When writer, Jack Hitt, rented a farmhouse he discovered two large compost bins that had clearly been full for years. He wrote, "At the bottom of each bin was a slot with a door just big enough to accommodate a shovel. After a struggle involving my boots, a shovel, and some cuss words, out fell black dirt that crumbled like a muffin. And almost smelled like one, strangely sweet.

          "A friend who was becoming a fantastic gardener cautioned me to be sparing with the stuff. 'It's nuclear,' he warned. I was old enough to know better but still young enough to cling to the logical fallacy that if some is good, a lot more is better. So I filled two half barrels on my back porch with pure compost. From a nearby nursery I bought a couple of tomato plants. The pictures that came with them indicated they'd be. . .big, fat, deep red, juicy beauties that would need only to be sliced and salted. . . .I could [hardly wait] for them to grow.

          ". . . .I didn't have to [wait long]. . .After a day or so of quietly settling in, the plants went berserk. They seemed to double in size every night. . .[Each] morning, standing out on the porch with a cup of coffee, I would eye them warily-[they grew like Jack's beanstalk]. . . .I came to fear my tomatoes. . . .

          "The tomato fruits that followed immediately grew just as quickly and reddened even faster. I didn't know whether or not to pick them. They didn't appear big enough, but they did seem ripe. No matter. The next morning it was obvious that some varmit had gotten to them. They hung like spent red balloons. Then I looked more closely. My tomatoes-wracked by compost overdose. . .had simply exploded!" [I believe he meant "burst."

Sermon

         In these days of summer, my mind is much engaged with our Seventh Principle-the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part. Of course, this summer's weather is hardly something any of us can ignore. But I have something else that is compelling-compost. So far as I'm concerned stirring scraps of food with leaves and grass cuttings and have it all turn into black, crumbly soil chock full of big, juicy earthworms is nothing short of a miracle! Knowing how much compost to use for which plants is a matter of study or careful observation, which we must do, otherwise we'll end up with exploding vegetables like Jack Hitt in our reading.

         Perhaps it is not so simple as to just study and observe to get our compost to interact just right with plants. Perhaps it takes being with the plants, understanding them, listening to their rhythm. We have all been taught that we are at the top of the chain of life, that only we have reason and consciousness, meaning awareness of our existence. I propose that it is likely that all things have consciousness of a sort. For saying such a thing as this five or six hundred years ago, I could have been burned as a heretic. Ancient Hindu scripture asserted this awareness thousands of years ago.

         Jack Hitt tells us about his visit with a friend who lived without electricity in a rustic cabin in the woods of Appalachia. He grew most of his own food and, of course, he composted. Jack was glad to be able to tell his friend about his exploding tomatoes. The friend listened seriously without laughter. Then he said, "The food I grow from this soil is different from other food. It's better. It's superior. It changes you when you eat it. The vegetables from my garden, I believe, are actually structurally different from the ones you buy in the store. I believe they actually are changing the cellular structure of my body. . .When I eat now, it's like I'm, consuming something sacred, something holy, something divine."

         Jack was taken aback (and so was I upon reading this account) for what his friend had described was, Jack says, "the consumption of the divine essence. . .It was communion, but a rustic one not yet encumbered with liturgy and custom. No ceremony, no interpretation, just the thing itself."

         Now, someone who lives alone, deep in the woods in this day and age is bound to see things differently. Since the human drama is far away, a person's mind may focus exclusively on the things of everyday life outside the drama and may understand things about the world of nature that eludes those of us steeped in life tasks. In Walden, Henry David Thoreau tells us that he wanted to 'suck the marrow out of life.' He seems to have done precisely that. The book Walden is still one of the few classics that keeps selling generation after generation. It even comes in a small pocket version.

         Many years ago, I joined the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which was founded by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell. When Mitchell beheld the earth from the moon, he had an epiphany, or rather, he understood something deeper about the world and life in that moment. When he tried to relay this experience from the space ship, NASA cut off his transmission, no doubt thinking he'd gone crazy. When he returned to earth, he retired from the Air Force and NASA and founded the Institute to study consciousness and paranormal experiences. I have a copy of this journal with me today if you'd like to look at it. When I receive this quarterly journal, I always look through it for the quote under a beautiful, natural scene. This time the quote was from a Navajo song. It said, "The thoughts of the Earth are my thoughts. The voice of the Earth is my voice."

