Radical Spirituality

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By Rev. Terry Davis 

Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist

Congregation on January 6, 2013

On a cold, windy day, a solitary goldfish swims round and round in its bowl. Yellow baby spiders begin to hatch from a brown webbed shell. Snow and ice literally disappear into thin air. Nests are stirred and fall out of trees.

And, something primal is stirred, too . . . stirred among fish and fowl and arachnids and a writer . . . all of whom seek their proper habitats, proper rhythms, and proper places in the natural order of things.

I chose the passage from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek for our reading this morning because it is a reminder that our spirituality and the natural world have a powerful bond . . . a bond that is sometimes more deeply felt than understood. It’s a bond that many of us say we treasure, and yet it’s one that is deeply threatened. It’s deeply threatened by, of all things, the weather.

Weather – that topic that Author Annie Dillard says is always welcomed in her home – has become the topic of the 21^st century and one that is not always so welcomed. Weather – increasingly extreme weather, such as more powerful hurricanes, more frequent super-storms, and more scorching summer days – is the topic today that brings up bitter debates and growing fear.

I don’t need to tell you what you already know about the changing weather that is the consequence of climate change. Nor do I need to tell you about the unsustainable human behaviors that are making it so.

What I do want to tell you, which is the focus of my sermon today, is that you and I – all of us – are being called by the seen and unseen forces of nature and our own spirituality to put the two together for the welfare of all living things. As a progressive religious community, we are being invited by climate change and its life-altering consequences to live our faith more deeply than perhaps ever before.

The circumstances of these times, in fact, are demanding that we put our Unitarian Universalist Seventh Principle – the principle that compels us to respect the interdependent web of all existence – at the very center of our spiritual journey.

We are being asked to make this last UU principle first in our lives . . . to recognize that our hurting planet is in need of a solution that has an everyday, intentionally-lived, radical spirituality at its core.

What do I mean by radical spirituality? I mean only what countless religious leaders and faith traditions – including ours – have sought to inspire millions of people to do for thousands of years: that is, to live counter to a culture that puts the needs of the spirit at the bottom of its priorities.

It is the message of Jesus and of the Buddha; it is the message of Gandhi and of Martin Luther King, Jr. It is the message of the Golden Rule writ large – that we treat others as we would like to be treated: that is, other people and all other living things.

It’s the unspoken “and all living things” part of this ethic of reciprocity that is also at the heart of sustainability. Sustainability is a term that has been confusing to and distorted by many according to Dr. John Carroll, professor of natural resources at the University of New Hampshire and author of the book Sustainability and Spirituality – a book that is informing my thinking about sustainability and radical spirituality and whose concepts will find their way into several of my sermons between now and Earth Day.

According to Environmental Activist Steven Rockefeller, sustainability refers to “all the interrelated activities that promote the long-term flourishing of Earth’s human and ecological communities.”^[1]

Sustainability, says John Carroll, requires far more from us than “cheap and superficial measures”^[2] such as those commonly taken by our agriculture, food, and energy industries. True sustainability requires a deep change in our most cherished fundamental values.

Which is why, he argues, genuine sustainability must be motivated by a spiritual conversion, a type of spirituality that is radically different than what we’ve experienced and practiced before. It’s a deep spirituality that promises to transform self and society thoroughly as we become awakened in a new and more urgent way to what it means to live in right relationship with all living things.

Spiritually-based sustainable living, writes Carroll:

“is an endless dance of reason and faith. Reason without faith succumbs to pride, arrogance, hubris, and all that that brings with it, while faith without reason denies humanity, denies who we are as human beings. Sustainability [therefore] without attention to Mystery, Spirit, and Spirituality is a dead-end street, for it ignores who we are.”^[3]

This dance . . . this necessary tension between reason and faith . . . is the dynamic that Carroll and others believe holds the key to creating a new ecological value system in our world.

On the one hand, reason helps us understand the laws of Nature and what is happening to our planet; it’s what uncovers the clear, unemotional facts of how we’re contributing to our planet’s demise. Faith, on the other hand, keeps our eye on the prize – the prize of an earth where lives and living systems are in harmony . . . an earth where, as Annie Dillard says, “things are well in their place.”^[4]

Faith is what enables us to “progress toward a sense of our origins”^[5] – origins that are as mysterious as a goldfish swimming in his bowl in search of deeper, warmer water . . . as primal as dim, fatted chickens trying to fly south for the winter . . . and as quick and kicking as a terrific tailwind that is also the breath of life.

