Old Ways to New Worlds (Rev. Kiya Heartwood)
Old Ways to New Worlds
by Pastor Kiya Heartwood
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor, and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there, on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam…..” —Carl Sagan
The Unitarian Universalist denomination combines two American faith traditions that merged into the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961. Both Unitarians and Universalists have their roots in Liberal Protestant Christianity. Jewish and Christian scriptures and beliefs still have a home in our denomination. Unitarian Universalists include many who see themselves as Christians, but we also draw from additional sources of wisdom.
Our denomination does not have a creed that each person must profess. We agree to support each other in our spiritual development, and what holds us together are our six sources and seven principles.
Our six sources include:
1. Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.
2. Words and deeds of prophetic people which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.
3. Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life.
4. Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.
5. Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.
6. Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
Our seven principles are:
1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
2. Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.
3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
As Rev. Barbara Wells ten Hove explains, “The Principles are not dogma or doctrine, but rather a guide for those of us who choose to join and participate in Unitarian Universalist religious communities.”
It is our sixth source and our seventh principle that relate to the subject of dominionism. Our sixth source focuses on the spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions, which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature. Famous Unitarians, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other Transcendentalist thinkers of the 1840s, ground us in approaching the planet with spiritual reverence and respect. For a more environmentally sustainable future, we need a new ethical, spiritual model where science and religion combine, and where humans are a part, not rulers over the Earth.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, Deep Ecology is “a movement or a body of concepts that considers humans no more important than other species and that advocates a corresponding radical readjustment of the relationships between humans and nature.” Besides Unitarian Universalism, many indigenous religions - Shinto, Taoism, some Buddhist and Hindu traditions, pagan and neo-pagan traditions - have a similar ethical approach, placing humans on an equal footing with the other beings and elements in creation. All beings and elements have an intrinsic value beyond their value as a commodity or resource. They have inherent value simply because they exist. We can look to these traditions for inspiration to form a more sustainable ethic for the future.
As American environmentalist Aldo Leopold wrote, “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.” Leopold also wrote, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” This guideline is a good start for evaluating our day-to-day decisions concerning the planet.
Jewish philosopher Martin Buber described how humans relate to other beings and elements as “I - It” relationships or “I - thou” relationships. Many Unitarian Universalists and other Earth-honoring faith traditions believe all our relations between this planet’s living and non-living elements should be seen as “Thous” rather than “Its.” This would include all other humans, four-leggeds, oceans, mountains, birds, insects, and air.
In Mark 9:35, NIV, Jesus says, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” Perhaps he meant that being a servant to all includes all the planet. To be sustainable and just in our ethics, we must approach the Earth and its inhabitants and elements with a sacred “I - thou” relationship. This belief puts us in the web of all existence, not at the top of a hierarchical pyramid where creation exists to be used and controlled for our needs.
In a Unitarian Universalist framework, we believe in a web of existence and in the intention that we should do our utmost to protect and honor the sacredness of life on this one planet we call home, whether we individually believe in Heaven or not.
Unitarian Universalist poet Mary Oliver writes:
“The Summer Day”
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
It is the restructuring of our spiritual and philosophical beliefs and interpretations concerning how we interact with our home, the climate, and our daily lives that will decide our future. We must marry science and theology in an integrated and non-hierarchical approach. We need to make it our life’s mission to honor the old ways of the more sustainable Indigenous approaches with knowledge of and reverent caring for all. In this way we can be good stewards and citizens of Creation. What we do to the planet, we do to ourselves.
“I consider that this shift [to an emphasis on our ‘capacity to identify with the larger collective of all beings] is essential to our survival at this point in history precisely because it can serve in lieu of morality, and because moralizing is ineffective. Sermons seldom hinder us from pursuing our self-interest, so we need to be a little more enlightened about what our self-interest is. It would not occur to me, for example, to exhort you to refrain from cutting off your leg. That wouldn’t occur to me or to you, because your leg is part of you. Well, so are the trees in the Amazon Basin; they are our external lungs. We are just beginning to wake up to that. We are gradually discovering that we are our world.” —Joanna Macy
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Companion song and video by Kiya,
“Children of the Earth.”
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Pastor Kiya Heartwood is an award-winning singer-songwriter and composer. Kiya is the former Artistic Director of the People's Orchestra of Austin, a graduate of Starr King School for the Ministry, a Permaculture designer, and the minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Brazos Valley in Bryan, TX. This piece and music video are part of our Spring 2022 collection, Dominionism.
