Rev. Virginia Jarocha-Ernst

CENTERING THOUGHT       If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives.... But close up a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern.             ~ Ursula K. LeGuin

CALL TO WORSHIP                                                                                   

“Prayer” by Lisa Colt 

May we reveal our abundance without shame.

May we peel back our sleeping wintery layers

Like snakeskins, like the silk chrysalis,

Like clothing cast off during love.(play)

May we unravel with abandon like lovers knots

Before knitting ourselves back to the heart.

May we settle into our own rhythms as tides do-

Within the borders of the moon’s calling.

May the music of our souls

Be accomplished by grand gestures

And the persistent clapping of hummingbird’s wings.

May the milky fingers of the moon

Reach down nightly to cherish and unveil us.

May we turn our bodies generously in its light

Like tranquil fish glinting underwater,

Like precious stones.

When we open our mouths to sing

May the seasons pause in their long journey

To listen and applaud.

PRAYER AND MEDITATION

“Scientists find universe awash in tiny diamonds”  by Pat Mayne Ellis

But haven't we always known?
The shimmer of trees, the shaking of flames
every cloud lined with something
clean water sings
right to the belly
scouring us with its purity
it too is awash with diamonds

"so small that trillions could rest
on the head of a pin"

It is not unwise then to say
that the air is hung close with diamonds
that we breathe diamond
our lungs hoarding, exchanging
our blood sowing them rich and thick
along every course it takes
Does this explain
why some of us are so hard
why some of us shine
why we are all precious

that we are awash in creation
spumed with diamonds
shot through with beauty
that survived the death of stars

By Pat Mayne Ellis, from "Cries of the Sprit," Beacon Press, Boston, © 1991

SERMON                                           Rocks Speak                            Rev. Virginia Jarocha-Ernst

There is nothing like a cruel April day to bring out the yearning for closeness to earth, air, fire and water. The cocoon of winter has yet to shred. If I don’t get out for a walk or a long bike ride over the thin crust of this earth, I will surely die. If sun and warmed rock do not make a sandwich of me, I will be less than nothing. What has been separated for so long (me and the earth) just has to be rejoined.

The poet Thomas Wolfe wrote of "April,"

"...under the pavements trembling like a pulse, under the buildings
trembling like a cry, under the waste of time, under the hoof of the beast
about the broken bones of cities, there will be something growing like a
flower--Something bursting from the earth again, forever deathless,
faithful, coming into life again, Like April."

This month, our theme for spiritual growth is stewardship. Last week we heard about the ways to deepen our activism to prevent further climate change and preserve our environment. This week I want to peel back another layer and look at why we care so much about this earth, this bedrock we live upon, the only home we know. This desire for a spiritual union and understanding of the very heart of the planet is a common thread in many religious traditions, including Christian, Native American, and Native African.

The chant we heard earlier is a blend of these traditions. This chant from the Yoruba Tribe, called “Ise Oluwa,” means “That which the creator has made can never be destroyed” or “That which has been created can never be destroyed.” It is a plea, a reminder and a call to remember what holds us together beyond death and before the stars. This rekindling of a sense of connection is at the heart of spiritual practice. Whether in prayer, meditation, silence or activism, when we know we are connected, we act with careful attention on behalf of ourselves as well as others. When we each enjoy a sense of meaning and commitment to something larger than ourselves, we have a better chance of keeping our home safe for another generation. So today is for examining and feeling that spiritual connection to the earth and to the universe, a connection that I hope ultimately advances our activism and good works.

Whether you come at this from a theist, non-theist, spiritual, or scientific perspective, (or all of the above) the natural world – the created world – is whole unto itself. And we are just a part of that vast whole. Our individual lives, our actions and influence, do matter, but not to the exclusion of everything else. We each are no more in control of nature than anyone else, but we do have an effect on the web of creation. One internal-combustion-engine-propelled car may not change the weather systems, but thousands will and have. One fracking well drilling for shale oil may be under control and reasonably safe, but a network of pipelines coursing through miles and across countries, polluting water tables in order to extract that oil will poison far more than we can ever manage. We forget or ignore this fact and this connection at great peril. Someday humanity may find this earth no longer habitable, and our great grandchildren’s lives may be a much greater struggle than we would ever wish for them. Should we feel grief and fear on their behalf ? It would seem only wise! Death and destruction are part of the laws of the universe. And humans must grieve when they happen. That too is a law of nature.

Just as … That which has been created can never be destroyed.

So there is, in our stewardship practice, this unexpressed grief that needs to be acknowledged and worked through. There is in this creation that which is temporary and that which is more permanent. The force of life, the laws of nature and the universe have immutable and sustainable powers, yet everything else is really just temporary. Our lives are mercilessly short. We know we live just a few years, blips of time in the grand scheme of things. Fruit flies and goldfish have shorter lives than humans. But even seemingly ageless rocks and stars have beginnings and endings, as incomprehensible as that might be to us humans. But the grief at what we barely found before it is lost, along with what we have destroyed in the name of progress will surely break your heart. The tears that are shed might make us able to hear the grief of the earth itself, if we listen.

My Mother by Susan Griffin

At the center of the earth there is a mother.

If any of us who are her children choose to die

She feels a grief like a wound deeper

Than any of us can imagine.

She puts her hands to her face

Like this: her palms open.

Put them there like she does.

Her fingers press into her eyes.

Do that, too.

She tries to howl.

Some of us have decided

This other cannot hear all of us

In our desperate wishes.

Here, in this time,

Our hearts have been cut into small chambers

Like ration cards

And we can no longer imagine every

Morsel nor each tiny

Thought at once,

as she still can.

This is normal,

She tries to tell us,

But we don’t listen.

Sometimes someone has a faint memory

Of all this, and

She suffers.

