Sermons

READING ~ collected words of wisdom from various sources (Slides)
“You carry Mother Earth within you,” he said.
“When you wake up and you see that the Earth is not just the
environment, the Earth is in you, you are the Earth, you then touch
the nature of interbeing. At that moment you can have real
communication with the Earth. We need a real awakening, a real
enlightenment. We have to change our way of thinking and seeing
things – and this is possible.” Thich Nhat Hahn

Finding the Mother Tree
Finding the Mother Tree is the kind of story we need to be telling, a new
way of communicating that the world desperately needs to hear. The
idea of spirituality in science may seem paradoxical to some, but as we
have learned from ecologists like Simard and Kimmerer, there is
something missing in our study of nature. We have forgotten that we are
part of the subjects we study, part of the forests that produce the air we
breathe and the water we drink. We rely on nature’s rhythms and cycles
far more than we rely on profit and technology. Simard’s book invites us
to embrace this connection with the Earth when she writes: “I can’t tell if
my blood is in the trees or if the trees are in my blood.” This book has, at
its centre, a simple tale of a woman who follows her intuition, views
compassion as a strength, and dares to see the world differently. It is also
a reminder to listen to our wilder selves, and to remember, with humility,
how little we know of the complexities of the natural world.

• Tiffany Francis-Baker has been a writer in residence at Forestry
England. Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard is published
by Allen Lane (£20). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com.
Delivery charges may apply.
From the Introduction of her book…

The trees soon revealed startling secrets. I discovered that they are in a
web of interdependence, linked by a system of underground channels,
where they perceive and connect and relate with an ancient intricacy
and wisdom that can no longer be denied. I conducted hundreds of
experiments, with one discovery leading to the next, and through this
quest I uncovered the lessons of tree-to-tree communication, of the
relationships that create a forest society. The evidence was at first highly
controversial, but the science is now known to be rigorous, peer-reviewed,
and widely published. It is no fairy tale, no flight of fancy, no
magical unicorn, and no fiction in a Hollywood movie.
These discoveries are challenging many of the management practices
that threaten the survival of our forests, especially as nature struggles to
adapt to a warming world.
My queries started from a place of solemn concern for the future of our
forests but grew into an intense curiosity, one clue leading to another,
about how the forest was more than just a collection of trees.
What started as a legacy, and then a place of childhood home, solace,
and adventure in western Canada, has grown into a fuller
understanding of the intelligence of the forest and, further, an
exploration of how we can regain our respect for this wisdom and heal
our relationship with nature.

READING ~ excerpts from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. (pp. 298-300). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.
Perhaps we cannot know the river. But what about the drops? I stand for
a long time by the still backwater pool and listen. It is a mirror for the
falling rain and is textured all over by the fine and steady fall. I strain to
hear only rain whisper among the many sounds, and find that I can. It
arrives with a high sprickley sound, a shurrr so light that it only blurs the
glassy surface but does not disrupt the reflection. ….
Maybe there is no such thing as rain; there are only raindrops, each with
its own story. Listening to rain, time disappears. If time is measured by
the period between events, alder drip time is different from maple drip.
This forest is textured with different kinds of time, as the surface of the
pool is dimpled with different kinds of rain. Fir needles fall with the high-
frequency hiss of rain, branches fall with the bloink of big drops, and
trees fall with a rare but thunderous thud. …
Paying attention acknowledges that we have something to learn from
intelligences other than our own. Listening, standing witness, creates an
openness to the world in which the boundaries between us can dissolve
in a raindrop. The drop swells on the tip of a cedar and I catch it on my
tongue like a blessing.

