"Our Struggle to be at Home in the World

The Challenge of our 7th Principle"

Most of you know that Unitarian Universalism espouses seven principles which are published as our Statement of Principles and Purposes. Today I want to talk about the importance of the seventh principle in particular and the difficulties we face when we covenant to affirm and promote "the respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."

But before we zero in on the seventh principle, I want to briefly explain how the principles come to us. The most recent version of the Principles and Purposes was voted at the UUA General Assembly in 1984. The idea of producing an evolving document, as opposed to a creed, first appeared historically in a report by the Unitarian Commission of Appraisal in 1936. That report noted that the church is structured to "promote the spiritual insight of its members," who will develop through democratic form "a body of common opinion which will at any one particular time be recognized as the common possession of the whole group."

A body of "common opinion" to be recognized as the "common possession of the whole group"-- here the word "common" means, of course, "shared," not ordinary. It is important for us to understand that allowing our Statement of Principles and Purposes to evolve is part of a continuous process of self-definition that is fundamental to our religious journey on a personal and parish level -- and as a denomination. This is how we honor the prophethood of all. Our faith is allowed to evolve --it is truly a living tradition.

When I was a child I can remember wondering what the big deal was about the 10 commandments. I can remember being taught them and realizing that Moses was considered a very great man for having received this gift of the 10 commandments from God -- and I didn't understand it. Of course I didn't want to look stupid so I kept my mouth shut, but all the while I was wondering, "They're so obvious --- is it possible that before Moses revealed "Honor thy father and thy mother," or "thou shalt not commit murder," or "thou shalt not commit adultery or steal, or kill," that these ideas weren't generally known? What was life like then before Moses lived - just chaos because no one had any rules at all?

Now that I have lived a few years I have come to understand the story of Moses and the commandments differently. What I understand is that Moses gave these commandments to the world imbedded in a world-view --in relationship to an authority, a monotheistic God, which told us why those commandments had to be obeyed. The real story of Moses and Exodus was not that the 10 commandments were new information --the authority behind the commands and the consequences of breaking them were the real reasons for the headlines. God appeared to Moses and his people at Sinai -so his authority was real. And this authority basically said, "You live in my house -- you follow my rules." Imbedded in that context, the 10 commandments became sacred. Tied to the covenant at Sinai was the concept of a homeland. If they followed God's laws they had a home -- if they broke them they did not.

This sermon is subtitled "Our Struggle to be at Home in the World" because I firmly believe that our attempts to find commandments or principles to live by that are mutually shared are at root an attempt to put our house in order. Implicit within our Statement of Principles and Purposes is the concept of a homeland or perhaps more accurately, a way to be at home in the world. The seventh principle says that we are a part of an interdependent web of all existence --for Unitarian Universalists a common, or shared notion -- it was passed at the Columbus, Ohio General Assembly unanimously --In the words of Rev. David Bumbaugh, from an article in World magazine, the seventh principle:

"bespeaks a world where --because all things impinge on all other things-- everything matters. It challenges us to understand the world as reflexive and relational rather than hierarchical. It challenges us to take responsibility for the whole and all parts of the whole, since in an interdependent world, every decision, every relationship has significance for every other decision and relationship."¹

For many Americans the idea of such interdependence feels like a radical, subversive notion. The reasons for this are profound and need to be respected. Let's consider America, for a minute as a home. Perhaps more than any other country in the modern world, America has been sought out as a home by outsiders- the Statue of Liberty says, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." And people have come. They come looking for a land whose tasks can call forth their deepest and their best efforts --where they can grow. America has been lifted up as the ideal of home for much of the modern era, and deservedly so.

But according to Czech president Vaclav Havel a new era is being born. The Modern Era which began with the discovery of America and ended when America sent the first men to the moon in the summer of 1969 is over. Havel doesn't use these words, but he seems to be postulating, along with a new era, new definition of home for humankind.

America, he says, first showed the world the power that can come from respect for the unique human being, individual rights, and from the principle that all power derives from the people. These are the fundamental ideas of modern democracy and they are wonderful and important. But- BUT- these ideas, he says, are no longer enough. The modern age - the age of liberty as the central value of our time - is over. Havel made these remarks with great dramatic irony on July 4th in 1994, while standing at the base of America's Liberty Bell accepting America's Liberty Medal. Let me quote him:

"After all, the very principle of inalienable human rights, conferred on man by the Creator, grew out of the typically modern notion that man...was the pinnacle of creation."²

Although liberty is important, it cannot be our central value because it is man-centered. We aren't the center of creation because there is no center. In recent years science has learned that the whole universe seems to resemble a birthing process ; that everything has been connected as part of a single process since the dawn of time. The earth, as witnessed from space looks blue and alive. It looks fragile. Havel says we must pay attention to what we are learning. "Our destiny is not dependent merely on what we do for ourselves," he said, "but also on what we do for [the earth] (Gaia) as a whole. If we endanger her, she will dispense with us in the interests of a higher value -- that is--life itself."³

Unitarian Universalists embraced the principle of respect for the interdependent web of all existence --our seventh principle--unanimously in 1984, but Havel declared it to the world standing at the Liberty Bell a decade later. The Declaration of Independence needs to be replaced with the Declaration of Interdependence -- that is the message of both Vaclav Havel and our seventh principle. Havel says,

"The awareness of our being anchored in the earth and the universe, the awareness that we are not here alone, but that we are an integral part of higher mysterious entities against whom it is not advisable to blaspheme...this forgotten awareness is encoded in all religions. This awareness endows us with the capacity of self-transcendence. Transcendence as the only real alternative to extinction."⁴

The Commandments received by Moses were embedded in a relationship to authority. What we understand now is that if we endanger the earth she will dispense with us in the interests of a higher value --life itself. Extinction is the price we are likely to pay if we continue to devastate the earth. There is true authority, then, behind the seventh principle. Functionally, it is a commandment.

