Please click the link to watch Rev. Cynthia Snavely’s video recording of this sermon.

Our theme for this month is “Building Belonging,” and originally this was going to be a sermon about building a sense of belonging within the community of our congregation, but then I found out that this Sunday is SunDay.

The SunDay website says, “Sun Day is a day of action on September 21, 2025, celebrating the power of clean energy.

“The clean energy revolution is here. Solar, wind and batteries are the cheapest form of power on the planet, lowering costs, creating new jobs, and strengthening our communities. But some politicians and industries are trying to hold it back.

“On Sep 21, we’ll celebrate the progress we’ve made and push for more. We’ll install new solar, host e-bike parades, give heat pump tours, and rally for change. Together, we’ll make the sun rise on our clean energy future,” (from Sun Day).

I decided that I needed to think beyond belonging to the community of this congregation and make this sermon about belonging to the community of this earth, and I knew who I needed to consult as a resource: Joanna Macy. She was at the front of my mind, as I had recently seen her obituary. She died on July 19 of this year at the age of 96. Wikipedia describes her as an “American environmental activist, author and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology,” (from Joanna Macy – Wikipedia).

I went to the library and borrowed Macy and Chris Johnstone’s book from 2012, titled Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy. They begin the book by noting that there are three stories we tell.

They write, “We describe three stories, or versions of reality, each acting as a lens through which we see and understand what is going on.

“In the first of these, Business as Usual, the defining assumption is that there is little need to change the way we live. Economic growth is regarded as essential for prosperity, and the central plot is about getting ahead. The second story, The Great Unraveling, draws attention to the disasters that Business as Usual is taking us toward. As well as those it has already brought about. It is an account, backed by evidence, of the collapse of ecological and social systems, the disturbance of climate, the depletion of resources, and the mass extinction of species.”

As they note, it is easy to get sucked into despair by that story. But there is a third story. The third story they call The Great Turning.

They write, “The third story is held and embodied by those who know the first story is leading us to catastrophe and who refuse to let the second story have the last word.… it is about the epochal transition from an industrial society committed to economic growth to a life-sustaining society committed to the healing and recovery of our world.”

All of us are occasionally going to get sucked back into the story of Business as Usual, or the story of The World’s Gone to Hell in a Handbasket; what can we do about it?

If we want to live more and more consistently in that third story, the one of active hope, they say we need to come from a place of gratitude, honor our pain for the world, develop a wider sense of self, develop a different idea of power—not as hierarchical, but as in connections and relationships, which leads to richer experiences of community, and finally a larger view of time—not one year, five years, or ten, but to the seventh generation.  

It is not in Macy and Johnstone’s book, but I have been told that Western white children asked to draw a picture of themselves will draw themselves as the largest, most prominent thing in their picture. Native American children draw themselves as one small piece included within a landscape. In our Time for All Ages story, The Curious Garden by Peter Brown, Liam comes to see himself as part of the landscape, and, because he does, others begin to do so too. That can happen when we begin to live in that third story, the one moving us toward “a life-sustaining society committed to the healing and recovery of our world.” When we live in that story, those around us may be emboldened to begin living in that story too.

In my video to tell you a bit about this service, I read a piece from Macy and Johnstone’s book, in which they quoted a piece from what the Haudenosaunee, Native Americans also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, presented to the United Nations back in 1977.

“’The original instructions direct that we who walk about on the Earth are to express a great respect, an affection, and a gratitude toward all the spirits which create and support Life. We give a greeting and thanksgiving to the many supporters of our own lives—the corn, beans, squash, the winds, the sun. When people cease to respect and express gratitude for these many things, then all life will be destroyed, and human life on this planet will come to an end.’”

Macy and Johnstone write, “The Haudenosaunee’s expressions of thanksgiving are ‘the words that come before all else’ and precede every council meeting…. What is striking about their thanksgiving prayers is that the Haudenosaunee don’t focus on possessions or personal good fortune. Rather, the emphasis is on the blessings we all receive because we are part of the natural world.”

We are a part of the natural world. When we come to know that deep in our hearts and souls, we will have built a sense of belonging that includes in our community the winds, the rains, the sun, the plants, the animals, as well as the people, the whole Earth.

