"Liberating Women, Liberating Earth"
"So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture,
so much is in bud." - Denise Levertov
Gardens, real ones, not the bright perfect ones
we see in books and magazines,
are in a constant state of becoming.
Sometimes they look amazing,
sometimes they look slightly ragged.
Or, in the case of my own home garden,
it has mostly looked chaotic.
Lately, thanks to the care of George Patton,
one of our very own Throop Learn Garden folks,
mine is getting into a pretty good state.
But before George started helping,
it was looking a little unruly,
to put it nicely.
And one of the weediest, messiest
parts of the garden was centered around
a couple of old agave plants.
Agaves, when taken care of, are quite beautiful.
Large, long, spiky leaves,
create a rosette shape.
They flower only once in their lifetimes, and when they do - wow!
A tall stem rises out of the center,
towering over the house,
towering over nearby trees.
It’s topped with multiple short, tubular flowers.
It’s stunning.
And as the flowers develop,
they produce suckers that fall off.
Eventually, after they flowering is over,
the plant itself dies.
And you are left with a big, dead plant in your front yard!
For years,
I was stymied by the presence of
what became multiple large mounds
of dead agave,
surrounded by small sucker plants
of agave taking root all around it.
For the life of me,
I never could figure out how to tackle the agave.
Was I supposed to saw off the big leaves?
Take it out from underneath?
There was so much dead material,
I couldn’t imagine where to start.
And then George came along.
Two weeks ago,
he showed me how to cut off the dead leaves at the base.
Sometimes all it takes is one person
with some know-how and a vision.
So I started cutting,
and pruning.
Layer by layer,
I stripped away the dead stalks.
And once enough of them were gone,
I was able to start lifting hollow hulls
of old agaves completely
out of the ground.
There’s no way I could have started by
pulling the old rotten center out of the ground.
It was weighted down by too many
layers of dead leaves.
It was only after I had cleared some space,
pruned away dead grass and old roses and ratty stems,
that I could get to the heart of the matter
and pull out the dead plants.
Now, in its place,
is a big open spot
with strong sunlight.
An inviting space for new life to emerge.
As we engage in our Thirty Days for the Earth,
preparing ourselves to make a significant personal commitment
to help heal our planet on April 17,
we’re doing some of that peeling away of layers
to see what we can make space for
in our own lives.
The structural evil we considered in March
is like that old agave plant.
Layers and layers,
decades and decades
of moral oblivion and structural evil conspire together
to hide the roots of unjust systems.
It hard for us to see linked oppressions,
hard for us to understand how our small individual actions
may cause great harm to the rest of Creation.
But we are learning that they do,
and we are getting inspired to shift
our own patterns of behavior.
In April, we move away from considering evil
and embrace liberation.
Eco-feminism has a lot to teach us
about liberating our own selves,
and our planet,
from those oppressive systems
that strangle us.
We’ve talked about eco-feminism here before,
but here’s a refresher in six short points:
An eco-feminist theology derives joy and spiritual sustenance
from the beauty and life-force of Creation.
However, the understanding doesn’t end there.
In addition to the joy and beauty found in the natural world,
eco-feminism also names the awful oppression
that is part and parcel of Creation.
And eco-feminists further understand
that many of the same tendencies,
the same evils,
that inflict violence and harm onto women
are the same as those that inflict
violence and harm onto earth.
Eco-feminists acknowledge that those brutal, deep,
and sometimes subtle forms of oppression,
are consistently experienced by people of color,
by poor communities in the global south,
by non-heteronormative people,
and so many others.
That oppression and harm is linked
directly to the abuse of earth’s resources,
and that means human and non-human life,
for the financial gain of a very few.
We strive to build an feminist ecological-economic ethic,
a way of being in the world
that respects the intrinsic value
of the many different beings
that make up all Creation.
This philosophy,
this understanding that the beauty and brokenness of our world
go hand in hand,
was lifted up today
in the responsive reading from Denise Levertov:
There is too much broken that must be mended,
Too much hurt that we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.
We have only begun to know the power
that is in us if we would join our solitudes
in the communion of struggle.