         In an article in the Institute's June-August 2002 journal (pp 10-13), philosopher Christian De Quincey asks, "What if consciousness participates in the way the world works?" He indicates that we have only recently acknowledged the connection between the mind and the body. We can hardly deny that a stressed mind results in a stressed body. He points out that the natural world also has a consciousness. De Quincy says that "the sacred is all around us in nature-for example watching a sunset. . .walking through a forest or on a beach. . .planting flowers or vegetables. . .holding the hand of a dying parent. . . .The way to meaning in our lives is by reconnecting with the world of nature-through exuberant participation or through the stillness of meditation, just being present and listening."

         Where will this communing with nature get us? After all, the argument between Creationism and Darwinian Evolution goes on and on. Hasn't it ever occurred to us that both ideas may contain some truth? The impetus to evolve may have within it the intelligence that one philosopher-scientist Henri Bergson called "the elan vital-the creative force pulsing through evolution" (De Quincy, p.45). If nature could convey to us some of its knowledge, we might attempt to ponder just a few of the problems of our world, such as the heating up of the planet causing the snows of Kilimanjaro to recede, the shrinking of the Andean glaciers upon which Peru depends for its water supply, the depletion of our fisheries world-wide, and the desertification of much of Africa. And so many, many other global problems.

         We could do worse than meditate upon our earth, treat it with the awe we reserve for things religious, and plant our gardens with reverence and…yes, compost!

         You might remember the story of the Pastor who exclaimed to the gardener, "My son, you and God have done a wonderful job with that garden."

         The gardener replied, "Yes, Pastor, and you should have seen it when God had it by Herself!" Seriously though, the famous spiritual farming community called Findhorn in Scotland is reputed to have grown 40 lb. cabbages by tender loving care and talking to them. Even my own mother would have told you about how she talked to her plants and how in response, they flourished.

         The world's famous teachers have urged us to think differently. In his parables, Jesus, like a Zen master, urged creative thinking. In one parable, Jesus says "the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed." Mustard was then and is now a great nuisance plant to farmers. This even confused the people of the day. At another time, when the disciples answered too quickly to a question without thinking deeply, Jesus says, "Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors will go into the kingdom of God before you." (Are there any IRS employees here?) We have heard curious stories about environmentalists spending years at the top of an ancient 600 year old Douglas Fir tree to prevent it from being cut down. They say they are trying to get us to think differently about trees and their value to us. After all, the air we breathe depends upon the trees, doesn't it?

         The problems of our world are too great to be solved by mere logic. We need people-scientists, philosophers, politicians, ordinary workers-getting together, pondering the melting glaciers, pondering the shrinking fisheries of the sea, pondering world hunger, and the like. This pondering will include processes beyond philosophy and logic, beyond religion. Perhaps the solutions lie between the theory of Creationism and the theory of Evolution. One person said, "It will take time to come up with new shaggy-dog stories, or is it shaggy-god stories." (Hitt, p51)

         We have to be patient with ourselves. In our responsive reading today, Denise Levertov tells us, "…we have only begun to love the earth. We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life. How could we tire of hope!-so much is in bud."

         When we speak in the manner I have ventured into today, I assure you we enter into the realm of process theology. Our very own Unitarian Universalist theologian, Henry Nelson Wieman, said that human individuals undergo growth for our greater abundance just as sunshine, air and earth undergo transformation into a poppy. (Robinson, p. 181)

         The Gospel According to the Earth has not yet been written. Whereas other Gospels required "The Word," the Gospel of the Earth must be conceived first in desire and vision and then it can be articulated. When it is written, it will no doubt have stories of people making and using compost and doing all the things we are familiar with when cultivating a spiritual path or a garden; perhaps the two are the same thing. May the world of nature speak to us not only beauty but also wisdom and may we have ears that hear its chords. And may we watch out for dynamite compost!

References

         The following have informed and inspired this sermon:

         De Quincy, Christian. "Stories Matter, Matter Stories," from IONS Noetic Sciences Review, June-August 2002. This article was based on De Quincy's book Radical Nature: Rediscovering the Soul of Matter, Invisible Cities Press, 2002.

         Hitt, Jack. "A Gospel According to the Earth: Sown by Science, a New Eco-Faith Takes Root," from Harper's Magazine, July 2003. I am indebted to this article for its title (for my sermon) and for valuable quotations.

         Robinson, David. The Unitarians and the Universalists, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1985.