Document Actions

Words from General Assembly

CHALICE LIGHTING

by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

General Assembly – June 20, 2007

Portland, Oregon

And now as we begin the worship segment of our time together, we light our chalice, a fitting symbol for a people who have stood for hundreds of years for freedom of belief, for openness to new revelation, and for the power of love to transform the world.

You have come to Oregon, to the West Coast, to the final stop of the Lewis and Clark expedition – you have come to the end of the frontier. As a nation we have come to the end of a frontier of sorts – a nation that promised always better, always more – that promised a chicken in every pot, that promised trickle-down, that promised that each generation would be more prosperous than the one before. That frontier of rising consumerism is dead – its time has come and gone, for it is absolutely not sustainable. We are coming to understand that we are going to have to change the way we live – radically change the way we live – not a tweaking here and there, not a light bulb change here or there, not a bicycle ride here or there – but a whole new way of seeing ourselves in relationship to other people and to the earth – living out of the consciousness of the sacredness of life.

And so today I would suggest – we have a new frontier – if we are to salvage this good earth and bequeath a future of any kind for coming generations. This new frontier is not “more,” it’s not “new and improved,” as the ads go – it is not, in fact, what we will have, but what we will become. It is no longer an economic frontier, but a spiritual one.

Our President, Bill Sinkford, is about to speak to us on the subject “Choices That Matter.” There has never been a time in the history of civilization when our choices mattered so much. Oh, there are many issues that all of us are passionate about – the war in Iraq, immigration reform with its overt racism, freeing ourselves of our oil addiction in this country, etc., etc. But all these issues converge at last into one – greed, empire building, short-term gain, long-term loss. The theological term for this is sin.

And so as a religious people, we have come together here at the edge of our country, to ask some questions: what does it mean to be a witness, in a time when the earth itself is endangered? What is our calling, as Unitarian Universalists, to help bring health and wholeness to this land? What does it mean to live with integrity in this brave new world we are about to enter?

We have too often been a people who have doubted our power. This is not the time for doubt, but the time for prayer, for re-grouping, for commitment, and for action. Welcome to the frontier.

-------------------------------------------------------------

SAVING THE EARTH, OUR HOME

by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

General Assembly, June 2007

Portland, Oregon

I want to speak today of the apocalypse – not of the rapture, the fundamentalist apocalypse, but the liberal apocalypse; the end of time for liberals is the death of the earth. I don’t believe the earth will die, but it’s for sure in big trouble.

No one is quite sure when peak oil will hit, no one quite knows when climate change will cause us to lose the Arctic ice, bringing floods to coastal lands, no one knows exactly how fierce the coming hurricanes will be – but climatologists, ecologists, and certain journalists – people like Lester Brown and Paul Hawken and certainly Joanna Macy, who was to be here with us today – and we’ve got to include Al Gore in this list – these are our modern-day prophets, and they are warning us. They know our earth is in grave danger.

NASA’s chief climatologist, James Hansen, says we have ten years – ten years – to be emitting less carbon dioxide into the environment – or global warming will be beyond turning around. We must make policy change at the highest levels of government, and we must do so now. We are way beyond changing our light bulbs. The United States must lead – how else can we expect countries that are just beginning to industrialize – countries like China and India – to follow?

I don’t know what the future will be like – but I do know this: the future will not be determined by forces outside human control – not yet, anyway; human beings have made certain choices which have brought us to this point, and we can make other choices that will shape our future. As a religious people, it is incumbent upon us to do three things.

We must face this crisis and no longer live in denial. We can no longer go on with business as usual, either in our personal lives or in our national policies. And I think we are in massive denial.

We must get in touch with our deepest and truest values, and we must support and protect those places where these values are preserved – the home, the schools, the church, the institutions that are life-giving – as opposed to the popular culture of consumption which is betraying us.

We must become citizen activists in regard to the environment in whatever way our lives allow. We are way beyond the time when we can say, “My family, my children, my community – even my country.” We are quite literally in this together. Right now one of the best strategies seems to be leading from the bottom up, where people have control – as for example the West Coast – California, Oregon, and Washington are co-operating to deal with emissions controls. We Unitarian Universalists have about 250,000 members in our fold – soaking wet, as they say. Can we be expected to change the world? We are creative, intelligent, vastly gifted people, and yes, we can be the salt in the loaf. My colleague Dr. Paul Metzger will speak in a few minutes about why environmental issues are of concern to evangelicals – I have to say this: evangelicals have moved out of their comfort zone on this issue. What would it mean for Unitarian Universalists to move out of our comfort zone? I think history will look back on this time and hold us accountable – people will say, where was the church when the planet was melting?

The religious traditions of all people ask them not to turn away from what disturbs them, but to try to be with whatever is – including our own fear and grief.

What sustains us is our spiritual grounding and the values that we have chosen to live by. People are always saying to me as a UU minister, do you believe in God? Who is God to you? Sometimes I think that the God-stuff is what emerges from the community as we come together to try to do the right thing – this is the God that is the source of our strength to resist. This is the God that gives us the collective power to imagine a different way. We are a religious community, not a bunch of interest groups, not a bunch of people vying with one another for our various causes. No, we have a radical devotion to the whole of creation, which we see as sacred. We know what touches one touches all.

We must re-imagine our world, according to spiritual values, human values. And as we do, a new world will arise, as it always does, out of the human imagination. As we keep that vision before us, we see that healing one part of the planet means healing another: that racism is related to poverty is related to war is related to global warming. Remember that the present system is completely dependent on our obedience to it, and our faith, like the faith of other faithful people in the past – like Channing, like Theodore Parker, like Margaret Fuller and Dorothea Dix, like James Reeb, who died at Selma – like these, it is our faith that will give us the courage to resist and the vision of a new way.

-----------------------------------------------------------

First Unitarian Church of Portland

Sections

Personal tools

Document Actions

Words from General Assembly