So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture,
so much is in bud.
The enduring power and depth
of Unitarian Universalism
is our ability to name and hold
the complexities of this world.
To love Creation with all of our heart,
and all of our mind,
feeling exuberance at the incredible, amazing beauty
of it all - yes!
While also owning the messy parts,
and doing our best to create a world
where justice prevails.
Like the agave in my yard
that had to be pulled apart,
layer by layer,
in order to remove it ...
the oppressions that we attempt to dismantle
are multi-faceted and tangled up,
hard to see what we can pull on
in order to begin the unraveling.
Creating a world in which women,
marginalized people,
and all non-human parts of our planet
can thrive,
are liberated from the chains that bind them ...
this work is an on-going process,
a life-long spiritual practice.
And who’s going to do that?
We are!
First,
we must embrace
of a new way of living in this world.
In UU minister circles,
we love to talk about our spiritual practice.
At one point at Throop,
you all had nametags that included not only your name,
but also your chosen spiritual practice.
Sometimes that question causes me anxiety.
I’m not quite sure how to answer.
It feels, for me, a little pompous
to praise my own prayer life,
or meditation practices,
such that they are
at any one time or another.
However, once my answer was,
“I have a practice of paying attention.”
Turns out,
in the theological world,
this has an impressive name:
“attention epistemology.” (1)
Epistemology just means a way of knowing.
And “attention epistemology” means,
quite simply,
“the kind of knowledge that comes
from paying close attention
to something other than oneself.”
My guess is every single one of you
does this at some time or another.
Perhaps you weren’t cognizant of it,
or didn’t realize that
you could make a spiritual practice out of it.
A story from a friend of mine
conveys this idea.
A few years ago, she moved from Los Angeles to Ireland
to be with her husband.
She was thousands of miles away from home.
They lived on the outskirts of town,
and her husband took their one car
into work each day.
She was distanced from her family, her friends, her community, her culture.
She was lonely!
One afternoon,
as the rain pattered outside,
she was crying, feeling really miserable.
She looked out the window,
and there was the tiniest little kitten in her yard.
It was clearly lost or abandoned.
In that one moment,
everything was altered.
Her loneliness, her sadness, disappeared
and in its place was concern and care for the kitten.
Her feelings of displacement
no longer seemed as strong.
She forgot herself in that instant
as she focused on the needs of the kitten.
An experience like this isn’t just therapeutic.
“Attention epistemology is listening,
paying attention to another, the other;
in itself, for itself.
It is the opposite of means-end thinking,
thinking of anything,
everything,
as useful,
necessary ...
of utilitarian value.” (2)
This kind of focused attention
allows us to see the particularity
of so much of Creation,
and allows us to know them
in and of themselves,
rather than how they may benefit
or relate to us.
Developing this in ourselves -
letting go of the idea that earth’s resources
are here for us to take and use -
is crucial for us to create the world we dream of.
Seeing Creation in a new way -
it will change us;
and in turn, we will change the systems around us.
In the next few weeks,
as part of our thirty days for the earth,
I want you to try two things.
One, the practice of seeing,
really seeing and noticing,
the world around you.
Two, imagine yourself not just as stewards of life on earth ...
but in deep solidarity with all earth’s creatures,
especially the most vulnerable. (3)
It is through that kind of inner work
that we can begin to see a new way.
Understanding Creation anew shifts our outer choices.
We can start to envision and develop
a feminist ecological-economic ethic.
(We’ll explore that more deeply on April 17.)
Envision a world in which one can live
as a whole being,
physical and spiritual,
body and soul.
The most exciting thing about this -
it’s not already set up for us.
WE are part of the turning,
the shaping,
the becoming.
Remember,
We have only begun to love the earth.
We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life.
We have only begun to imagine justice and mercy.
Only begun to envision how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower, not as oppressors.
We have only begun to know the power
that is in us if we would join our solitudes
in the communion of struggle.
Let’s get on with it!