I believe that to live in this tension of faith and reason is to live with wisdom and maturity. And radical spirituality, it seems, calls precisely for both . . . it calls for a wisdom and maturity that balances our individual needs with the needs of all existence.

I, for one, don’t believe that radical spirituality is about extreme asceticism, about punishing self-abnegation, or about obnoxious evangelicalism. Rather, I believe it’s a way of experiencing a connection to the sacred in everything we do . . . a connection made more possible by a moderate, simple, and ecologically-centered life.

Can this sort of radical spirituality just “happen” like some sort of true religious conversion experience? Or, can it be cultivated through education and practices? I believe that it’s a little of both.

For instance, my guess is that all of us can think of times in our lives when we have had a conversion experience – an “ah ha” moment that shifted our values and changed our thoughts and actions forever.

One of mine came during a visit to a quaint little restaurant in The Cotswolds, a bucolic area of England known for its lush, rolling hills and sheep farms. As Gail and I and our friend Larry were at our table waiting for our meals to arrive, I glanced out of the window. In the distance were sheep grazing peacefully on a green meadow. The sun was slanted low in the sky. It was a lovely scene. And, at that exact moment, our waitress plunked down in front of me my dinner order – a steaming and aromatic bowl of lamb stew.

With no warning whatsoever, my conversion experience was upon me. It was a clear voice within that simply said, “You can’t eat that. It’s not right.”

That was in 2004. Beyond my “I can’t eat baby animals” awareness, I’ve since discovered many more reasons why eating lamb or beef or pork can never again be part of my diet. I’m still hopeful that I will find the will to eventually give up all animal meat. I consider this part of my journey towards living counter-culturally, living guided by radical spirituality.

Now, as to whether radical spirituality can be learned, American psychologist William James is one who believes that it can. He says that many of us have spiritual awakenings that develop slowly over time. He calls them conversions of the “̔educational variety.”^[6]

So, trusting that I can cultivate the deep awareness John Carroll argues is necessary to bring serious solutions to the problem of climate change . . .  and assuming that I’m in for a few more “ah ha” moments regarding sustainability and my own deeper appreciation of my connection to all living things . . . where might be the next step in my journey towards radical spirituality?

I have decided to start where John Carroll in his book starts. And, that is with understanding four basic principles of ecology as outlined by American biologist Barry Commoner.[7]

These foundational principles may be familiar to some of you, but they were new to me. And, they seemed worth mentioning this morning as a place from which to begin framing the discussion of sustainability and spirituality that we will be having after this service and in the coming months.

Carroll lists these principles as follows:

First – everything is connected to, related to, interconnected to, and interrelated with, every other thing. We are situated in an interdependent, entangled order. We and all things are embedded in a context within the universe. As Catholic priest and eco-theologian Thomas Berry points out, only the universe itself is a text without a context.

Second – Nature knows best. By Nature, this means one that is fully inclusive of all humanity. “Nature knows best” is not about nature worship but, rather, nature as a source of revelation – revelation about the Divine and about ourselves.

Third – everything must go somewhere. This principle is essentially a take on the adage “what goes around, comes around.” There is no such place as “away.” If you think you threw something away, you likely threw it in someone else’s backyard. And, there is no such thing as waste. Everything has a role, has a job to do, everything fits into the larger picture.

Fourth – there is no such thing as a free lunch. This means that any attitude that supports taking advantage of some other person, of the natural ecosystem, or of future generations violates ecological principle and imposes a cost. There are no bargains.

Carroll says that to recognize these four principles in our everyday lives, “is to understand [that it’s] possible to think ecologically, to be governed daily by an ecological mindset or frame of reference.”^[8]

For me, these principles are forming the building blocks of my conversion experience . . . the deep change that he says is necessary for me to understand and begin my journey towards contributing to true sustainability.

And so it seems that radical spirituality ultimately requires that we pay attention . . . that we pay close attention to everything around us – to fish swimming around in circles; to fowl flapping for the south; to translucent spiders that spill from cocoons; to the terrific tailwind that blows nests out of trees; and to fleet and fleeting urgings in our souls.

Radical spirituality is about living in concert with everything and knowing that our spiritual, emotional and physical well-being depends on all things being well in their place.

May we go forward this day ready to grow with this knowledge and deepen our faith. May it be so. Amen.