Balance in An Age of Overproduction - A Sermon
For Social Justice Sunday
By Rev. Daniel Gregoire
Unitarian Universalist Society of Grafton and Upton
2/25/2024
Reading:
“Architecture of Time” - from The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
20th century Polish American Rabbi and Scholar of Judaism, and leading American Civil Rights Leader.
Technical civilization is man's conquest of space.
It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time.
In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space.
To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective.
Yet to have more does not mean to be more.
The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time.
But time is the heart of existence.
To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks.
The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time.
There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.
Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.
Sermon:
“Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern…”
I have a sense that things in life are going wrong, that we have lost sight of what really matters in our own lives.
We spend so much energy on things, producing things, and using things, at a tremendous cost on the environment.
And, in the frenzy, our frenzy of always doing, we are missing something important, the point of it all.
The other day I was walking in Coes Pond Park in Worcester, where I found myself admiring the shoreline boardwalk (I love boardwalks) it was a cold, silver gelatine print kind of day, with a brisk north easterly wind. The kind of iconic day out that is only pleasant if one is walking at a moderate pace, and I was.
Of course I enjoyed the view, the hills, the ice on some parts of the water, and there were a good number of people walking on a Monday afternoon, parents and their kids were in the playground by the Old Stearns Tavern.
I walked the length of the boardwalk, from one end to the other. And, on my way back rather than looking out at the water, or at the sky, I looked down at the shoreline in front of me, where in the shallow waters and pools were revealed so many empty plastic water bottles, so many plastic straws, chip wrappers, all sorts of wrappers, lighters, the plastic tips of cigarillos, nips, and bits of foam Dunkin coffee cups.
It was all there, all the signs of our frenzied modern life, in an urban center, bits and pieces of trash that will last many lifetimes. I can’t help but see these things in the landscape and despair.
These things were but small reminders of all the ways we have “enhanced our power” in the realm of space, and with that: speed, efficiency, comfort, convenience, fantasy and escape all have a terribly high price.
My daughter Grace had a first birthday two weeks ago, and of course, she got many lovely and thoughtful gifts, that certainly delighted:
Silken clothes made with polyester, nylon and elastane components, (all polyurethanes, plastics fibers),
Cute stuffed animals bristling with luxuriant polyester fibers, and filled with plastic pellets, designed to simulate the softest fur, and the heft of something worth holding onto.
And of course Grace received all sorts of BPA free plastics in all kinds of bright colors, shapes and sizes, all for Grace to rattle, squeeze, spin and chew on.
Of course, my family is grateful for all of the wonderful thoughts behind these charming presents, but we are also overwhelmed, and Grace, will not always be a baby, she will outgrow these things, but these plastic playthings are forever.
I’m sure that many parents feel the same way we do, (overwhelmed by the generosity of others) and I am sure many people look at our consumer based, hyper productive society and feel a sense of over stimulation, and exhaustion. If we are honest about it, we can see this (THIS) is more than we can handle.
I feel an overwhelming sense that something is deeply wrong with how we are doing things as a society, and by extension, as a global civilization, and at the same time I feel like there is nothing we can do about it; nothing we can do differently. The plastics are just so perverse and pervasive, and the culture of consumerism and consumption is just so strong, and so few of us have the will to resist it.
But maybe something can be done…
Back in December some of you recall my sermon on the Flow of Plastics, where I read part of a modern day fable about the Problem of Plastic by Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs and Becky Tipper.
It was a story about the magic that has gone terribly, terribly wrong, a world that was drowning in the magic of plastics.
At first the magic was benign, and then it was everywhere, in everything.
I had the sense that we could all feel how a good and useful thing could get out of control very quickly and overwhelm our lives, our bodies, and disrupt life on the planet, in ways that will be very hard to reverse.
So, as we live into our Social Justice Theme of Environmental Justice at UUSGU, I hope that we will continue to look at our relationships to the web of life and our present day reliance on Plastics, and impacts of plastics on the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
More than that, I hope we might see how the issue of plastics is really a deeper symbol of the overwhelming business (busyness), ease and convenience, the overproduction and over-consumption that is plaguing our society and ultimately - our souls.
The issue of plastics might become a symbol of the spoiling of natural landscapes, our own bodies through the over persistence of microplastics, and even fueling the wars, both hot and cold, that are being fought in our name for petroleum (the key component of plastic), or on behalf of the United States all around the world.