SERMON
“Stories: Listening to Voices of Nature” Rev. Margaret Beckman
Three words, three concepts
Interbeing
Interdependent
Reciprocity
If only we could fully understand the meaning of these three words and
live accordingly …. Well, then …. all would be well.
The voices of Nature surround us and yet, what do we actually hear?
Stories are so important to our understanding of our world and our lives.
Creation stories are foundational. The Creation story, or stories, that live
within us determine in, no small way, our life orientation.
The Creation story that I grew up hearing and knowing is the story from
the Hebrew Scripture in Genesis. You know the one – God created the
heaven and earth and – day and night – water and land – creatures and
plants. It was all good. Then God rested. In this story, God seems to
place the human being at the center of creation. The human being is the
supreme creation and all else exists to serve the needs of humanity.
Be fruitful and multiple.
Have dominion over the earth.
Sound familiar?
The interpretation of this story has ruled much of the world as we now
know it, at least in what we call the Western world. It has ruled me.
There is another element in our foundational story about Creation – we
live in a world of competition, of conquerors and conquered.
And we now live at the edge of annihilation.
The story of dominion and annihilation is the result of centuries of
interpretations by those who have benefitted from it.
A rather small, tiny in fact, aspect of Earth’s whole self.
Earth herself is crying out with a very different creation story.
A story that does not place the human being at the center or the top or
separate from all else.
And people are hearing that story.
Some have heard that story for thousands and thousands of years.
In many indigenous stories of Creation, the human being is not set above
as ruler over and owner of other life.
A very different way of orienting our lives.
A very different set of voices from Nature instruct and comfort the human
being.
Are you hearing these stories?
The late Catholic Priest, Thomas Berry, heard the voices of Nature
directly and his entire way of being and living shifted.
He began to understand the unity of Creation and the interdependence
of all existence.
“The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects
to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightening
and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees, ~~ all these have
voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly
related.”
“The natural world is the larger sacred community to which we belong.
To be alienated from this community is to become destitute in all that
makes us human. To damage this community is to diminish our own
existence.”
We may not regard his words as completely radical, but they were in
1970, and in many places remain radical today.
We are not separate from Nature. We are Nature and Nature is us.
Another teacher, now too among the ancestors, is Thich Nhat Hanh.
A Buddhist monk and spiritual guide for thousands and thousands of
people, he lived close to Nature and in the Buddhist tradition followed
the creation story of the codependent arising of all. The voices of Nature
he heard showed him that all is connected. He called it “Interbeing.”
He said:
“About thirty years ago I was looking for an English word to describe our
deep interconnection with everything else. I liked the word
“togetherness,” but I finally came up with the word “interbeing.” The verb
“to be” can be misleading, because we cannot be by ourselves, alone. “To
be” is always to “inter-be.” If we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb
“to be,” we have a new verb, “inter-be.” To inter-be and the action of
interbeing reflects reality more accurately. We inter-are with one another
and with all life.”
And
“Everything relies on everything else in the cosmos in order to manifest—
whether a star, a cloud, a flower, a tree, or you and me.
When you wake up and you see that the Earth is not just the environment,
the Earth is in you, you are the Earth, you then touch the nature of
interbeing.
At that moment you can have real communication with the Earth.
We need a real awakening, a real enlightenment.
We have to change our way of thinking and seeing things – and this is
possible.”
We have to change our way of thinking and seeing … and hearing and
acting. He says, “and this is possible.”
But not easy. We are so deeply embedded in the notion of separateness
that it is truly difficult to see, hear, or understand anything else.
We have grown committed to the notion that Nature is a competition
between the stronger and the weaker with only the stronger prevailing.
Evolution is not really about competition and the survival of the
strongest.
Evolution, we are learning more and more, is about cooperation and
adaptation. Life thrives through cooperation and adaptation.
Our two contemporary teachers – Robin Wall Kimmerer and Suzanne
Simard – hear the voices of Nature in just this way. And we are amazed
by what they know and the wisdom they share.
The voices of Nature they hear speak of reciprocity and cooperation; of
interbeing and interdependence.
The golden rod and the aster are companions.
The birch and the fir are companions.
The forest is an ecosystem that is inseparable from the entire ecosystem
that is creation. Suzanne Simar, and others, have spent time with trees
and learned their ways and what they know about codependence and
interdependence. It is at first strange for us to hear trees communicating
with each other across distance through the ground and through the air.
But why is this so strange? It actually makes complete sense when we
see that everything is part of everything.
We hear the voices of Nature – whales and birds and coyotes and horses.
Wind, fire, water and earth – all have a voice and can be heard when we
listen long enough and carefully enough.
I continue to struggle to understand.
I am a product of the stories of my youth – of competition, dominion,
human superiority, and ownership of land, water, air and creation.
I am no longer served by these stories.
Are you?
The voices of Nature that I now want to hear are the voices of life itself,
not interpretations of those voices offered by the already powerful and
privileged human beings among us. The way of unity and wholeness
comes from hearing the voices of trees and strawberries and humpback
whales.
Cooperation and Reciprocity. The time for us as takers and consumers of
creation must end – either by choice or through self and environmental
destruction.
Reciprocity offers us a way of hearing Nature’s voices and our own as
forever connected and codependent. There is moral code that is
centuries old – thousands of years old. It comes to us through those who
have lived closed to Nature all this time and who have continued to hear
the voices of all creation. The moral code of reciprocity.
Robin Wall Kimmerer describes it for us.
“The moral covenant of reciprocity calls us to honor our responsibilities for
all we have been given, for all that we have taken. It’s our turn now, long
overdue. Let us hold a giveaway for Mother Earth, spread our blankets out
for her and pile them high with gifts of our own making. Imagine the
books, the paintings, the poems, the clever machines, the compassionate
acts, the transcendent ideas, the perfect tools. The fierce defense of all
that has been given. Gifts of mind, hands, heart, voice, and vision all
offered up on behalf of the earth. Whatever our gift, we are called to give
it and to dance for the renewal of the world. In return for the privilege of
breath.”
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (p. 384). Milkweed Editions. Kindle Edition.
May we pause and listen to the voices of Nature – not the voices about
nature, but the voices of Nature itself.
I think they are telling us to change; to change how we relate to the rest
of creation; to stop seeing ourselves as something other than Nature; to
cooperate with and love this world.
I don’t know exactly how we ought to behave, but I do know that how we
have been behaving for centuries has brought us to the brink of
destruction.
People can change.
We can listen to different teachers and authorities.
We can imagine what might be necessary to give up or give away in
order that all may live. Then, we can move in that direction… together –
for we are not separate.
Dear Friends, may we learn more deeply and completely to give our gifts
in reciprocity and to dance for the renewal of the world.
This we do in return for the privilege of breath.
Blessed Be. I Love You. Amen