Notes
1. McFague, Sallie. “The Body of God: An Ecological Theology,” p. 49.
2. Ibid. pp. 49-50.
3. Ibid. p. 197.
we see in books and magazines,
are in a constant state of becoming.
Sometimes they look amazing,
sometimes they look slightly ragged.
Or, in the case of my own home garden,
it has mostly looked chaotic.
Lately, thanks to the care of George Patton,
one of our very own Throop Learn Garden folks,
mine is getting into a pretty good state.
But before George started helping,
it was looking a little unruly,
to put it nicely.
And one of the weediest, messiest
parts of the garden was centered around
a couple of old agave plants.
Agaves, when taken care of, are quite beautiful.
Large, long, spiky leaves,
create a rosette shape.
They flower only once in their lifetimes, and when they do - wow!
A tall stem rises out of the center,
towering over the house,
towering over nearby trees.
It’s topped with multiple short, tubular flowers.
It’s stunning.
And as the flowers develop,
they produce suckers that fall off.
Eventually, after they flowering is over,
the plant itself dies.
And you are left with a big, dead plant in your front yard!
For years,
I was stymied by the presence of
what became multiple large mounds
of dead agave,
surrounded by small sucker plants
of agave taking root all around it.
For the life of me,
I never could figure out how to tackle the agave.
Was I supposed to saw off the big leaves?
Take it out from underneath?
There was so much dead material,
I couldn’t imagine where to start.
And then George came along.
Two weeks ago,
he showed me how to cut off the dead leaves at the base.
Sometimes all it takes is one person
with some know-how and a vision.
So I started cutting,
and pruning.
Layer by layer,
I stripped away the dead stalks.
And once enough of them were gone,
I was able to start lifting hollow hulls
of old agaves completely
out of the ground.
There’s no way I could have started by
pulling the old rotten center out of the ground.
It was weighted down by too many
layers of dead leaves.
It was only after I had cleared some space,
pruned away dead grass and old roses and ratty stems,
that I could get to the heart of the matter
and pull out the dead plants.
Now, in its place,
is a big open spot
with strong sunlight.
An inviting space for new life to emerge.
As we engage in our Thirty Days for the Earth,
preparing ourselves to make a significant personal commitment
to help heal our planet on April 17,
we’re doing some of that peeling away of layers
to see what we can make space for
in our own lives.
The structural evil we considered in March
is like that old agave plant.
Layers and layers,
decades and decades
of moral oblivion and structural evil conspire together
to hide the roots of unjust systems.
It hard for us to see linked oppressions,
hard for us to understand how our small individual actions
may cause great harm to the rest of Creation.
But we are learning that they do,
and we are getting inspired to shift
our own patterns of behavior.
In April, we move away from considering evil
and embrace liberation.
Eco-feminism has a lot to teach us
about liberating our own selves,
and our planet,
from those oppressive systems
that strangle us.
We’ve talked about eco-feminism here before,
but here’s a refresher in six short points:
An eco-feminist theology derives joy and spiritual sustenance
from the beauty and life-force of Creation.
However, the understanding doesn’t end there.
In addition to the joy and beauty found in the natural world,
eco-feminism also names the awful oppression
that is part and parcel of Creation.
And eco-feminists further understand
that many of the same tendencies,
the same evils,
that inflict violence and harm onto women
are the same as those that inflict
violence and harm onto earth.
Eco-feminists acknowledge that those brutal, deep,
and sometimes subtle forms of oppression,
are consistently experienced by people of color,
by poor communities in the global south,
by non-heteronormative people,
and so many others.
That oppression and harm is linked
directly to the abuse of earth’s resources,
and that means human and non-human life,
for the financial gain of a very few.
We strive to build an feminist ecological-economic ethic,
a way of being in the world
that respects the intrinsic value
of the many different beings
that make up all Creation.
This philosophy,
this understanding that the beauty and brokenness of our world
go hand in hand,
was lifted up today
in the responsive reading from Denise Levertov:
There is too much broken that must be mended,
Too much hurt that we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.
We have only begun to know the power
that is in us if we would join our solitudes
in the communion of struggle.
So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture,
so much is in bud.