So into this world of overwhelm, a distinct and gentle presence somehow makes itself known, and that “presence” is the practice of Sabbath, a day of rest from activity.
This idea of sabbath, or rest from activity, is the kind of pause that gives us, not just room to breathe, but room to think about our actions, and most of all time to simply Be.
Most of us will have some degree of familiarity with Sabbaths or Shabbat from Jewish traditions, and indeed Judaism offers one of the best articulated conceptions of the holy day, as we will hear from Rabbi Heschel, but the tradition of special days with a focus on rest and reverence exists in all cultures and a faith practices. Fridays for Islam, Saturday for Judaism, and Sundays for Christians.
To understand the idea, really, the command to rest and abstain from work on the seventh day, one has to understand the power of the one creation myth behind the Abrahamic faiths.
This is the beautiful story of the creation of the world in seven days, but with the seventh day being devoted to resting, and contemplating the creative act.
Sabbath is something that I am working on in my own life, with varying degrees of success.
I make a point of abstaining from work on Fridays, because that is the day that works best for me, but for others, Sundays make more sense, or Mondays, especially for those retail and hospitality sectors whose busiest days are Friday, Saturday and Sundays.
Whatever day of the week we choose, or whatever interval we choose, I say interval here, because for some it will not be possible or necessary to think in terms of weekly sabbaths.
Our, Neo-Pagan, Earth Honoring and Wiccan siblings, for instance, have a practice of Quarterly Sabbats corresponding to the changing of the seasons, these are festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lammas. These are holidays that we turn our attention to as well during our program year at UUSGU.
What matters for us as Unitarian Universalists is the meaning behind the day, the why of the sabbath that we take.
Sabbath moves us closer to balance in life, Sabbath becomes a hedge for when our often mindless way of living becomes out of balance.
Let’s consider our reading this morning from the acclaimed 20th century scholar and theologian, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel…
“Architecture of Time” - from The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
20th century Polish American Rabbi and Scholar of Judaism, and leading American Civil Rights Leader.
Technical civilization is man's conquest of space.
It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time.
In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space.
To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective.
Yet to have more does not mean to be more.
The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time.
But time is the heart of existence.
To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks.
The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time.
There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.
Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.
Returning to Plastics, the over use of plastics is just one manifestation of how things have come out of balance for us as a civilization.
We have deployed this magical material in our crusade against space, and our misguided desire to master it.
Plastics have given us a false sense of control, and a means to exert that sense of control over the landscape, but in so doing we have managed to harm all sorts of creatures including ourselves.
Heschel, offers us another way, a way of being in the land and more importantly of being in time, and that is through Sabbath.
Sabbath is the pause that transforms us.
If you can imagine it, Sabbath is like a room in time, something Hershel describes at one point as a “Palace in Time”, (isn’t that an incredible image?) a palatial setting where we can find and connect with the values that really matter.
That is what sabbath is.
At the most basic level Sabbath is a joyous and needed resting place for us to reflect on our actions, and perhaps choose to do things differently.
The world is crying out for sabbath, and the natural world is crying out for humankind to take a sabbath. This concept is reflected in the United Nation Environmental Sabbath program, where our prayer this morning comes from.
Civilization needs a generative pause, and we need to make a practice of taking a generative pause, so that we might live in the future, and not be undone by the prolific waste we are generating in the present.
My vision for our future is one where each person makes a practice of embracing a sabbath for themselves, and finds ways to bring others into their practice of sabbath.
And, on those sabbatical days, we will go slowly, go locally, choose exquisite quality over easy quantity, choose simplicity, choose vintage, choose nature over extravagance, and choose things that are lasting over everything convenient.
As Unitarian Universalists, as a people of faith, who see ourselves as active parts of the web of life, let us make a ritual practice of Refusing, Reducing, Reusing, Repurposing, and Recycling, as we extend our sabbath practice of “being present in time” into the realm of the everyday.
But most of all choose the joy of being in time, and the celebratory spaciousness that “being” provides. To choose being over doing is to lift up the value of presence over presents (or material things) in all cases.
In this age of overwhelming production, and overwhelming consumption, we must live into the pause of sabbath, to give ourselves time to consider how our consumerism is the beginning of our undoing, and the great unraveling of our society.
Let us find new ways of being in time, and living with each other through the practice of sabbath.
