Easter 5A: Genesis 1-2:4 Earth Day
It occurred to me last week, as I prepared this message, that the way we relate to the Earth has to do with “the ways in which we know” and “the ways in which we value.” It occurred to me that “the ways in which we know” are very heavily influenced by science. For instance, we “know” how old a human skeleton might be through the scientific process of carbon dating. But what do we “know” about the body that clothed that skeleton, the thoughts that went through that person’s mind, or the reverence he or she held for self, for others, for creation?
I have told you on Earth Days past that I feel there is little in the Judeo Christian Bible to really help us grasp our role in relating to Creation. Probably the Genesis story we heard today is among the finest examples. For we heard that Creation is good. And we heard that God-in-Spirit breathed life into it. This gives us a tiny foothold into the world of Art, that which can touch our soul through word, sound or image. The other phrase that we often contemplate on Earth Day is “dominion.” What does it mean to have dominion over the earth? Does it mean domination? Dominion is described as a sphere of influence or control. Influence can happen in many, many ways.
Let us ponder for a moment the “ways of knowing” that we value. For most people living after the 18th century, knowing came from a rather strictly outlined form of rationality. One was to trust the scientific method. One was to trust the tenets of philosophy. Where, I wonder, did some of the great minds of history come across their wisdom without these guidelines for thinking? As a mystic, I suggest to you today that much of pre-modern wisdom, at least as found in the indigenous world, came from intuition, which some have called “conscious contact with God.” This form of knowing arises from willingness on the part of people or tribes to be humble in the face of the Divine and listen for guidance. Our own Bible urges us not to lean on our own understandings.
Steve and I have had the privilege of learning from Native American friends in South Dakota. I have discovered through their teachings and the wisdom of such departed leaders as Black Elk, that the ways in which we think and the ways in which we value have a great impact on the actions we take in life. I’d like to read a paragraph from Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt, who gathered stories from Black Elk before the great chief’s death. This paragraph has to do with a land treaty that the white people got signed for the acquisition of some Native land. The word Wasichu refers to people of European descent who colonized what we now call the United States.
“News came to us there in the Moon of the Falling Leaves (November) that the Black Hills had been sold to the Wasichus and also all the country west of the Hills—the country we were in then. I learned when I was older that our people did not want to do this. The Wasichus went to some of the chiefs alone and got them to put their marks on the treaty. Maybe some of them did this when they were crazy from drinking the minne wakan (holy water, whiskey) the Wasichus gave them. I have heard this; I do not know. But only crazy or very foolish men would sell their Mother Earth. Sometimes I think it might have been better if we had stayed together and made them kill us all.” (p. 135)
Can you imagine “selling” your own mother? This is the regard that the tribes had for the Earth, that she is our mother. I am sure you are aware that through global poverty and disregard for the sacred feminine, many young girls are sold by their families into prostitution every day. There was an important story on this in a recent Sunday Denver Post. Why do I bring this up? It is to raise this very important question: “Because something is available, must we take it?” People from all over the world travel to other parts of the world, particularly Asia, to participate in sexual activity with children. What does this say about the ways in which children are valued? What does it say that Fundamentalist Mormons believe that any child capable of bearing children must do so, in “spiritual marriage” to a man of the sect’s choosing? “Because something is available, must we take it?” Because oil was available in Iraq, did we have to invade, in the name of democracy, to take it? Because natural gas exists in the Baca National Wildlife Refuge, must we take it? Many of humanity’s major religions have set up retreat centers in Crestone, Colorado, close to the Baca and flanked by the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) mountains. Is this just a coincidence? Because there is gas there, must we take it?
We have a long history of desecration. Hear these painful words from Black Elk.
“…it was in the summer of my twentieth year (1883) that I performed the ceremony of the elk. That fall, they say, the last of the bison herds was slaughtered by the Wasichus. I can remember when the bison were so many that they could not be counted, but more and more Wasichus came to kill them until there were only heaps of bones scattered where they used to be. The Wasichus did not kill them to eat; they killed them for the metal that makes them crazy, and they took only the hides to sell….You can see that the men who did this were crazy. Sometimes they…just killed and killed because they liked to do that. When we hunted bison, we killed only what we needed.
“All our people now were settling down in square gray houses, scattered here and there across this hungry land, and around them the Wasichus had drawn a line to keep them in. The nation’s hoop was broken, and there was no center any longer for the flowering tree. The people were in despair. They seemed heavy to me, heavy and dark; so dark that they could not be made to see any more.
….I looked back on the past and recalled my people’s old ways, but they were not living that way any more. They were traveling the black road, everybody for himself and with little rules of his own… I was in despair.”
Black Elk’s vision, as received in his childhood, was of a good red road of health, respect for self, others and creation. It was life within the sacred hoop. The black road, as alluded to above, was of a world filled with self-serving people who had lost their connection to the Great Spirit. We have opportunities to protest the drilling that may take place in one of Colorado’s sacred sights, the Baca. Because natural gas is available there, must we take it? Or might we instead re-vision our use of energy and where we obtain it?
Karen and I had the privilege of hearing regionally famous photographer John Fielder and seeing many of his photographs yesterday. He made a passionate plea for the preservation of the wilderness. May we raise our voices with his. Won’t you join me in singing hymn #557 “Pray for the Wilderness”?
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