Macy and Johnstone write, “The Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh was once asked what we need to do to save the world. ‘What we most need to do,’ he replied, ‘is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying.’…  

“This view of the self is very different from that found in the Business as Usual model. Its extreme individualism takes each of us as a separate bundle of self-interest, with motivations and emotions that only make sense within the confines of our own stories. Pain for the world tells a different story, one about our interconnectedness. We feel distress when other beings suffer because, at a deep level, we are not separate from them.”

I thought about that when I read an article by Anumita Kaur and Emmanuel Felton

this week. They wrote, “The Trump administration has axed nearly two dozen projects addressing health and environmental issues in Southern Black communities, a Washington Post analysis found, reversing years of work to address pollution, sewage leaks, flooding and more.

“Rural Alabama counties lost a $14 million grant to upgrade sanitation systems so decrepit that some residents have contracted hookworm. A historically Black Virginia neighborhood won’t receive a $20 million grant to stop severe flooding.

“In Louisiana, multiple federal efforts have been halted: a Justice Department lawsuit against a corporation accused of worsening cancer risks in a predominantly Black neighborhood; the designation of one area as a national historic landmark to limit industrialization; and grants from the Environmental Protection Agency to support monitoring air quality in “Cancer Alley,” an 80-mile stretch of mostly Black towns and villages hit hard by industrial pollution,” (from Trump ends critical environmental, health projects in Black communities – The Washington Post).

I don’t live in those Black communities, but they are a part of my larger self. They and I belong to the same Earth. What happens to them happens to my community, my Earth, myself.

Macy and Johnstone say that there is a twelfth-century prophecy from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition that inspires them both. Joanna Macy’s friend and teacher, Dugu Choegyal Rinpoche, told her a particular version of the story.

“There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger…. It is just at this point in our history, when the future of all beings seems to hang by the frailest of threads, that the kingdom of Shambhala emerges.

“You can’t go there, because it is not a place. It exists in the hearts and minds of the Shambhala warriors….

“(Dugu Choegyal Rinpoche said), ’Now is the time for the Shambhala warriors to go into training.’

“‘How do they train?’ asked Joanna.

“‘They train in the use of two (weapons),’ he said.

“‘What are they?’ Joanna asked.

…”‘One,’ he said, ‘is compassion. The other is insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena.’”

The radical interdependence of all phenomena. To understand that is to have built a sense of belonging which cares for all and includes all.

Macy and Johnstone tell a Danish story of two kings. We might say one has trained with the Shambhala weapons, and the other has not. In the folktale the two kings meet.

“’You see that tower,’ said the first king to the second, pointing to a tall, highly fortified part of his castle. ‘In my kingdom, I can command any of my subjects to climb to the top and then jump to their death. Such is my power that all will obey.” The second king, who was visiting, looked around him and then pointed to a small, humble dwelling nearby.

“‘In my kingdom,’ he said, ‘I can knock on any door of a house like that, and in any town or village, I will be welcomed. Such is my power that I can stay overnight, sleeping well without any fear for my safety.’”

Sun Day is about solar energy, wind, and other renewable sources of power, but it is about much more than solar panels and electric cars. It is about the kind of community we want our Earth to be, an Earth that is one community, where we care about everyone and everything else, we know that they care for us, and we are thankful for that caring.

One last piece from Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone’s book, Active Hope:

“On the last afternoon of a two-week intensive workshop, Joanna was out walking and met a young monk from the retreat center hosting the event.

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘I expect now on your last day you’ll be giving people vows.’ Joanna told him that wasn’t something she did.

“‘Pity,’ he said, ‘I find—in my own life—vows so very helpful, because they channel my energy to do what I really want to do.’

“Continuing on her walk, Joanna looked at her hand and thought if we were to have vows, they should not number more than the fingers and thumb on one hand. Almost immediately the following five vows came to her.

“I vow to myself and each of you:

“To commit myself daily to the healing of the world and the welfare of all beings.

“To live on Earth more lightly and less violently in the food, products and energy I consume.

“To draw strength and guidance from the living Earth, the ancestors, the future generations, and my brothers and sisters of all species

“To support others in our work for the world and to ask for help when I need it.

“To pursue a daily practice that clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart, and supports me in observing these vows.”

With our own versions of such vows, may we be empowered to live in that third story, the one that is about “the… transition…. to a life-sustaining society committed to the healing and recovery of our world.” May it be so. Amen. Blessed Be.

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