Sermons

Minister: Rev. Margaret A. Beckman | We live in a time when science is validating what humans have known throughout the ages: that compassion is not a luxury; it is a necessity for our well-being, resilience, and survival.
~ Roshi Joan Halifax
 

Reading  from Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone. Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy (Kindle Locations 254-257 and 274-281). New World Library. Kindle Edition.

So this is where we begin — by acknowledging that our times confront us with realities that are painful to face, difficult to take in, and confusing to live with. Our approach is to see this as the starting point of an amazing journey that strengthens us and deepens our aliveness. The purpose of this journey is to find, offer, and receive the gift of Active Hope.

Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening, it is something we do rather than have. It is a process we can apply to any situation, and it involves three key steps. First, we take a clear view of reality; second, we identify what we hope for in terms of the direction we’d like things to move in or the values we’d like to see expressed; and third, we take steps to move ourselves or our situation in that direction. Since Active Hope doesn’t require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless. The guiding impetus is intention; we choose what we aim to bring about, act for, or express. Rather than weighing our chances and proceeding only when we feel hopeful, we focus on our intention and let it be our guide.

 

Reading  from “Strength From Grief: How Aboriginal People Experience the Bushfire Crisis” -By Bhiamie Williamson, Jessica Weir and Vanessa Cavanagh,  January 23, 2020 Yes! Magazine

But … research in Australia and overseas has demonstrated that for Aboriginal people, healing from trauma—whether historical or contemporary—is a cultural and spiritual process, and inherently tied to land.

Resilience in the face of ongoing trauma
The long-term effects of colonization has meant Aboriginal communities are (for better or worse) accustomed to living with catastrophic changes to their societies and lands, adjusting and adapting to keep functioning.

Experts consider these resilience traits as integral for communities to survive and recover from natural disasters.

In this way, the resilience of Aboriginal communities fashioned through centuries of colonization, coupled with adequate support, means Aboriginal communities in fire-affected areas are well placed to not only recover, but to do so quickly.

This is a salient lesson for agencies and other nongovernment organizations entrusted to lead the disaster recovery process.

The community characteristics that enable effective and timely community recovery, such as close social links and shared histories, already exist in the Aboriginal communities affected.

Moving forward
The agency in charge of leading the recovery in bushfire-affected areas must begin respectfully and appropriately. And they must be equipped with the basic knowledge of our peoples’ different circumstances.

It’s important to note this isn’t “special treatment.” Instead, it recognizes that policy and practice must be fit-for-purpose and, at the very least, not do further harm.

If agencies and non-government organizations responsible for leading the recovery from these fires aren’t well-prepared, they risk inflicting new trauma on Aboriginal communities.

The National Disability Insurance Agency offers an example of how to engage with Aboriginal people in culturally sensitive ways. This includes thinking about Country, culture, and community, and working with each community’s values and customs to establish respectful, trusting relationships.

The new bushfire recovery agency must use a similar strategy. This would acknowledge both the historical experiences of Aboriginal peoples and our inherent strengths as communities that have not only survived, but remain connected to our homelands.

In this way, perhaps the bushfire crisis might have some positive longer-term outcomes, opening new doors to collaboration with Aboriginal people, drawing on our strengths and values, and prioritizing our unique interests.

Sermon

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.[1]

I rest in the grace of the world.

When despair for the world grows in you, go
Go to your places of peace and beauty.
And rest in the grace of the world.

And sing – quietly, gently, softly – to your soul or to the souls of those around you
When I breathe in, I’ll breathe in peace.
When I breathe out, I’ll breathe out love.

May deep peace fill you.

I do not wish to disturb the peace that you feel right now.

 

Yet, here is a question.

How do you support people forever attached to a landscape after an inferno tears through their homelands: decimating native food sources, burning through ancient scarred trees, and destroying ancestral and totemic plants and animals?[2]

How we answer this question makes all the difference between despair and healing.

This particular question is one that Australians are trying to answer in the presence of devastating bush fires – fires that continue to burn and expand to this very moment and perhaps for many more months.

Who among us has not seen the images of the fires and of the burned trees and the wildlife desperate to find shelter, water, safety and comfort? Who among us can see these images, read or hear news reports of the fires and not be heart-broken? Who among us is not grief-stricken? Anyone?  No. Not one.  All of us are right now carrying grief for the enormous loss in Australia of land and life.

