“Wake Now My Senses”
Psalms 136: 1-7, 26
First Presbyterian Church
Michelle Buhite, Associate Pastor in Spiritual Nurture and Youth
June 6, 2010
Audubon Worship Sunday
Story before Sermon: “Old Turtle” by Douglas Wood
Wake now my senses
and hear the earth call;
Feel the deep power
of being in all;
Keep with the web of
creation your vow,
Giving, receiving as Love shows us how. (STLT 298)
Wake now my senses…Are you awake this morning? I
mean truly awake. I am sometimes
surprised to discover that even when I’ve been up since sunrise and have been
productive in getting things done, that I have managed to do all of these tasks
without being fully, mindfully awake. Even
if you weren’t awake when you arrived, the rain might have done the job! Think
about the sounds of morning, particularly the chorus of birdsong; each
individual song in counterpoint with another –the layers of the music of the
morning. The Sufi poet Rumi compared
the complicated and individual songs of birds to the many paths to Spirit;
saying, all this singing, one song.
But there are other senses to be engaged – not just your
ears. Did you notice the soft breeze
on your skin or gently lifting your hair, the sweet scent of wildflowers and
new-mown grass? I want you to pay
attention to what is going on inside you – in the context of this summer
morning. Allow your breath to rise
and fall with the birdsong and the breeze. Notice
that tiny swell in your chest – could that be joy? Or
hope? – as you note your place in the context of all Life. Now
look around - feel that bond of connection, heart joined to heart, loving gaze
to loving gaze, with those around you. Feel
that connection as a living web, intricate beyond our imagining.
That sense of connection to one another and to the rest of
creation is the awakening, the dawning
realization that we are a part of creation, not apart from it. We
feel that connection when we turn our attention to the world around us, what the
Buddha called mindfulness, what the Christ described as being at one. As
we awaken to the divine nature within us we also awaken to the divine nature
around us. “Wake now my senses and
hear the earth call; Feel the deep power of being in all.”
“There is one God above all things, through all things,
and in all things.” That’s an
idea that certainly flows this morning – but it’s not original to me. “There
is one God above all things, through all things, and in all things,” is found
in the New Testament book of Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 6.
This scripture is a painting, a road map, a literary GPS telling us
exactly where we can find God. In
all things. Through all things –
tugging at us like the irresistible connection between us and a beloved one. Through
all things – anchoring us in time and space – with trees and land, sunshine
and storm. In, above and through all
things… weaving us together in relationship… Relationship
with God, with one another, with this inestimable gift, this blue-green planet
that is our abundant, verdant home. This
embodied experience of God is the awakening, where deep calls to deep and
knowledge becomes knowing.
“This we know. The
earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth.” Perhaps
you recognize this passage of the speech attributed to Chief Sealth (or Seattle)
of the Susquamish people, delivered in 1854. He
continued: “This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites
one family. All things are
connected. Whatever befalls the
earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We
did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to
the web, we do to ourselves.” All
things are connected like the blood which unites one family because we are all
one family – all Life on earth. We
are inextricably connected to this lovely, spinning planet. The
choir sang praise and gratitude for the earth, forever turning; for the skies,
for every sea; for the mountains, hills and pastures in their silent majesty –
reminding us that this is our home – lovingly created and pronounced Good.
What if we believed this? What
if we lived like it were true? What
if we really believed that there was one God, above, in and through all? Not
just in the people who look like us and think like us – but in all. Not
just in humans, but in all life – in trees and molds and grapes – in
dragonflies and bison and earthworms. In
fragile ecosystems like the marshes along the Gulf coast, sacrificed in
catastrophe to appease our insatiable need for non-renewable energy resources so
we can honor stockholders and avoid the complexity of change, even as we
desecrate the living, blue-green hills of earth – our only home.
I must confess every evening I watch in hopeless horror as the newsreel shows endless gushing plumes of oil –terrifying testament of the abundance of creation. How can we even begin to comprehend the magnitude of the impact this will have on our world – now and for generations to come? What hubris drives us to ignore our responsibility to the great web that connects us and to deny that we share the same fate as the land that we call home?
Wake now my senses
and hear the earth call;
Feel the deep power
of being in all,
Keep with the web of
creation your vow,
Giving, receiving, as
Love shows us how.
In my faith tradition, Unitarian Universalism, we try to
live our lives according to seven principles, some of those include affirming
and promoting the worth and dignity of each individual, encouraging one another
to spiritual growth, and the 7th principle that is the bedrock of
them all: we affirm the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Of which we are a part… not the masters… not the
reapers… not the pinnacle. An
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Chief Seattle said, “All things are connected. We
did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it…whatever we do to
the web, we do to ourselves.” Scripture
tells us, “There is one God, above all things, through all things, and in all
things.” “Keep with the web of
creation your vow, giving, receiving, as Love shows us how.” Giving,
receiving as Love shows us how.
The Bible teaches us that God is Love. As I wrote in the May Epistle newsletter article, “God” is not the Sacred’s name. God is Ultimate Reality – the Oneness and Wholeness that transforms us as we cannot transform ourselves. God is not an űber-parent making note of if we are naughty or nice; God is the very Ground of our Being. And if God is Love – then Love is the Ground of our Being – the essence of our nature is God. The essence of God’s nature is Love - Wholeness and Oneness – and Love is the Mystery that we will spend our whole lives trying to fathom. So, if God is Love, then when we talk about living according to God’s will, it means living in love. We don’t do God’s will, we live God’s life. Our lives are bound up in God’s – we share God’s essence, because “there is one God above all things, through all things, and in all things.” It’s not a God out there somewhere, but a God, a Love that is part and parcel of the web of all existence. This God is not just for one aspect of creation, humanity, and one way of understanding. This God is within us, among us, above us and below us. Wherever our foot falls, we can find God. In the tree that shades us, in the earth that receives us back into herself when life has used us up, in the stars that burn for eons in comparison of which our lives are but a gasp of surprise – we find God. In the crackling lightning, in the shattering earthquake, in the respect and responsibility we feel when we gaze into the eyes of another – we find God. Knowing this, deeply, is the awakening. Knowing that we carry within us a spark of divinity, the God-light, helps us to recognize that light in others, the deep power of being in all.
Wake now my senses,
and hear the earth call;
Feel the deep power
of being in all;
Keep with the web of
creation your vow,
Giving, receiving, as
Love shows us how.
Let us strive to wake up - to be like the Christ, Awakened
Ones. Let us waken our senses,
and not lose our way in a maze of words used to justify our complicity in
fracturing the interdependent web. Let
us live as if we believe that there is one God, above, through, and in all
things. Because this we know. The
earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth. What
befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. May
we keep, with the web of creation our vow – giving, receiving as Love – as
God – shows us how.
Amen.
Copyright © 2010 First Presbyterian Church