What day of rest can you commit to?
For Social Justice Sunday
By Rev. Daniel Gregoire
Unitarian Universalist Society of Grafton and Upton
2/25/2024
Reading:
“Architecture of Time” - from The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
20th century Polish American Rabbi and Scholar of Judaism, and leading American Civil Rights Leader.
Technical civilization is man's conquest of space.
It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time.
In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space.
To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective.
Yet to have more does not mean to be more.
The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time.
But time is the heart of existence.
To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks.
The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time.
There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.
Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.
Sermon:
“Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern…”
I have a sense that things in life are going wrong, that we have lost sight of what really matters in our own lives.
We spend so much energy on things, producing things, and using things, at a tremendous cost on the environment.
And, in the frenzy, our frenzy of always doing, we are missing something important, the point of it all.
The other day I was walking in Coes Pond Park in Worcester, where I found myself admiring the shoreline boardwalk (I love boardwalks) it was a cold, silver gelatine print kind of day, with a brisk north easterly wind. The kind of iconic day out that is only pleasant if one is walking at a moderate pace, and I was.
Of course I enjoyed the view, the hills, the ice on some parts of the water, and there were a good number of people walking on a Monday afternoon, parents and their kids were in the playground by the Old Stearns Tavern.
I walked the length of the boardwalk, from one end to the other. And, on my way back rather than looking out at the water, or at the sky, I looked down at the shoreline in front of me, where in the shallow waters and pools were revealed so many empty plastic water bottles, so many plastic straws, chip wrappers, all sorts of wrappers, lighters, the plastic tips of cigarillos, nips, and bits of foam Dunkin coffee cups.
It was all there, all the signs of our frenzied modern life, in an urban center, bits and pieces of trash that will last many lifetimes. I can’t help but see these things in the landscape and despair.
These things were but small reminders of all the ways we have “enhanced our power” in the realm of space, and with that: speed, efficiency, comfort, convenience, fantasy and escape all have a terribly high price.
My daughter Grace had a first birthday two weeks ago, and of course, she got many lovely and thoughtful gifts, that certainly delighted:
Silken clothes made with polyester, nylon and elastane components, (all polyurethanes, plastics fibers),
Cute stuffed animals bristling with luxuriant polyester fibers, and filled with plastic pellets, designed to simulate the softest fur, and the heft of something worth holding onto.
And of course Grace received all sorts of BPA free plastics in all kinds of bright colors, shapes and sizes, all for Grace to rattle, squeeze, spin and chew on.
Of course, my family is grateful for all of the wonderful thoughts behind these charming presents, but we are also overwhelmed, and Grace, will not always be a baby, she will outgrow these things, but these plastic playthings are forever.
I’m sure that many parents feel the same way we do, (overwhelmed by the generosity of others) and I am sure many people look at our consumer based, hyper productive society and feel a sense of over stimulation, and exhaustion. If we are honest about it, we can see this (THIS) is more than we can handle.
I feel an overwhelming sense that something is deeply wrong with how we are doing things as a society, and by extension, as a global civilization, and at the same time I feel like there is nothing we can do about it; nothing we can do differently. The plastics are just so perverse and pervasive, and the culture of consumerism and consumption is just so strong, and so few of us have the will to resist it.
But maybe something can be done…
Back in December some of you recall my sermon on the Flow of Plastics, where I read part of a modern day fable about the Problem of Plastic by Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs and Becky Tipper.
It was a story about the magic that has gone terribly, terribly wrong, a world that was drowning in the magic of plastics.
At first the magic was benign, and then it was everywhere, in everything.
I had the sense that we could all feel how a good and useful thing could get out of control very quickly and overwhelm our lives, our bodies, and disrupt life on the planet, in ways that will be very hard to reverse.
So, as we live into our Social Justice Theme of Environmental Justice at UUSGU, I hope that we will continue to look at our relationships to the web of life and our present day reliance on Plastics, and impacts of plastics on the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
More than that, I hope we might see how the issue of plastics is really a deeper symbol of the overwhelming business (busyness), ease and convenience, the overproduction and over-consumption that is plaguing our society and ultimately - our souls.
The issue of plastics might become a symbol of the spoiling of natural landscapes, our own bodies through the over persistence of microplastics, and even fueling the wars, both hot and cold, that are being fought in our name for petroleum (the key component of plastic), or on behalf of the United States all around the world.
