Psalm 139: 1-14 (KJV)
John 1:1-5, 8:56-59 and 14:7-12
Colossians 1:17
Reimagining the Divine in All Creation
First remarks by Conrad French, Senior High Fellowship Member
[Written text hopefully coming soon]
Sermon Conclusion by Carleen Gerber
This very day, April 22nd, marks the 48th annual observance of Earth Day. Native Americans call the earth our “Mother,” believing that from her womb all creation has come into being. As our mother, she is indeed both powerful and fragile. She is also essential to all life as we know it.
Much has been accomplished in these last 50 years to protect this fragile earth. Many of our rivers have become cleaner – the great Connecticut among them. There have been some improvements in carbon emission control, and pesticide and chemical regulation. That’s why, here along the shores of our river, the osprey have returned in their glory.
We’ve become much more aware of the importance of reducing and conserving energy. My twelve-year-old ago Toyota Prius averaged 45 miles per gallon. The new 2018 Prius averages 95 miles per gallon. That’s significant progress. Curb-side recycling is now the norm in many towns.
But as hard as many of us have labored to protect and defend Mother Earth, we are painfully aware that degradation and depletion are outdistancing our efforts to conserve and restore her.
A few years ago we learned that 350 parts per million is the limit of safe carbon concentration in our atmosphere: surpass that number and potentially irreversible changes in our climate will occur. We have now exceeded that critical number. And we are much like a family cruising at full speed along a rugged and winding mountain road in the dark of night, in our little station wagon, paying no attention to the flashing signs that warn of rock slides, road wash-outs and impending catastrophe. We don’t buckle in the kids in the back seat. We don’t even slow down our vehicle. Could this be us? It could be.
But the really painful truth is that many of us do want to buckle in our children to save their lives, slow down our vehicles, and prepare to brake. And so, this morning, I want to propose that we think about Mother Earth in a whole new way.
In the summer of 2012, scientists at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, made a much-anticipated announcement – that after nearly fifty years of research, following in the footsteps of a scientist named Peter Higgs, a particle called the “Higgs-Boson” had been isolated and identified. This particle came to be called by many the “God-Particle.” Researchers said, “This discovery may complete the standard model of physics by explaining why objects in our universe have mass- and thus why galaxies, planets, and even humans have any right to exist.” (National Geographic Daily news 2012/07/120704).
In the simplest terms, this particle explains why a something is a something as opposed to being a nothing. Why is it that rather than empty nothingness in this universe, there are people like you and me, there is earth and grass and trees, there is this sturdy, “massive” mahogany pulpit behind which I now stand? For most of us this is about as clear as mud. But stay with me….
The Higgs-Boson, or so-called “God Particle,” is a tiny, tiny sub-atomic particle that exists for only a septillionth of a second. But in spite of its unimaginably small size and life-span, it is, scientifically speaking, the decision-maker or “alpha-force” at the very root of all that exists, or at least all that has visible mass. If we allow ourselves to think of the Higgs-Boson as the “God Particle” then we entertain the possibility that mass begins with a divine spark. You and I began with a divine spark. The plants and trees and fence posts outside the window, and the wood of this pulpit, began with a divine spark.
Scientists like Albert Einstein and David Bohm and Lewis Thomas have broadened our awareness of the ways in which science and theology are intricately and inextricably intertwined and enmeshed. So to push the idea of the “God Particle” from the theological side, hear the words of the psalmist, “The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof.” Or, in the gospel of John, Christ said: “Remember, I am in the Father, and He is in me, and I am in you.” Christ also said, “Before Abraham was born, I am.”
“Before Abraham was born, I am” said Christ. Not “Before Abraham was born, I was .” “Before Abrahamn was born, I am.” In other words, Christ preceded all that is – perhaps instigated all that is. And Christ is also now. These passages conjure up for me the incredibly beautiful mystery of our very being. Theologically and perhaps scientifically speaking, the divine is the root of all this. Humanity became the womb for the divine in the birth of Christ; but Christ existed before all else was conceived. Christ could be the “alpha-force” or instigator of all creation; and yet indwelling in all that is, even now.
