At some point in the 12th Century, Hildegard of Bingen wrote:
The earth is at the same time mother, she is the mother of all that is natural, mother of all that is human. She is the mother of all, for contained in her are the seeds of all. The earth of humankind contains all moistness, all verdancy, all germinating power. It is is so many ways fruitful. All creation comes from it. Yet it forms not only the basic raw material for humankind, but also the substance of the incarnation of the Son of God.
Isn’t that beautiful? Try getting a high school biology student to understand that. I don’t mean to be disparaging toward our high school students, but they do represent quite well a troubling trend in our society. Too few of the students I’m around seem interested in learning about how the world of nature works. Instead of raising their faces to examine the world around them, too many seem content to focus on their tiny screens, and all the human-bred nonsense contained therein. We’re constantly telling them that the more they know about the world around them, the more interesting that world becomes—far more interesting than any video game or manga series or “look what I can do” Tik-Tok postings they will ever find. We tell them that the more they understand how their body works, the less they will be fooled by the swarm of false health claims that want their money for the secrets of a healthy life. I could rant on and on about the frustrations of modern educators, but that’s really not the point I’m asking you to appreciate this morning. Because Earth Day was last Monday, and because Spring is slowly making itself known all around us, I want to talk about how the natural world can be seen as a classroom, so to speak, for our spiritual growth.
The tool of science is useful in helping us to understand ourselves and the world of spirit, and this is because nature is rooted in spirit. In the Secrets of Heaven #2758, Swedenborg wrote that genuine conjugial love is heaven is represented in the kingdoms of nature, for there is nothing in all nature that does not in some way represent the Lord’s kingdom in general, since the natural kingdom derives all its origin from the spiritual. This is to say that all reality is Divinely organized and interrelated, from the purest expression of love and truth that Swedenborg referred to as the celestial, to the basest and most rudimentary expression that he called the natural. He also explained it like this:
The celestial, which is the good of love and the first in order, flows into the spiritual, which is the truth thence derived and the second in order, and finally into the natural, which is the third in order...Thence it is that universal nature is a theater representative of the Lord’s kingdom, and that everything in it is representative, and that nature subsists from influx according to this order, and that without such influx it could not subsist even for a moment. Secrets of Heaven 4939
All this is to say that when we look upon the natural world around us, we see heaven expressed, and we can learn quite a bit about heaven—and the heavenly potential within ourselves—when we pay attention to nature.
Our reading from the Gospel of John has a very simple and relevant reminder to us when we find ourselves in need of understanding. The wedding itself corresponds to the union of the intellect and the will, and also of the Divine and the natural. If we seek this union, we become more integrated and able to apply what we’ve learned to life. The water represents natural truths, which become the wine of spiritual truths when we call upon the Lord, expressing our need. I think this applies to the challenge of seeing the natural world through spiritual eyes, seeing the evidence and the workings of love and wisdom in the natural world around us. What the story represents, I feel, is recognizing our need for integration—for bringing together the internal and the external—and asking the Lord for insight.
So here’s a little water that we can witness becoming wine. I wrote a chemical formula in our bulletins. If you don’t recognize it, it’s the chemical formula for photosynthesis, the process by which plants sustain their existence by using the basic elements in their environment. They draw in carbon dioxide and water and, aided by the energy they derive from sunlight, they make a simple sugar, glucose, and oxygen. Where life on Earth is concerned, some would say that this is the single most important biological process ever. It is central to the continuance of life on Earth. If considered from another perspective, we can see photosynthesis as a model for our own spiritual existence. Carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse gas”, meaning that too much of it in our atmosphere is unhealthy because it contributes to a rise in global temperatures that can kill the foundation of our ecosystem, the plankton and the smaller organisms that larger forms of life feed upon. In this respect, it’s a lot like falsity. We need to be exposed to falsity, because wrestling with it helps us to understand truth, but too much falsity in our working doctrines is harmful to our spiritual life. Water, H2O, represents the truth that we need to combat falsity, and when we bring the two together, supported by the sunlight of the Divine presence, through the process of reformation and regeneration we produce good things. We can interpret glucose as the sweetness of life if we want to, but to the plant glucose provides the energy necessary to keep going, to produce fruit that nourishes and seed that provides for the following stages of life. Oxygen is what plants provide in service to the community, whether it’s breathable air for us animals, or as ozone, O3, it’s what shields us from harmful ultraviolet radiation. In short, photosynthesis is a model for how we take in the raw materials that the Lord provides and produce an unadulterated vessel through which the Lord can operate.