So into this world of overwhelm, a distinct and gentle presence somehow makes itself known, and that “presence” is the practice of Sabbath, a day of rest from activity.
This idea of sabbath, or rest from activity, is the kind of pause that gives us, not just room to breathe, but room to think about our actions, and most of all time to simply Be.
Most of us will have some degree of familiarity with Sabbaths or Shabbat from Jewish traditions, and indeed Judaism offers one of the best articulated conceptions of the holy day, as we will hear from Rabbi Heschel, but the tradition of special days with a focus on rest and reverence exists in all cultures and a faith practices. Fridays for Islam, Saturday for Judaism, and Sundays for Christians.
To understand the idea, really, the command to rest and abstain from work on the seventh day, one has to understand the power of the one creation myth behind the Abrahamic faiths.
This is the beautiful story of the creation of the world in seven days, but with the seventh day being devoted to resting, and contemplating the creative act.
Sabbath is something that I am working on in my own life, with varying degrees of success.
I make a point of abstaining from work on Fridays, because that is the day that works best for me, but for others, Sundays make more sense, or Mondays, especially for those retail and hospitality sectors whose busiest days are Friday, Saturday and Sundays.
Whatever day of the week we choose, or whatever interval we choose, I say interval here, because for some it will not be possible or necessary to think in terms of weekly sabbaths.
Our, Neo-Pagan, Earth Honoring and Wiccan siblings, for instance, have a practice of Quarterly Sabbats corresponding to the changing of the seasons, these are festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lammas. These are holidays that we turn our attention to as well during our program year at UUSGU.
What matters for us as Unitarian Universalists is the meaning behind the day, the why of the sabbath that we take.
Sabbath moves us closer to balance in life, Sabbath becomes a hedge for when our often mindless way of living becomes out of balance.
Let’s consider our reading this morning from the acclaimed 20th century scholar and theologian, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel…
“Architecture of Time” - from The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
20th century Polish American Rabbi and Scholar of Judaism, and leading American Civil Rights Leader.
Technical civilization is man's conquest of space.
It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time.
In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space.
To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective.
Yet to have more does not mean to be more.
The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time.
But time is the heart of existence.
To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks.
The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time.
There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.
Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.
Returning to Plastics, the over use of plastics is just one manifestation of how things have come out of balance for us as a civilization.
We have deployed this magical material in our crusade against space, and our misguided desire to master it.
Plastics have given us a false sense of control, and a means to exert that sense of control over the landscape, but in so doing we have managed to harm all sorts of creatures including ourselves.
Heschel, offers us another way, a way of being in the land and more importantly of being in time, and that is through Sabbath.
Sabbath is the pause that transforms us.
If you can imagine it, Sabbath is like a room in time, something Hershel describes at one point as a “Palace in Time”, (isn’t that an incredible image?) a palatial setting where we can find and connect with the values that really matter.
That is what sabbath is.
At the most basic level Sabbath is a joyous and needed resting place for us to reflect on our actions, and perhaps choose to do things differently.
The world is crying out for sabbath, and the natural world is crying out for humankind to take a sabbath. This concept is reflected in the United Nation Environmental Sabbath program, where our prayer this morning comes from.
Civilization needs a generative pause, and we need to make a practice of taking a generative pause, so that we might live in the future, and not be undone by the prolific waste we are generating in the present.
My vision for our future is one where each person makes a practice of embracing a sabbath for themselves, and finds ways to bring others into their practice of sabbath.
And, on those sabbatical days, we will go slowly, go locally, choose exquisite quality over easy quantity, choose simplicity, choose vintage, choose nature over extravagance, and choose things that are lasting over everything convenient.
As Unitarian Universalists, as a people of faith, who see ourselves as active parts of the web of life, let us make a ritual practice of Refusing, Reducing, Reusing, Repurposing, and Recycling, as we extend our sabbath practice of “being present in time” into the realm of the everyday.
But most of all choose the joy of being in time, and the celebratory spaciousness that “being” provides. To choose being over doing is to lift up the value of presence over presents (or material things) in all cases.
In this age of overwhelming production, and overwhelming consumption, we must live into the pause of sabbath, to give ourselves time to consider how our consumerism is the beginning of our undoing, and the great unraveling of our society.
Let us find new ways of being in time, and living with each other through the practice of sabbath.
What day of rest can you commit to?
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