Think about the implications of this. Everything we tread upon, everything we consume, everything we abuse, everything we take for granted, is “of the divine.” Instigated by a divine spark.
There is, undeniably, an existential urgency in our need to respond to the climate crisis. Storms of increasing strength are pummeling people all over the globe- and doing so with increasing frequency. Some regions of our own country have had three or more so-called “hundred-year-storms” in the last decade alone. Parts of our country – and areas within other countries- are suffering from droughts – while other parts of the world are deluged in floods and interminable rain. Think of Houston. Think of the out-back of Australia with its scorching drought. Why is this happening? Because heating the earth and her oceans by even as little as one degree causes the air to hold more water- which necessitates robbing water from some regions (drought-ridden regions –think of our mid-West) while drenching other regions (think, again, of Houston.) A small change in surface temperature has huge implications. Arctic ice melts- the salinity of the sea changes – coral reefs begin to die- shoreline water levels rise, and storms that batter the shoreline cause increasingly devastating damage. All these factors are interconnected. I think you – and I – know all about that. And we know that we need a combination of the global and the local response – and we need it urgently.
So – where is the good news? There is good news. There is enough good news to slow down our speeding station wagon filled with the children we love. Solar energy has come down drastically in price- and now is more affordable than carbon-generated energy if one removes the government subsidies now enjoyed by coal and oil. Informed predications show that solar Photo Voltaic will soon become the least expensive energy in the world. Our own church’s relatively new solar panels generate 40% of all our energy needs – resulting in a 60% savings in dollars spent overall for electricity. Add to this the impressive installation of LED light bulbs all over this church facility (except here in the Meetinghouse) which has cut our electricity use for lighting by a whopping 75%.
An enterprising engineering company in Arizona is piloting the use of special solar panels designed to pave highways. Affordable roof-top micro-solar installations are being used in rural areas in Africa to fully power small homes. Extensive solar farms are generating large percentages of the electricity needed in some areas of our nation. There is a wind turbine built by a Japanese company, with blades twice the length of a foot-ball field- and one full rotation of that blade can generate enough electricity for one household’s daily use. Wind turbines outboard of Block Island are predicted to supply all the electricity that island needs.
Batteries to store solar-generated power are becoming more efficient and affordable. Power companies are developing grids that will function with the flexibility needed to move between power sources. And there is progress beyond just energy development: farmer’s markets are lessening the costly transport of our food, we’re learning how to replenish soils depleted by over-farming, and we’re developing ways to sequester carbon. We’ve formed coalitions to stop or slow down rain forest de-forestation. We’re developing sustainable and toxin-free aqua-cultures. Individuals and universities and churches like ours are divesting of their holdings in the fossil fuel industry and deriving even better economic profit from investing in renewable energy and a sustainable future.
Technology is moving at an incredible speed. Think of the amazing evolution of the computer you think of as your cell phone by way of an example. In many cases the economics of smart energy and smart farming are driving us forward in spite of the pressures of a greedy market place or governmental short-sightedness pulling us in the opposite direction. Smart, sustainable solutions to our environmental crisis are going to win even in the marketplace. You and I need to continue to push toward progress both at the individual and at the global level. We can protect the children sitting in the back seat.
Each Spring it is a ritual for me to take my now 8-year-old granddaughter to an embankment alongside the Eight Mile River – part of the Pleasant Valley Preserve of the Lyme Land Trust. We sit there for as long as the cold ground permits, and we watch the waters roil over the rocks and tree roots. We float sticks and watch their progress. We launch the top of an acorn to see how long it can stay afloat as it makes its journey toward Long Island Sound. We marvel at the bed of decaying leaves and rugged rocks that form the ground beneath the bubbling water. For a time, as Wendell Berry says at the conclusion of the poem on the cover of your bulletin, “We rest in the grace of the world and are free.” For the sake of that little girl – and for all the children in our back seat- we need to honor the divine within the grace of this beautiful, fragile Mother Earth. Amen.
Carleen R. Gerber
The First Congregational Church
Of Old Lyme