There is an old expression to be "home free." It means the hard part is done - the rest is easy. We are not home free. The fight for the seventh principle, the interdependent web of existence is going to color everything in the next few decades. It is going to be bitter and it will run very deep. Our definition of home is at stake in the local sense, in the religious sense and in the cosmic sense. Let me give you one example of what I mean.

Gerald Freeman, Sr. VP of Stone Container Corp. gave a speech before the Consulting Foresters of America in 1994 entitled "Strangers in Our Yards."⁵ Now, he is going to come off sounding like a bad guy here. Have compassion. He is probably our neighbor and his feelings and concerns are real and valid.. Freeman told the foresters that there are strangers in our yards threatening our way of life. Strangers like Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and laws and regulations, and the federal courts; these strangers are environmentalists who want to undertake a national biological survey of endangered species. They want to protect the web. Freeman says their desire to protect endangered species goes too far -- that they are actually anti-people: if they have their way, he says, the largest property owners in the nation will be the endangered species. Freeman virtually suggests to his audience that if they have any endangered species or plants on their property they should destroy them now before the environmentalists find them and protect them causing your property values to go down.

Freeman is angry. He points out that property rights are guaranteed by the 5th amendment - and he is right. (American property laws were fashioned after the Magna Carta in 1215 - before then land was not owned - it was held.) How dare anyone question a distinguished tradition that runs so deep? The lines are clearly drawn -- Havel and many scientists say that diversity is health so we must protect the web -- we must know our place or perish. Their point of view actually does change our relationship to the land back closer to the idea of holders of the land. Freeman (he is actually well named!) defends liberty. He and many property owners say of course we own the land and because we do we have a right to control everything on it. Period.

Liberty is not the only sacred value being questioned in this argument. It becomes deeply and bitterly religious. Listen as Freeman quotes lawyer Robert Ernst:

"The philosophical basis of the radical environmentalists' world-view is pantheism. Earth is part-divine, part-human, crucified like Christ by unnamed persecutors. While intellectuals and the popular press postulated that God was dead, radical environmentalists resurrected paganism. They did not call for a variation of Judaism or Christianity; these worldviews were blamed for polluting the earth. Instead they were proposing a totally different ethic exalting nature and lowering man to the plants and animals."⁶

If we are truly to understand the world as an interdependent web, and if we are to live out that understanding, then America, and beyond America - the world, will have to change radically. But we are very divided. If there were one large, obviously earth-threatening issue on which the fate of all were hung, then we would be able to unite to respond to it. But that's not the case. The problem that confronts us now is that the issue of the interdependent web will touch each of us not only differently but in tiny, unglamorous ways.

It is peculiar that the crossroads of a civilization can be symbolized by the fate of a red-bellied slider turtle, a spotted owl or a Texas blind salamander or a local swamp, but that will be the case. How do we react when someone who wants to protect a turtle is accused of being a pagan and therefore anti-christian? or is accused of being an enemy of democracy? How do we react in any situation where we disagree with others?

We need to proceed with a healthy respect for the opposition. I say this today with a measure of urgency. We must not respond to each other at the level of personality when there are ideas to exchange. It is easy when there is so much public name-calling. Today our media entertains us with the news by treating our public life as a contest of personalities instead of a valid exchange of ideas. We are inadvertently being conditioned by this to misunderstand the worth of our public life. Ideas exist in a different dimension from personality - ideas are valuable because they connect us with the stream of history and to great men and women who have come before us. Let's stick to them.

If we are right, and if Vaclav Havel is right, then the argument over the seventh principle, our need to protect the interdependent web, is the defining argument of our time. We must protect the web or we will perish. The seventh principle, like the 10 commandments, is embedded in a world-view in relationship to an authority which tells us why it has to be obeyed. The real story here is also not that the idea of the interdependent web is new information --the authority behind our understanding of the interdependent web and the consequences of ignoring it are the real reasons for headlines today. We know as a fact rather than as a value today that at the cosmic level and at the quantum level, everything is connected and that the external world is likely to fail around us if we do not respect it.

Al Gore in his book Earth in the Balance calls for us to make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization. In that book he talks about interdependency and calls upon the world to find the political will to avert environmental catastrophe. That is good news. When Al Gore speaks to us as a politician on the campaign trail, the political system within which he operates still requires that humankind be the basis and center of his argument. But Earth in the Balance calls us beyond our lingering androcentrisms; Gore writes in accordance with the seventh principle. As Unitarian Universalists our political task is not separate from our religious task -- we are called by our faith, in the words of David Bumbaugh, "to define the religious and spiritual dimensions of the ecological crisis confronting the world and to preach the gospel of [a] world where everyone is sacred, and every place is holy ground..."⁷

¹Bumbaugh, David, World Magazine,Boston: Journal of the Unitarian Universalist Association, March/April, 1994. p. 23

²Havel, Vaclav, "Post-Modernism: The Search for Universal Laws" Vital Speeches, Vol XVII, August 1, 1994, Delivered on the occasion of the Liberty Medal Ceremony, Philadelphia, PA, July, 4, 1994, p. 24

³ ibid, p. 24

⁴ ibid, p. 26

⁵ Freeman, Gerald R., "Strangers in our Yards", Vital Speeches, VOL XVII, August 1, 1994, p. 68

⁶ ibid, p.69

⁷Bumbaugh, p. 25