She is wrong to imagine

She suffers alone.

Do you think we are not all hearing and speaking

At the same time?

Our mother is somber.

She is thinking.

She puts her big ear against the sky

To comfort herself.

Do this. She calls to us.

Do this.

Beyond this loss and the grief is another law. This one found in any good science textbook:

The First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another.

Or in other words:

That which has been created can never be destroyed.

This is the only true comfort for us human beings, naturally focused on our individual lives and unique stories. Will ‘Virginia’ never be destroyed?  No, she is temporary. Individual personalities do cease to exist, but our energy, our essence, just changes form. This is as true for rocks and minerals, as it is for plant, animal and human life.

This law of nature and energy connects us with everything there is, including rocks. I am a student of rock. All kinds: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary. Pebbles and boulders, polished and rough, slabs and blocks, beach sand to mountians.  Rock is dependable, strong – ‘like a rock’!  Rock is the foundation, the building that will not crumble. When wolves huff and puff at our door, a house built of rock will stand strong. Under pressure, rock can become even more precious, like diamond. How could we fragile creatures of flesh and bone be anything like rocks? What is the nature of our kinship?

That which has been created can never be destroyed.

As a child, I used to think that rocks were alive, but that their life span was much, much longer than ours, their heartbeats and speech so slow as to be indiscernible by human senses. This is no cartoon rock with a face painted on, speaking in a low gravelly voice. This rock life would be much, much slower than that. It is a mystery if rocks have life like this within them, since we’d be incapable of detecting it. Many of you might say that is not a mystery at all. You would say it is just a childish fantasy. But imagine, for just a moment, if it were not. 

In our struggle to live sustainably and to be good stewards of this earth, we feel so alone. Humanity carries a burden that plants, animals and rocks do not seem to know. If rocks did live, if they could speak, perhaps they would be powerful partners. Their words would carry the authority of the earth itself. And how would they respond to drilling and burning their oil? What would they say when water is poisoned or land and trees and mountains destroyed for our small pleasures?

I expect it would be a frightening sound. Crying out…

That which has been created can never be destroyed.

Jesus, on Palm Sunday, was in the midst of a parade of mockery and praise. His followers made an uproar in praising him. The Pharisees asked Jesus to keep them in line. But He said “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Some stories just have to be told. There is a truth far deeper than any mere human story or words strung together on a Sunday morning. The stones will cry out!  The earth, the minerals and rocks and fire at the heart of it all will cry out loud. 

You see, we are not alone, although at times it can feel that way. The connections to the cries at the heart of the earth will be with us as we too cry out. As we work and write letters and advocate in the halls of justice, and invest in what is good for the earth, we all stand on solid rock. We keep it company as it keeps us strong. If we listen deeply, we may be able to translate, to speak the words the rock needs to be heard. While creation is never ending, what we are and what we have is precious, fleeting and holy. God could be speaking in rock, or tree, or bird, or bear, or sunlight. I know this from childhood through to today. Life and creation are everywhere, and we are here to listen to its cry, calling us out.

This Poem is by Barbara Jordan:

A reptilian sheen in the sky,

A predatory darkness

Wincing with stars. In this cup of creation

The wind descends

And lifts the trees, lifts my heart

And the tiny hairs between my shoulders

In a blowing force. I will give my life

For this love that boomerangs light-years;

I will walk to the edge and memorize the sky.

What I fear is the wilderness:

Not the earth’s,

But the spirit’s wilderness

Where there are abandonments beyond description.

I remember the beautiful dilemma

On the mountain, the compulsion to fly

Over the valley,

The exigency that held me

And left me subdued. What shall we believe beyond the natural law?

The earth is bread we take and eat.

The love and feeding of this earth is totally reciprocal. In fact, the earth gives far more to us than we can ever give back. We are enriched by the life that surrounds us and supports us. We are freely nourished by this earth without any more expectation than that our bodies will someday return to it, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. All we are asked while we live is to leave this home as we found it so that those who follow will be nourished as well.

This is the cry we must listen to, to be able to know when we have taken enough, our fair share and no more, to be able to live as if we are short timers in a very long lived place, welcome guests who work to keep that fair hospitality for the generations to come. 

Our Unitarian Universalism supports this assertion in our 7^th Principle – Respect for the interdependent web of which we are a part. Unitarian Universalist minister and Professor David Bumbaugh writes,

The heart of faith in the twenty-first century, I am convinced, is suggested by the seventh Principle…Hidden in this apparently uncomplicated, uncontroversial, innocuous statement is a radical theological position. The seventh Principle calls us to reverence before the world, not some future world, but this miraculous world of our everyday experience. It challenges us to understand the world as reflexive and relational rather than hierarchical…It calls us to trust the process, the creative, evolving, renewing, redeeming process which brings us into being, which sustains us in being, and which transforms our being.  It offers a vision of the world in which the holy, the sacred is incarnated in every moment, in every aspect of being, a world in which God is always fully present and in which God is always fully at risk.  

                                                            UU World, Spring 2007

How we live, what actions we take in caring for this home, have deep religious and spiritual significance. So act we must. We actually can’t help but act. Take care of your home, your house, your congregation (clean-up party this afternoon!). Take care of your community, your country, your continent and all seven of them. Take care of the water that flows throughout and the rocks that stay strong. Forged in fire, infused with water and blessed by air and light, we too are strong enough.

Blessings on our home that sustains and supports all life as we know. What has been created shall not be destroyed. May we care because we listen every day. Amen.

CLOSING WORDS

Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh was once asked by a student, “There are so many urgent problems, what should I do?” He replied, “Take one thing and do it very deeply and carefully, and you will be doing everything at the same time.”

May we do what we can to be nothing less than a blessing on this earth. May it be so. Amen.