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By the Reverend Fred Small*
Responsive Reading STLT # 442 We Bid You Welcome
Who come proud and joyous. Who come to learn. Who find in this people family.
Prayer: Earth Day Prayer: In the Spirit of Indigenous Traditions by Vern Barnet ( followed by a moment of silent meditation)
Infinite Spirit, sometimes called Grandfather, Grandmother, Father Sky, Earth Mother, Creator:
Hear and empower our mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle.
Joys and Concerns: : (We throw a small stone into this bowl filled with water, to symbolize our thoughts, which move in circular rings eternally, like concentric waves.)
We are saving Noah ’s cargo (3x)
Children of the Earth
Every creature has its purpose . . .(3x)
Children of the Earth
Wolves and whales and owls and otters . . .(3x)
Children of the Earth
Send the dove to find safe harbor . . .(3x)
Children of the Earth
In the rainbow see the promise . . .(3x)
Children of the Earth
Sermon:
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality," said Martin Luther King, Jr., "tied in a single garment of destiny."
Dr. King understood the essence of ecology: we belong to each other. Today, people of faith around the world are coming to understand that threats to the environment are threats to the principles of justice and compassion at the core of every religion.
Automobile fuel economy is an environmental issue. But when our dependence on cheap gasoline drives a tanker aground and the spreading slick deprives an Inuit family of seal meat, that's an issue of justice and compassion.
Recycling is an environmental issue. But when a Chicago woman who's never smoked cigarettes gets lung cancer from breathing fumes from an incinerator burning recyclable trash, that's an issue of justice and compassion.
Deforestation is an environmental issue. But when tree root systems no longer hold soil in place and a mud slide sweeps away a peasant village, that's an issue of justice and compassion.
Energy conservation is an environmental issue. But when our tax dollars subsidize prison construction instead of green job training that could keep at-risk teens out of prison, that's an issue of justice and compassion.
Climate change is an environmental issue. But when people on the island nation of Tuvalu must abandon their homeland before it's swallowed by the sea, that's an issue of justice and compassion.
As we awake to the dangers of global warming, we realize that our profligate use of fossil fuels offends our most fundamental religious precepts.
Every religious tradition teaches us to hold sacred the wonders of creation, yet wantonly we desecrate them.
Every religious tradition cautions us to temper our cravings for sensation and material things, yet we pursue them addictively, vainly hoping to fill our spiritual emptiness.
Every religious tradition forbids theft, yet global warming steals from our children and our children's children. Its victims are and will be disproportionately poor and of color—those least able to contend with or to flee the storms, droughts, famines, and rising sea levels to come.
People of faith take the long view. We know that a community survives and thrives not merely in space but also through time, extending backward through memory and tradition and forward through vision and legacy.
According to the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy, "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." Today's political leaders are hard-pressed to consider the impact of their decisions beyond the next election. Like the prophets of old, people of faith must call our leaders to higher values—from our pulpits and pews, in the public square, and at the ballot box.
Since the days of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Unitarian Universalism (UUism) has been a cradle of environmental awareness and activism. Our seventh principle, "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part," articulates both a timeless spiritual truth and an urgent call to action.
Since 2002, 59 Unitarian Universalist congregations have been accredited as Green Sanctuaries in recognition of their achievements in ecology-based worship and religious education, environmental justice, and sustainable living. In 2006, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) meeting in General Assembly approved a compelling Statement of Conscience on global warming, which UUA President Rev. William G. Sinkford calls "one of the greatest moral and spiritual crises facing Earth's people today."
To heal the wounds of our planet and its peoples, to restore right relations among all God's creatures, to apportion the earth's abundance with equity and generosity—these challenges will demand all our courage, creativity, devotion, and sacrifice.
Will people of faith heed the call? The answer may determine the fate of the biosphere and countless imperiled species—including the miraculous evolutionary experiment called humanity.
* Rev. Fred Small is minister of First Parish Cambridge Massachusetts, located in Harvard Square. "An old church for a new world". He is co-chair of Religious Witness for the Earth, a national interfaith environmental network. In March 2007, Fred was one of the lead organizers of the Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue from Northampton to Boston, Massachusetts. In July 2007, Grist Magazine named Fred one of 15 Green Religious Leaders worldwide.
Hymn::
We bid you welcome, who come with weary spirit seeking rest.
Who come with troubles that are too much with you who come hurt and afraid
We bid you welcome, who come with hope in your heart.
Who come with anticipation in your step,
We bid you welcome, who are seekers of a new faith.
Who come to probe and explore
We bid you welcome, who enter this hall as a homecoming,
Who have found here room for you spirit.
Whoever you are, whatever you are,
Wherever you are on your journey,
We bid you welcome.
In the quietness of this place and in the Spirit of this Community in which we share and find strength let us pray.
We gather to praise your creation,
to honor the swimmers and crawlers,
We pray to know more deeply that we are in the Garden where every plant, animal and speck of dust is a living prayer.
the four-leggeds and the winged ones;
we give thanks for the beauty and glory of creation
and open our hearts to new ways to understand our place in the universe
—not the center or focus, but a humble and balanced place,
where every step we take becomes a prayer, where every word we say makes harmony with the vast, vibrating cosmos,
and where we know we are singing the song of life.
Without our brothers and sisters of the plant,animal and mineral kingdoms, the human family would end.
We pray for humility—
So we want to bless them, as they bless us.
not to humble ourselves before presidents or priests, but before the ants and trees—
Great Spirit, let us remember it is not how we talk but how we walk.
for if we cannot be in true relation to the ant,we shall be outcasts of the garden.
Let us cast the pollution from our eyes so we can see the glory and live with thanksgiving.
When we say we love animals, let us protect them.
When we say we that we love the plant people,let us honor them by living lightly on the earth.
When we say we love the minerals,let us use them only in necessity,and remember their rightful places.
Oil belongs in the ground,not in the air through our wasteful machines.
Wondrous trees, breathing life into the atmosphere: your gifts of fire and shelter, fruit,and sailing are precious to us.And in many ways you offer us leaves of knowledge.
May the vision of mutual interrelatedness, cosmic interdependence,the seamless process of generations,
not end in cough-filled skies blotting the sun,
but rather may clear air, healthy forests,wholesome water, expansive prairie, and pungent earth nourish paths for all creatures
through mountain and valley, and the salt sea,and through a protective atmosphere,as we rejoice in the inhabitants.
We invite you to share your joys and concerns since our last meeting
Story for All Ages: (the children go to
Religious Education at the end of the story and all of us
will sing Noah's Cargo.
Hymn
Noah's Cargo Music:
Jacob ’s Ladder (traditional) Words: Fred Small, Copyright 2001 Pine Barrens Music (BMI)
There are infinite solutions to the problem, we invite you to create your own. Here are some ways to Reduce our Ecological Footprint
Finally
There are infinite solutions to problems
Create Your Own
Everything Possible
We have cleared off the table, the leftovers saved,
Washed the dishes and put them away
CHORUS:
I have told you a story and tucked you in tight
At the end of your knockabout day
As the moon sets its sails to carry you to sleep
Over the midnight sea
I will sing you a song no one sang to me
May it keep you good company.
You can be anybody you want to be,
CHORUS
You can love whomever you will
You can travel any country where your heart leads
And know I will love you still
You can live by yourself, you can gather friends around,
You can choose one special one
And the only measure of your words and your deeds
Will be the love you leave behind when you're done.
There are girls who grow up strong and bold
There are boys quiet and kind
Some race on ahead, some follow behind
Some go in their own way and time
Some women love women, some men love men
Some raise children, some never do
You can dream all the day never reaching the end
Of everything possible for you.
Don't be rattled by names, by taunts, by games
But seek out spirits true
If you give your friends the best part of yourself
They will give the same back to you.
