March 22, 7:00pm (Kevin Westling)
There is indeed a spiritual relationship with Earth and those of us who live in the city are always in danger of losing it. We are always in danger of forgetting, of growing distant, of becoming disconnected, of turning deaf and blind and mute when it comes to loving and being loved by Earth.
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“I’ve know rivers”
by Cam Miller
March 21, 2010 @ 7:00pm
I’ve known rivers…
The White River running through my hometown,
the one my mother said never to swim in
‘cause two little boys fell off their raft
and an underwater eddy pulled them under.
I didn’t know what an underwater eddy was
but I was scared of them
from that day forward.
In fact anyone named Eddy had my attention.
The White River flooded in the spring
and we helped stack sandbags
until the year they built real levies.
The White River looks and smells like home.
The Mississinewa
that dirty little river
ran fast in the spring
and slow like a clogged drain in the summer.
The old man down the street
fished in it and showed me
big ole slimy fish,
ugly fish,
prehistoric looking fish
he caught in it –
and snapping turtles from which he made soup.
When I was 18,
and working on the County Highway Department,
I was on the work detail
that had to go down to the Mississinewa…
and haul out the lifeless bodies
of seven grown hogs
some evil person had shot.
The Mississinewa looks and feels like
a hot Indiana August afternoon,
when nothing moves
and there is nothing to do but take a nap.
I met the Niagara River for the first time
as a middle-aged man:
its power opened me up inside
and its blueness sang inside me.
I hike near Devil’s Hole where few people walk,
and at Broderick Park I watch the relentless current dance
as the old men fish.
I’ve known farms
and farmers…
I grew up surrounded by them.
As a boy
I measured myself in the tire ruts of Massie Ferguson tractors,
and chased piglets in the spring mud.
As a teenager I compared my strength to others
as we heaved bails of hay on the flatbeds for pay.
The farmers had an aura about them,
somewhere between the grim silence of a judge
and the heroic silhouette of a Fire Fighter.
They were the ones that knew everything
but who spoke little,
and they chewed and spit.
Farms and Farmers smelled like the Earth and felt like a rock.
I’ve known moons…
Lonely moons when I was desperate for company,
in anguish because I was not next to someone in particular.
Moons in the west,
behind the Grand Titons
or casting shadows over the Badlands;
a moon so massive and hanging so low
it seems about to collide with the earth,
and so pale white, it must be sick.
Moons that warm the heart
when you can see your breath,
moons that chill the mind when you are already scared.
I once did an outdoor wedding under a blue moon,
and afterward we ate Moon Pies.
The moon seems like the extravagance of the Creator
and feels like a miracle.
Each of the readings tonight
sing on sweetened lips
about a relationship to the Earth –
to Nature itself –
that is more than just the substance of Nature.
Our relationship is more than molecules,
more than biology,
more than ecology…
It is history
and memory
and the personal projection of our own internal life
on the world of living things all around us.
We live here in the city,
surrounded by the makings of human beings
but syncopated by voices of Earth and its relentlessness.
The abandoned Brownfield’s of Buffalo,
with their rambling dead factories
and refuse piled akimbo,
stand as silent testament to Earth’s power.
Human hardnesses made of iron and steel
give way and break apart
as Earth heaves upward in winter,
and cracks apart in summer,
and grows and grows and grows
until even waste is buried over time.
We live as if Earth is subservient to us
but it is we who are buried by Earth.
There is indeed a spiritual relationship with Earth
and those of us who live in the city
are always in danger of losing it.
We are always in danger of forgetting,
of growing distant,
of becoming disconnected,
of turning deaf and blind and mute
when it comes to loving and being loved by Earth.
There is no such thing as spirituality
apart from Earth.
We are of the Earth…
ashes to ashes
and dust to dust.
If we yearn to be spiritual then it is to Earth we must turn.
So tonight
we are directed by the voices
to return to the dust,
to return to Earth,
to cross the distance that urban life creates
and come close again to Earth.
Let it speak to us;
let it touch us;
let it sooth and rattle us;
let it speak with its many splendid voices,
both loud and petite.
Return to Earth
wherever and however you do that,
and let is speak to you of what you have forgotten.
And now,
to make a right beginning,
let us make fire – Earth, wind and fire,
and offer it to Earth
and to our love of Earth.
Let us make a prayer this night,
evoked by our memory of places that root us to Earth –
rivers, moons and farms,
mountains, trees and canyons,
lakes, cloudless skies and fields of green.
Let us light a candle in thanksgiving
to places
and creatures
and vistas that bring us close to the Creator.