The enduring power and depth
of Unitarian Universalism
is our ability to name and hold
the complexities of this world.
To love Creation with all of our heart,
and all of our mind,
feeling exuberance at the incredible, amazing beauty
of it all - yes!
While also owning the messy parts,
and doing our best to create a world
where justice prevails.
Like the agave in my yard
that had to be pulled apart,
layer by layer,
in order to remove it ...
the oppressions that we attempt to dismantle
are multi-faceted and tangled up,
hard to see what we can pull on
in order to begin the unraveling.
Creating a world in which women,
marginalized people,
and all non-human parts of our planet
can thrive,
are liberated from the chains that bind them ...
this work is an on-going process,
a life-long spiritual practice.
And who’s going to do that?
We are!
First,
we must embrace
of a new way of living in this world.
In UU minister circles,
we love to talk about our spiritual practice.
At one point at Throop,
you all had nametags that included not only your name,
but also your chosen spiritual practice.
Sometimes that question causes me anxiety.
I’m not quite sure how to answer.
It feels, for me, a little pompous
to praise my own prayer life,
or meditation practices,
such that they are
at any one time or another.
However, once my answer was,
“I have a practice of paying attention.”
Turns out,
in the theological world,
this has an impressive name:
“attention epistemology.” (1)
Epistemology just means a way of knowing.
And “attention epistemology” means,
quite simply,
“the kind of knowledge that comes
from paying close attention
to something other than oneself.”
My guess is every single one of you
does this at some time or another.
Perhaps you weren’t cognizant of it,
or didn’t realize that
you could make a spiritual practice out of it.
A story from a friend of mine
conveys this idea.
A few years ago, she moved from Los Angeles to Ireland
to be with her husband.
She was thousands of miles away from home.
They lived on the outskirts of town,
and her husband took their one car
into work each day.
She was distanced from her family, her friends, her community, her culture.
She was lonely!
One afternoon,
as the rain pattered outside,
she was crying, feeling really miserable.
She looked out the window,
and there was the tiniest little kitten in her yard.
It was clearly lost or abandoned.
In that one moment,
everything was altered.
Her loneliness, her sadness, disappeared
and in its place was concern and care for the kitten.
Her feelings of displacement
no longer seemed as strong.
She forgot herself in that instant
as she focused on the needs of the kitten.
An experience like this isn’t just therapeutic.
“Attention epistemology is listening,
paying attention to another, the other;
in itself, for itself.
It is the opposite of means-end thinking,
thinking of anything,
everything,
as useful,
necessary ...
of utilitarian value.” (2)
This kind of focused attention
allows us to see the particularity
of so much of Creation,
and allows us to know them
in and of themselves,
rather than how they may benefit
or relate to us.
Developing this in ourselves -
letting go of the idea that earth’s resources
are here for us to take and use -
is crucial for us to create the world we dream of.
Seeing Creation in a new way -
it will change us;
and in turn, we will change the systems around us.
In the next few weeks,
as part of our thirty days for the earth,
I want you to try two things.
One, the practice of seeing,
really seeing and noticing,
the world around you.
Two, imagine yourself not just as stewards of life on earth ...
but in deep solidarity with all earth’s creatures,
especially the most vulnerable. (3)
It is through that kind of inner work
that we can begin to see a new way.
Understanding Creation anew shifts our outer choices.
We can start to envision and develop
a feminist ecological-economic ethic.
(We’ll explore that more deeply on April 17.)
Envision a world in which one can live
as a whole being,
physical and spiritual,
body and soul.
The most exciting thing about this -
it’s not already set up for us.
WE are part of the turning,
the shaping,
the becoming.
Remember,
We have only begun to love the earth.
We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life.
We have only begun to imagine justice and mercy.
Only begun to envision how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower, not as oppressors.
We have only begun to know the power
that is in us if we would join our solitudes
in the communion of struggle.
Let’s get on with it!
Notes
1. McFague, Sallie. “The Body of God: An Ecological Theology,” p. 49.
2. Ibid. pp. 49-50.
3. Ibid. p. 197.