EARTHLY WISDOM
by Forrest Church
April 25, 2004
There are two ways to get a bead on what,s going on in the world. 1) Pay attention to what,s in the news. And, 2) Pay even closer attention to what isn't. The world's major problems are not only those that capture the headlines. Even as, in our homes, much of the dirt (until spring cleaning perhaps) is out of sight and therefore out of mind—behind our refrigerators, under beds and couches—many of the world,s problems too, until we lift and shake the rugs, remain equally hidden from view.
That is one reason social activists attempt to capture public attention with an annual event or festival to help refocus the press (and thereby the rest of us) on their concerns. As I noted during the announcements this morning, 100 of our members are in Washington right now participating in the March for Women's Lives. That great assembly of concerned citizens will certainly raise voices that otherwise might be muffled by the drumbeat of our politicians, retreat from women's rights.
With somewhat less fanfare, another festival of sorts was commemorated this week. The first Earth Day took place in 1970, founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin and driven in large measure (as I remember) by flower power. It marked the beginning of two decades of slow yet steady progress in environmental consciousness and protective legislation. Because of emission control laws the air quality in our cities improved dramatically. Many lakes and rivers are cleaner and safer today than they were back then. And an entire generation of children has grown up with a deeper appreciation for how fragile and vulnerable our ecosystem actually is.
The 24th Anniversary of anything isn't likely to be a particularly big deal, but perhaps it should be. Over the past five or six years, often under the radar screen, environmental progress has either slowed or been reversed. Yet, for a day or two at least, Earth Day performed its intended service. The state of the environment was topic A in the presidential campaign. The president celebrated his administration's fledgling accomplishments and admirable intentions in protecting wet lands by campaigning in Maine. His opponent seized the moment to raise alarms about the slippage in environmental vigilance and governmental oversight.
Given everything else that is going on, this may prove to be the only week of the entire campaign that our attention will be drawn by both candidates to the state of the earth, not just the state of the nation. I hope that isn't true. Whether true or not, it seems a fitting time for me to address the spiritual dimensions of ecological stewardship. Even after Earth Day passes and our attention reverts to other, more immediately pressing problems, we must remember to look beyond the headlines to tomorrow's horizon, to consider not only what kind of a world, but also what kind of an earth we are bequeathing to our children.
Some of you may know (but others surely don't) that for the last decade I have had the honor of serving as chair of the Council on the Environment of New York City. Among other things, CENYC runs the city's 32 truly wonderful Greenmarkets. CENYC is a public-private partnership, run out of the mayor's office. I serve, in fact, at the pleasure of the mayor, having first been appointed by Mayor Giuliani in 1995, and then reappointed, officially just this week, by Mayor Bloomberg. When I told my mother, an Idaho environmental activist who serves on the national Wilderness Society Board, that I had been named to this post, she said that "environment of New York City" sounded to her like an oxymoron. I had to remind her that there is value in scarcity.
Despite the illusion that may be sponsored by my vigorous physique, I am not a nature boy. There is a reason, though born in Idaho, that I have happily settled here in New York. Yet, working closely this past decade with the fine group of environmental activists who make up the CENYC board inspires me to remain mindful of our seventh Unitarian Universalist principle: respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.
Such reminders are necessary, even to a preacher, because, though love of the earth is a central pillar of certain ancient religions, it does not figure prominently in Western faith traditions. To develop a spiritual conscience about the sacred depths of nature, we have to think, therefore, outside the religious box.
It shouldn't be that way, of course. Religion pays homage to the Creator. Ecology respects the creation. It's hard to think of two more "natural" partners. Yet, beginning with dueling Bible verses in the first two chapters of Genesis, things are not that simple. Faith and the environment jibe only when we "tend the earth and keep it," not when we seek to establish "dominion" over it.
To highlight the difference, let me tell you a story, an environmental parable of sorts with haunting significance for today's world. It is the tale of Easter Island.
Some 16 centuries ago, Polynesian explorers arrived on Rapa Nui, an island halfway between Chile and Tahiti. Having sailed at least 1400 miles—the closest landfall being Pitcairn—these intrepid souls planted a thriving, artistic culture on this island Eden.
Rapu Nui abounded in flora and fauna. A rich subtropical forest contained torimo trees (for firewood), hauhau trees (for making rope), and numberless stands of Easter Island palms. Up to 80 feet in height and six feet thick, this relative of the Chilean wine palm was perfect for canoes, allowing the settlers to take advantage of the sea's abundant larder.
At the height of the island's vitality, it hosted 10,000 residents. Yet, when discovered anew by Dutch merchantmen in 1722, Rapu Nui was a wasteland. Apart from a handful of survivors, all that remained were hundreds of gigantic stone heads, or Moai. The largest, 32 feet high, weighed 50 tons.
Offering an irresistible magnet for extraterrestrial speculation, the real story here is dramatic enough without recourse to science fiction. The weight of recent scholarly evidence fingers the Moai (together with climactic shifts and associated famine) as major culprits in Rapu Nui's demise. It now appears, in addition to providing wood for canoes, the island's palm trees were felled perhaps to scaffold, and almost certainly to roll and prop up, these monumental statues during their remarkable "walk" from the mountains to the hundreds of Abus (platforms or shrines) that ring the island. The hauhau trees furnished rope to pull the monoliths along and help erect them. The torimo trees were burned to clear the way. Duly to propitiate God and honor their ancestors, these devout Polynesians systematically pillaged their environment, until not a tree remained on the entire island.
