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Sermon by Lea Hall, Ph.D.

A Bright Invisible Green: The Goodness of Sustainability Part 3 of the Earth Trilogy
Lea Hall, Ph.D.
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
July 10, 2005

Today we, the Green Team, bring you part three of the Earth Trilogy. Inspired by classical Greek philosophy, informed by the latest environmental science, integrated by our continuing quest for an ethical and beautiful life, we focus in turn on The True, The Beautiful, and The Good. In this way we call upon the objective truth, as revealed by science; the subjective truth, as expressed by art; and the inter-subjective truth, as negotiated by morality.

Knowing The Truth and loving The Beautiful, we ask ourselves, what is The Good that we are here to do? What am I uniquely qualified to do, of the many tasks and changes that await us? Today we celebrate The Good that is already done here in our spiritual community, and The Good that is about to blossom through the Green Sanctuary program.

Two weeks ago the Green Team presented part one of the Earth Trilogy. We volunteered to confront the issue of global warming and climate change on a regular basis. It was not, of course, out of hedonism. Like the folks in this cartoon, we felt, “My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.” Many of us, like you, felt depressed at what we learned.

You said two weeks ago, please come up with some good news. And of course Ellen Cone and friends last week did serve up a generous helping of sights and sounds of the beauty of the earth for part 2 of the trilogy. We do cherish this earth.

We’re not going on about global warming to be mean. Here’s the thing. Think of the Green Team as your canaries. We volunteer to put ourselves in the path of the bad news, to feel the tragedy of what is happening to our planet. We share our anger, sadness, and despair with one another. Each of us, I’m sure, would have preferred to do something else. But we kept showing up. And we committed to perform some service. What could we do? Well, we too wanted some good news. Gradually each of us found something that we could do, that we wanted to do, that we started doing. And here’s the amazing thing: we all began to feel better. We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for. We’re doing something. And you can too.

Will our actions stop global warming? Probably not. Will our actions slow global warming significantly? It depends on how persuasive we are, how many others join us, how quickly our society reaches the tipping point of changing our ways. It could happen soon. There are signs of awakening. To the extent that we, each and all, wake up and embrace the world as it is now, we are, each and all, enlightened beings.

I want to share with you a lesson that was passed on to me by my Eastern philosophy professor, David White, in 1968. Dr. White dedicated his life to making the wisdom of karma yoga user friendly to college students. Here’s the heart of the five thousand year old story in the Bhagavad Gita.

A king named Arjuna, is caught between a rock and hard place. Faced with an impossible situation in which he must either go into battle against his own relatives and honored teachers, or refuse to engage and thus cause another kind of carnage, he turns to his charioteer, who happens to be the god Krishna, for counsel. Krishna shows the king that the best course is to do his duty without attachment to the fruits of his actions. Not to renounce the work but to renounce the fruits of his actions. The heart of karma yoga, the path of action, is renunciation: accept what comes, let go of what leaves, move into a simple state of being. Renunciation. I’ve been experimenting with renunciation for a few years now, and I can recommend it to you. Frankly, what else can we do?

And how practical this is, because when do we ever know what the fruits of our actions will be? One of my meditation teachers tells the story of a man who failed to understand this. In exasperation, the man prayed, “Dear God, I asked you, as nicely as I could, to make me a better person. But apparently you couldn’t be bothered.”

And so it often is. We do a thing with the conscious or unconscious expectation of certain results. When we don’t see those results, we are angry or disappointed. Karma yoga advises against those expectations. Just do what is needed, and let go. This is good advice for a moral life, for an ecoliterate life. Key, in fact, given that we cannot know whether our efforts will make a difference, or enough of a difference, to matter. Just deciding to live more sustainably, just deciding to begin, just taking a small step, this is all we are allowed to know.

As I traveled across America earlier this summer, I thought a lot about The Good. Like Henry David Thoreau 166 years ago, I went camping. I drove about 3500 miles in my camper van through nine states, camping in parks, forests, savannahs, and interstate RV parks. Thoreau and his brother spent a week rowing the Concord and Merrimac Rivers in New England. Thoreau took ten years to write up his experience while living at Walden Pond, and as you would expect he looked deeply into the rivers, the lay of the land, the eyes of animals and the soul of what was then quaintly referred to as “man.” They set out on Saturday. On Wednesday Thoreau wrote, while musing on the face of the least bittern, a dark and shy heron that also lives in Florida, “Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green.” [Wednesday, p. 193, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Library of America, 185.]

Which inspires in me a vision of the soul of our church, as a bright invisible green. Some months ago I convened a group here for a solar walkabout, thinking to investigate the possibilities of solar energy for the church. First an energy audit would be needed, and then an assessment of feasibility of replacing FPL electricity with our own solar generated power. But the bright invisible green of our church became visible that day: the audit was already done, the conservation efforts were already underway, the bulbs were being changed, solar power had been found inappropriate for our type of building as it is used throughout the week. Nobody announces these things. The bright invisible green soul manifests all around us. Let’s look at what’s been going on here, almost invisibly: the goodness of sustainability. What does The Good look like? We round up the usual suspects.