Our grief, however, is a distant grief. We see the devastation but we cannot feel it in the way that Australians feel it. Among the people of Australia, it is the Aboriginal people who feel the loss most acutely. For they are inseparable from the land and its inhabitants. Their history, their culture, their spirituality is the land. Aboriginal people carry a grief that is unique. We might suppose that native people might collapse under the strain of their loss as climate change continues to bring devastating natural and weather events to nearly every part of our globe.

Maybe because they are so tied to and identified with the land of their ancestors and their origin, they will suffer more than the rest of us who occupy land that we love, but who through thousands of years, are not inseparable from that land.

Though their grief is enormous, there is a second truth:
their resilience is  strong.

The authors of “Strength From Grief: How Aboriginal People Experience the Bushfire Crisis” in Yes! Magazine say …

As Australia picks up the pieces from these fires, it’s more important than ever to understand the unique grief that Aboriginal peoples experience.  …

Aboriginal peoples live with a sense of perpetual grief. It stems from the as-yet-unresolved matter of the invasion and subsequent colonization of our homelands.  ….   The long-term effects of colonization has meant Aboriginal communities are (for better or worse) accustomed to living with catastrophic changes to their societies and lands, adjusting and adapting to keep functioning.

Experts consider these resilience traits as integral for communities to survive and recover from natural disasters.

In this way, the resilience of Aboriginal communities fashioned through centuries of colonization, coupled with adequate support, means Aboriginal communities in fire-affected areas are well placed to not only recover, but to do so quickly.[3]

 

Aborignal and other native people – because of their long history of assaults on their land, their spirit, their way of life and their very lives – have developed a durable resilience that has made them and kept them strong. Their perpetual grief has had the benefit of requiring strength in the presence of loss. They can, and should, take a leading role in recovery planning following climate and natural disasters.

In Australia, Aboriginal people are partnering with government and civic organizations to do just that.

How do you support people forever attached to a landscape after an inferno tears through their homelands?

You follow their lead and work collaboratively as everyone tries to survive and recover.

Our theme for February is “resilience.” The example of the Aboriginal people responding with strength from the depth of their grief caught me by surprise. This is resilience at a deep spiritual level. Such resilience may yet save us from ourselves.

When grief at all we are losing grows in me …
I become resilient.
We don’t give up and we don’t give in.
Grief is a good teacher.
If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t grieve.
We do care.
We care for the earth.
We care for all her inhabitants and all our relations.
We care for our country and our democracy.
We care for our neighbors near and far away.
We care for our families and for ourselves.

There are days when it seems that all that we care for may be lost.

If we are fortunate, our sustained grief will evolve into resilience and strength sufficient to the needs of our day.

 

What do we do? How shall we live?
Well, I think we begin by acknowledging and honoring our grief.
If we honor our grief, it is much more likely that it will lead us toward hope and healing rather than toward anger and despair.
Hope is a curious thing.  Alone, it is not worth much.
If hope does not lead us to action then it has little value.
What we seek is a hope born of resilience and strength.
A hope that Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone have called Active Hope.
A hope that is realistic and pragmatic and resilient.
A hope that refuses to stay stuck in our grief over loss.
A hope that brings blessings in the midst of all that confronts and confounds us.
A hope that carries us forward together as we move toward the world we really do want to leave our descendants.

This has been a tough week for many of us as our environment and our way of life continue to be under assault from human and natural forces of destruction. Next week may be tough too.  And the week after.

May we know that our grief does not have the last word. Beyond grief is resilience and strength and hope and healing. May we find our way forward together knowing that the way is often hard, the path is never clear, and the stakes are very high. Let us take courage. For deep down, there is another truth: we are never alone and Love will prevail.[4]

May it be so.   I Love You.   Amen.

[1] Peace of the Wild Things – Wendell Berry

[2] “Strength From Grief: How Aboriginal People Experience the Bushfire Crisis” -By Bhiamie Williamson, Jessica Weir and Vanessa Cavanagh,  January 23, 2020 Yes! Magazine

[3] “Strength From Grief: How Aboriginal People Experience the Bushfire Crisis” -By Bhiamie Williamson, Jessica Weir and Vanessa Cavanagh,  January 23, 2020 Yes! Magazine

[4] In the spirit of Wayne B. Arnason, adapted