conversation. It was from a participant in the discussion forum that followed the worship service. "I can’t do this work on my own, and I won’t," the person said. "It doesn’t do any good for me to try to conserve resources on my own, unless my efforts are tied to substantial public efforts to make all of this work."

I agree and I disagree. If each of us is trying to do what we can to do our part, energy — psychic and spiritual energy — is being generated toward the effort to save our world. We know that if energy sources are not renewed, they will disappear. Individual efforts toward sustainability are essential if we are going to make a difference. And yet, individual efforts alone will never stem the tide of extinction. The culture of depletion is woven into the fabric of our institutions. The remedies for it will also need to be institutional.

Our congregation is capable of mounting a substantial communal effort to that end. I would like to challenge us to do just that. Perhaps such an effort could prove to be a springboard toward even larger public efforts. Perhaps it could provide the kind of information and the kind of support we need as individuals and families to be personally responsive and responsible.

Those of you who are here last week already heard about this challenge, though you may not have heard how it came about. Last week’s Lay Led Service, under the direction of David Lewis, Bill Workinger and the Music Committee, has been in the works since last spring. The music and the readings all come together. A speaker had been procured to share the story of sustainability through the process of Newark, New Jersey’s city renewal.

Then at 9:30 last Saturday night, twelve hours before the first service, there was a phone call. The speaker was sick; she wouldn’t be here. The plans for the service were up for grabs. Several more phone calls were made. Several more people were pulled into the quandary of recreating the service.

All the while, Carolyn Burr, who was also intimately involved in the process, remained calm and cast her net out into the Web — the World Wide Web, that is. It settled on, WWW.UUA.Org. That’s where Carolyn found the sermon on Green Sanctuary, written by UU minister, Fred Small that David and Bill read to the congregation last week.

Some might call it fate, or Providence, or divine intervention. Some might call it the Tao or synchronicity, but I think the sermon read from this pulpit last Sunday was just the right message for this congregation at this time. It can provide some excellent guidance as we ask where can we go, and what can we do as a congregation in response to our focus theme of sustainability. We need to do something. We need to take a step.

We can create a Green Sanctuary here. It can make a difference in our lives, in the life of this congregation, and in our community. Maybe, just maybe it can become part of a larger public effort that can succeed in sustaining our world.

I have adapted Fred Small’s proposal to the Unitarian Universalist Association in order to make it appropriate for our congregation. If one day soon the UUA does adopt a Green Sanctuary policy, we could be at the very front of that movement. This is something tangible that we can do and I think it is vital to our well being — physically and spiritually — that we make every effort to make it happen.

We can create a code of energy conservation and environmental practices. We can reduce our waste, reuse and recycle our resources. We can promote environmental justice, and environmentally sensitive religious education programs. We can renew our energy–our personal energy; we can renew our commitment, and our hope for this just and necessary cause by keeping it alive within the circle of our worship.

Our communications can be informative as well as ecologically sound. This endeavor is already underway. Through the efforts of Victor Lombardi, those of you for whom we have an email address will receive an additional copy of the March Gazette next month in your email. If we don’t have your email address, please leave it neatly on one of the sign-up sheets in the Narthex or in Fletcher Hall. Our hope is that by the time the April issue goes out, you will have the option to receive the Gazette solely by email if that’s how you want it delivered. That will be one step toward going green–a painless step at that.

Please read over the Green Sanctuary challenge that’s in your Order of Service today. Please, please take it seriously as an opportunity for our congregation to fulfill its mission to, "Be humble before the beauty and mystery of nature by actively preserving our environment." This is a part of our new mission statement and covenant that we will be voting on here in just a few minutes.

What can we do? We can act together to make a difference where difference is so desperately needed.

What can we do? We can do so much more to create a community dedicated to sustaining the spirit and to sustaining the Web.

Adrienne Rich wrote, "My heart is moved by all I love: so much has been destroyed. I have to cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world."

Let us be here to cast our lot with and for one another. Let us be here together to do our part to reconstitute the world.