Dee Widder calls Diane and Dick Happy the Green Queen and King. The memorial garden is probably their most visible work, but every time you turn around, there they are, arranging for saving more energy, making more beauty, caring for more of our resources. Their garden team works hard and joyfully. One recent Tuesday morning I caught snapshots of Pat Sindlinger, Jack Sims, and Dale Cooper, and there are many others. Dee and Dave Widder, like the Happys, do so many green things here. They installed the library fan so we wouldn’t have to use the air conditioning so much. The Happys donated that fan, then the church bought two more for the Jefferson Room, and Dee and Dave installed those. If you look up now, you’ll see energy efficient light bulbs. Outdoors the security lights have motion sensors and compact fluorescent bulbs. There’s solar film on the South Wing’s south window and now on the West Wing’s west windows. New, more efficient air conditioners. These are the good green works of the Happys and the Widders and others. But the bright invisible green of our church community goes beyond the building and garden here. Witness Marie Millet organizing the Bahia Vista trash pickup to Keep Sarasota Beautiful. Here’s the hybrid car of Sue Sherman, and there are others. Our minister, Don Beaudreault is a tree hugger. People carpool, offer rides, decline invitations or consolidate invitations and errands, downsize cars, share trucks, and even walk sometimes to save gas. People serve dishes lower on the food chain, foods grown locally, foods in season. People downsize their homes. People install efficient light bulbs, solar hot water heaters, water miser showerheads and toilets, Energy Star appliances, ceiling fans in our homes, and Florida yards.

All these things have to do with consumption, conservation, how we handle our affluence, what we choose for technology. For years our Social Concerns Committee has supported Planned Parenthood, which addresses the other part of the equation. Ray Anderson, a green industrialist, summarizes it like this: Human Impact= Population x Affluence x Technology.

Now we’re beginning a new phase of making the bright invisible green even deeper and more visible. Nancy and Bill Orcutt are among the group studying global warming and taking action. Klaus Obermeit and Ellen Cone of the Celebrations Committee helped make the Earth Trilogy possible, along with many other green team members. The RE program incorporates environmental lessons into its curriculum, and the youth participated in Earth Day celebration. Susan Hallock and Julie Leach are initiating the Green Sanctuary program here, which can integrate all these efforts and more into the core life of our church. Green Sanctuary comes under the wing of our Social Concerns work. Why?

If we look at Green Sanctuary in terms of the tried and true four-part system for UU social action: you can see that it’s a perfect vehicle for an integrated Green Sanctuary program.

Phase 1 is service: which Julie will explain in a moment.
Phase 2 is education: regarding global warming in particular and sustainability in general, through our study action group, religious exploration programs, small group ministry, forums, email newsletter, and expanding outward into our circles of friends, family, community.
Phase 3 is witness: Julie will tell you one way to speak up as earth evangelists and help stop global warming. And don’t forget to buy your bumper stickers!
Phase 4 is advocacy: Check each Sunday at Social Concerns table for opportunities to lobby on global warming and related issues. We have ample ways for you to help our city and county move toward sustainability. Cities are moving ahead in the absence of leadership from Washington.

The Green Team we’re talking about is not only the study action group and the small group ministry on global warming. Would you stand up, as you’re able, if you’re a member of either of those? Please stand if you’re a part of the Earth Trilogy Sunday morning services presentations, if you’ve changed a light bulb, if you’ve carpooled, if you’re a vegetarian, if you’ve bought a hybrid car, if you’ve planted or watered or weeded a tree, if you’ve worked in a garden, if you’ve worked for Planned Parenthood, if you’ve sold or bought Fair Trade coffee, if you’ve picked up trash, if you’ve written or called your representatives on green matters, if you’ve taught a child something about the earth, if you’ve given flowers, if you’ve ever dared to pray that our leaders do the right things for the environment, if you’ve taken other green action that I haven’t mentioned. This is our Green Team at the moment, and we want everyone in our church community to join. Thank you, please be seated.

It’s good to put our own church, homes, and lifestyles in order environmentally as we call others to follow suit. The truth sets us free: knowing the fact of climate change, knowing the probability of future change, we face insurmountable opportunities.

How will we sustain the effort? When I asked Green Queen Diane Happy why she does so much here, she talked about altruism, wanting the church to succeed; about the satisfaction of seeing others enjoy the landscaping, garden, and buildings; about the joy of cooperative work with others; and about the inherent pleasure she finds in gardening and other work that enhance our church.

How does she find the energy and patience? Three sources: positive feedback from the rest of us, the enjoyable team work with her husband, and the focus on activities that come naturally to her.

Dee Widder’s answers to my questions were similar: appreciation from the rest of us makes her and Dave want to do even more. They really consider the church their family, in which they help us, and we help them. You might be surprised to know how much money they save the church by volunteering to do maintenance and improvements themselves, and they like the mental and physical challenges. Dee says, “Being active feels good, it's healthy for us and we're also having fun.”

The Happys and the Widders stand out, and there are many other green folk among us doing good work that conserves resources and that keeps family planning services available. We invite each of you to find your place on the Green Team, making our church a Green Sanctuary, using your own talents, knowledge, and preferences, acting on your own concerns, raising your own voice. We need you. The Earth needs you. The Earth needs you to fulfill yourself, not only in the sense of what do I want to do, but more deeply, as James Hillman puts it: what gift do I bring that others need?

As we move forward with the Green Sanctuary process, you will hear lots from Julie Leach and Susan Hallock. Julie will speak now about what’s next and how you can help.

After the discussion:
This concludes the Earth Trilogy on The True, The Beautiful, and The Good. If you missed a chapter, audiotapes are available from the office. Thank you for coming today. It’s not easy being green, and we’re all in this together. Please stand as you are able and join in our final hymn, “One More Step.”