When we reverse that formula, we get the formula for something called “cellular respiration”, which brings to mind how taking in ideas, finding the usable truth in them, and ejecting the falsity and evils—sort of a “spiritual respiration”--is also important for our process of spiritual growth. And thinking about how interdependent we oxygen breathers are with the plants around us, who need what we exhale, and vice versa, is a wonderful image of the importance of community in this world, and that none of us can truly thrive without others.
On the subject of community, I heard few scientists studying whales talk about an experience they had not too long ago. They had been studying whale songs, and thought that they had identified a sequence of clicks and whistles that whales produce when another whale comes nearby. They hypothesized that this signal must be a greeting of some sort, so they recorded it, took it up to Alaska, I think, and lowered their underwater microphones near a pod of humpbacks. When they played the alleged greeting call, one of the males in the pod swam over to their boat, circled it a few times, gave them the same sequence of sounds in return, and then swam back to the pod. The scientists were astounded at the reaction, to the point of freaking out about it, because they had called out to a whale, and the whale responded in kind! They were elated that they had figured out how to say “hi” to a whale, and the whale said “hi” right back! Interspecies communication! The story made me think that, after all these years of wondering if we were alone in the universe, humans have someone to talk to right here at home.
Back to my point, though: Familiarity with nature an advantage to us, not only as we navigate the natural challenges like ozone depletion or pollution or food production to feed over eight billion hungry mouths, but also as we search for solutions to our spiritual challenges. We see the planet assaulted by our adolescent species, and it’s legitimately troubling, but we also see nature changing to meet the challenge, always shifting toward balance when imbalances occur. Temperatures rise, and the seas rise to absorb and hold more of that heat. Prey species begin to overpopulate, and predators appear to thin the herd, disappearing when their prey falls to less threatening numbers. Rivers flood, and the land absorbs the water in the floodplains and the marshes. Mother Earth knows how to heal, and does so if we can avoid trying to control it all, to “fix” all the wounds that we’ve caused as if we are the only ones who can. The comedian George Carlin made the point that “Save the Earth” is a rather egotistical notion. The Earth has survived numerous disasters and calamities before we even descended from the trees. True, humans have done a lot of damage to the environment, but the Earth isn’t going anywhere, he claimed. We are. Carlin said that if we continue to act irresponsibly toward the environment, the Mother Earth will shake us off like a bad case of fleas.
That may be a little too simplistic, but he did make a valid point. For too long humans have considered themselves to be the lords and rightful subjugators of the planet, ordained by God to seize control because we are allegedly the most important beings down here. The religions of the world seem to back up that idea. It is true, I believe, that humans are uniquely blessed, but to me that means that we are also uniquely charged with an important responsibility. We have been given a task to accomplish, to be loving caretakers. We need to understand how this planet works, not just for our own continued existence but for the benefit of the entire interconnected web of life. I am also suggesting to you this morning that as we rise to that responsibility, we will come to learn more about ourselves, about the power of peace with all living forms, about the power of compassion.
Here’s where the passage from Isaiah has something to offer us. Egypt, in general corresponds to our natural intellect, that is, our desire for understanding spiritual truths. But our Egypt is limited because it only acknowledges truths that can be observed and measured—hard data. Our Egypt-thinking doesn’t believe anything without the numbers to back it up. Isaiah’s point in issuing this oracle against Egypt is that striving to understand the spiritual significance of anything won’t yield any useful conclusions as long as we limit ourselves to data. The sciences are wonderful when it comes to learning about the natural world, but they aren’t enough for spiritual enlightenment. The numbers can lead us to understand why living responsibly is important for us, but they can’t help us to love the Earth our home. In order to fulfill our responsibility as true caretakers, we need to employ both our heads and our hearts, seeking a marriage of the two, because that is when we are at our most rational. Facing our environmental challenges with only a purely scientific, Egypt-level perspective can only, according to Isaiah, make matters worse. We need more than science.
So what do we need to add to our efforts? I have a friend who is a Zen Buddhist monk who practices a discipline called shinrin-yoku—forest bathing. It’s been in the news a lot recently. The practice is based upon one very simple idea: that spending time in connection with nature is good for you. Those who practice forest bathing—which has nothing to do with actually bathing—will surround themselves with nature, free from any technology, and seek a mindful connection with it, This may involve meditation and prayer, or simply noticing something that you’ve never noticed before, and deliberately see yourself not as someone who’s just visiting nature, but as someone who is part of nature. We surround ourselves with trees, we breathe, we engage all of our senses and find harmony with our surroundings. As a result, we experience a decrease in over all stress, our general anxiety gives way to the peaceful rhythms of the forest, our immune system is bolstered and we can once again be the well-adjusted, rational humans that we were created to be. Similar ideas have been part of most cultures, not just Zen. Swedenborg himself found it easier to write in his garden, and he would maintain that we cannot truly understand anything unless we can achieve some kind of connectedness to it. