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Our UU Principles read in reverse order ? beginning with number seven?
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations
and in society at large; A free and responsible search for truth and
meaning; Acceptance of one another and encouragement
to spiritual growth in our congregations; Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
The inherent worth and dignity of every person; And From Sweet Grass and Cottonwood Smoke
by Canadian UU Mary Scriver from a sermon titled Sustainable Culture ?
A culture is not monolithic. Scientists are concerned now by agribusiness growing monocrops
, thousands of acres based on the same germ plasm ? But at the same time I see in slick
international magazines ? articles on the importance of saving seeds in all their historical
variety. I see clearly photographs of sheds and back porches lined with shelves of old
mayonnaise and peanut butter jars full of seeds to be replanted, multiplied, shared
and sold across the country. Even the city folks are beginning to realize that ancient
blue Peruvian potatoes have a wonderful flavor. At the same time that some people measure
their families well being in terms of how many big technical energy consuming pieces
of electronically enhanced machinery they own, other people are taking pride in how
simply they are living and how deeply they are able to enjoy quiet skill-building.
What is the difference between people who are blind slaves to the media and those who
are able to judge and choose for themselves? What is the difference between those who read
about the threats to the world and despair ? and those ? who read about the same threats
and quietly begin to work for change?? Some of it is being intelligent, confident,
lucky in the contacts one has made or the education one has acquired. But even more
than that, the difference is in the capacity to dream, to form a vision, to believe in
something that doesn?t exist yet. It is the capacity to create culture ? a new way of
being in the world that is sustainable and sharable.
?I?ve been pouring my slops down your chimney!? The amazed recognition in the old man?s voice
makes this sentence my favorite line in the whole story -
?I?ve been pouring my slops down your chimney!? In life, as in the story,
it is rarely enough for us to hear from someone else that our comfort is leading to their
discomfort. No matter how many times they tell us,
we often have to see for ourselves the actual consequences of our choices and our
actions ? and when we do we might ask ourselves
why we?ve been pouring slops down one another?s chimneys in the first place?
The old couple in the story don?t set out to inconvenience anyone.
They?re simply minding their own business and taking care of their lives with the
minimum amount of effort and fuss. They are, in fact, completely unaware of their
neighbors. Now of course these are not neighbors-like
?us, neighbors immediately recognized as such ?
Rather the neighbors in the story are ?wee folk?
whose households and economies are invisible to old man even when he is told where to look.
In fact, without special assistance, the old man cannot see either the little man?s
village or the mess his slops have made!
In a similar way ? it has been common practice for our ?western? culture not to see the homes
or lifeways of the poor, of people of color, or first nation?s peoples or of the native
plant and animal ecologies for that matter
freeing us to blithely dump our slops over the wall into the ?weeds? ?
As a culture our focus has been on ourselves and our convenience and we have demonstrated
an amazing inability even
to see certain others ? why? Well, in the opening pages of his book Deep
Economy, Bill McKibbon writes, ? for most of human
history , the two birds More and Better roosted on the
same branch. You could toss one stone and hope to hit them
both More food, more shelter, more stuff, more
mobility these without a doubt made life better for
millions of people and since more is easier to quantify than ?Better?,
and since more initially leads to better ( as in better health and better standard
of living) governments and cultures started to focus on more.
And since ?more? is something that can be measured
by individuals and in the lives of individuals and households ?
that?s how its been done. Unfortunately, one of the side effects
of a focus on more is that more for some often means less for others.
So if the ?others? are invisible - well, that?s fewer folks with whom we have
to share ?. But, McKibbon tells us, Better no longer roosts
on the same branch as More. All over the world, it seems that at the point
where one has about 10 thousand dollars a year
to spend on one?s basic needs ? that?s right a mere ten thousand --
Better moves her nest to another tree ? It isn?t news that after basic needs are met
? food, clothing, housing, education, health
care ? happiness is far more closely correlated to
intangibles than it is to money or stuff? After basic needs are met,
our lives become appreciably better, not when we have more stuff,
but when we have deeper connections, stronger relationships, a more vibrant commons,
a cleaner environment, more culture, more meaning ?
It turns out, that our individualistic pursuit of ?More?, more money, more stuff, more convenience,
ends up consuming a lot of the time and energy that could lead to ?Better? and creates a
lot of slops and the need to find places to put them in
the process?. I know you have all heard of ?Peak Oil? ?
that time when our fossil fuel consumption will peak
and the oil reserves of our planet ? the fossilized sunlight of millions of years,
will be half depleted? well I am anxiously awaiting the moment of
?Peak Stuff? the time when our throw away material culture
begins to reverse itself ? the moment we cease to see those slops
as waste to be dumped over the wall and start to see them as resources to be composted
for the garden or fed to the chickens. I look forward to the time when we will stop
buying things to use and throw away and instead start investing our time, creativity
and energy in creating durable objects, healthier ecologies and stronger more resilient
relationships and communities. What we need is a perceptual shift ?
a shift in how we view the world ? which will in turn shift how we organize our
actions. When an artist wants to critique a composition
that has grown too familiar he or she will often
look at a piece of art in the mirror or turn it upside down.
Shifting our focus from a world where ?more? is the goal to a world where ?better?
is the goal ? is one way to shift the focus?
reading our UU principles from bottom to top is another ?
What happens when we turn our principles upside down?
On one level nothing changes. All the same principles are there.