Without its forests, Easter Island quickly became inhospitable to other life forms, including our own. Lacking wood for canoes, the fishing industry was destroyed. Civil war followed, together with the advent of cannibalism. A once flourishing people had sacrificed themselves on their own altar.
A similar tension exists in Western religion from the very beginning. Opening the Book of Genesis, competing creation stories underscore the gulf between an environmentally friendly faith and one that places the earth and its creatures in jeopardy.
Biblical scholars recognize two ancient creation myths woven together in Genesis 1 and 2. In the so-called E, or Elohist, narrative, God (literally, the gods, "elohim") creates men and women in the divine image and invests them with lordship over their domain—specifically, with "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
In the J, or Jahwist, narrative, the Lord God ("Jahweh") molds Adam from the red clay ("adam"). Although it gives Eve short shrift by plucking her from Adam's ribcage, the Jahwist creation myth is markedly more reverent toward our earthly home: "And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to tend it and to keep it."
Depending on which set of divine instructions we elect to follow, we become either lords or servants—either masters of the universe or stewards of the creation.
We know what choice the Easter Islanders made. Whatever the specifics of their Polynesian faith (which likely involved both ancestor worship and a monotheistic belief in Make Make, the creator God), they abandoned all pretense to stewardship in order to honor their idols. Both ecologically and spiritually, the consequences were tragic. By exercising absolute dominion over their island, they despoiled it completely.
We face the same choice today. Entering the 21st century in possession of almost god-like technological powers, each ecological decision we make pits the allure of dominion against the responsibility of stewardship. Practicing stewardship, we don't suspend our powers. We direct them in reverent ways. In spiritual terms, alternative technologies for power, energy conservation, balanced multiple-use policies, and the prudent protection of hitherto untrammeled public lands represent responsible partnering between creature and creator. On a personal level as well, even as dominion distances and estranges us from the earth beneath our feet, stewardship nurtures both the ground on which we walk and the ground of our being.
One person who not only knows this but feels it deeply—that is to say "knows it by heart"—is my brother-in-law, Michael Buck. Michael is Director of the Department of Forestry and Wildlife for the state of Hawaii, which has to be one of this world's most magical and challenging assignments. "For me," Michael says, "Rappa Nui is the ultimate story about "living on islands," which we all do—we live on an island in space. What are our reactions when we push our needs beyond the earth's capactiy to provide?" he asks. "What does each society do to be aware of those changes? Who are the messengers? How are they connected to the power brokers? What are the people's reactions when they find out that things are out of balance? How are we going to react to these warnings as a global society? We have to improve the connections (or address the disconnections) between the environment, economy, and religion." He goes on to say, "I have seen people become spiritually renewed when given the opportunity to reconnect and become stewards of the environment. If economy is really about supply and demand, there must be better accounting practices to assess and better marketing systems to balance the impact of our demands on the environment, before it is too late."
Michael's words have me thinking. What would happen—economically, environmentally, and spiritually—if we harnessed our mighty technological engines to create and discover alternative renewable sources of energy. As of today, each year we consume three barrels of oil for every new barrel that is discovered. It's like cutting down three trees for every one we plant. You don't have to be a scientist to do the math. Rather than devote our imaginative, scientific, technological, and financial capital in a great collaborative program to put a man on mars, what would happen if we were to apply the same energy and vision to ensuring that the earth itself doesn't one day become mars. Even with respect to more immediate and pressing problems—I think especially of the crisis in the Middle East—not to be held over the barrel, hostage to our need for foreign oil, will only enhance this nation's independence and, with it, our true security.
The great environmental president was Theodore Roosevelt. He established 13 National Parks and challenged the developers, erstwhile dominion over public lands. No modern president has shown the same imagination, will, and courage similarly to challenge the many vested interests that drive today's great oil machine. Yet, the growing danger we face may finally drive us to seize the opportunity in its shadow. We face two overarching challenges to survival on this planet: nuclear proliferation and the lack of renewable energy sources. Should we become more conscious of both, the most powerful lobby in the world will be readied for action, for everyone who calls the earth home is a stakeholder in the planet's survival.
When it comes to the opening chapters of Genesis, E may get my nod for acknowledging the natural equality of women and men, but with respect to the environment I therefore have to follow J. Not only is tending and keeping the garden in our enlightened self-interest, but also, by connecting us more closely with the ground we walk and the ground of our being, it nurtures the soul.
Watch out for the snake, however. Dominion remains tempting. It tempted the Easter Islanders, until they had to stop production of their ever-more massive idols, because no trees were left to transport them to the altar. It may tempt us as well—perhaps to tap and extract all the earth's natural resources until a million Hummers come to a grinding halt and rust in place.
If extraterrestrials ever do show up, such monuments to our misplaced devotion would surely get their antennae vibrating. Even as the Moai have stood mute for centuries in stony witness to self-destructive human idolatry, why we did this to ourselves would constitute, to any higher life form, an equally unfathomable mystery.