But something is different when we affirm and promote ?Respect for the interdependent
web of all existence of which we are a part?
as the first thing on our list and leave celebrating the inherent worth and dignity
of every person ? with its implied parenthetical conclusion
(especially me? ) until the end. I?m intrigued by this reversal because
I think we get stuck in that first principle rather often.
In our voluntary associations we come and go according to whether we feel
our inherent worth and dignity - or our perspective and opinion is
accorded its full due. But friends, just as the life you are living
here and now is your best/only chance for spiritual practice
and self realization ? here in Santa Fe the UU congregation gathered
in this room is the closest community you have
in which to explore your UU values and practice living them.
This is it. And I suspect ? although I haven?t a smattering
of proof ? I suspect that if we start reading and then
living our principles beginning with the communal disciplines
and ending with the more personal ones we will find ourselves in the midst of a fulfilling
transformation ? I suspect that by focusing at least as much
on the intangibles that come with respecting the interdependent
web of existence of which we are a part as we do on the inherent worth and dignity
of me ? we will shift our emphasis from ?more? to
?better?. Not more money and more people and more programming
but better communication and deeper ritual and stronger connection and a greater
positive impact on the world beyond our walls. I suspect we will find ourselves focused
on satisfying our communally held needs for meaning and culture and relationship.
When we turn the principles upside down we are called back to the old slogan ?
think globally, act locally. We are reminded that before we assume
we get all the goodies, before we dump our slops,
we need to check to see who lives on the other side of the garden wall.
Human are relational beings ? like it or not we are always embedded in community.
This is good because that means that tending our community supports our well being in turn.
Creating stronger relationships and a vibrant commons ?
gives all of us and each of us a ?better? quality of life ?
tend the ?better? in the community (tend the ?commons? )
and we arrive at ?better? for each individual ?
Recall that our UU values were initially articulated in the midst of the enlightenment at the
beginning of the industrial revolution. Even the wealthiest of most of our UU forbears
were materially quite poor. To walk through Thoreau?s cottage or Emerson?s
home or the Alcott house when you visit New England
is to be reminded that although they were intellectually
and spiritually and relationally wealthy, our forbears were materially poor in comparison
to us. In that time, our Unitarian forbears took
their highly interconnected carefully choreographed community context
for granted and their emphasis on the worth and dignity
of the individual was an important enlightenment corrective
to both the privileging of some classes of human
being over others and the impulse to devalue all humankind as
cogs in an economic machine? What they took for granted in the interdependent
web of relationships they had with each other
and the places that they lived , we have nearly lost in our intense pursuit
of the individual good.
In our time we need a different corrective ?
I am persuaded that much of the harm we do to ourselves
and to others falls under the category of ?unintended side effects? ?
slops dumped over the wall. Our forbears never dreamed that honoring the
inherent worth and dignity of every person would result in
the hyper-individualism and disconnection of our
current culture. It never occurred to them that human agency
could create global warming or decimate local food sheds
or destroy the relational fabric of our communities. It never occurred to them that we would forfeit
the ?goods? that they took for granted in our pursuit
of more stuff, more choices and more convenience.
My hypothesis is that if we UU?s reverse the order of our principles,
we will shift our goals and our focus from ?more for me? to
?better for us? and both the intended results and
the unintended side effects will be healthier for all concerned.
What would it look like to live our UU values starting with the
interdependent web rather than with the individual? I think it might look like choosing to inconvenience
ourselves a little bit for the good of the larger community.
In my mother?s day sermon last spring I suggested that the willingness to be inconvenienced
might be one of the clearest indicators of familial love?
well, this morning I want to suggest that a willingness to be
inconvenienced in support of our values is a mark of
how central those values are in our lives. To live from respect for the interdependent
web looks like accepting the inconvenience of cutting
a door in the back of the house so you don?t dump your slops
down the neighbor?s chimney. It looks like taking the extra time to bike
or set up a carpool to get to work or worship. It looks taking on the extra work of growing
a garden and canning your produce or being part of
a csa or going to the farmers market.
It looks making a casserole or a salad and coming to the potluck instead of eating fast
food alone. It looks like turning off the tv and schlepping
out in the weather to sing in a choir or converse with friends.
It looks like walking in the woods or by the river and
accepting the inconvenience of picking up the trash and seeing eagles.
It looks like volunteers helping the elderly stay in their homes,
it looks like getting to know the neighbors and taking in
the mail when they are away. It looks like voting and marching and benefit
concerts. It looks like kids learning to slow down and
walk where older adults are present and adults
learning to listen through the inconvenient background
chatter of youth. Your inherent worth and dignity are still
important. You do not have to give up imported coffee
or chocolate, you do not have to silence your needs or
stifle your feelings or become a door mat for others to walk all over.
You do need to be willing to flex and to go out of your way
to act for the good of the group first - trusting that acting
for the good of your neighbor will benefit you by and by ?
As Bill McKibbon writes, you need to ?reorient your personal compass a little bit?
shed a certain amount of your hyper -individualism and replace it with a certain amount of neighborliness??
?Think of yourself as a member of a community and you?ll get a better deal. You?ll (help)
build a world with some hope of ecological stability,
where the chances increase that you?ll be happy?
Human happiness isn?t about more for me ? its about better for all of us.
And it springs from the tiny silver coin of neighborliness that rolls beneath the door
that opens to interdependent web of existence. To get there we need to turn our whole culture
upside down ? but what better place to start than reorienting
our own principles and starting to live in a new way.
Blessed be and Amen!
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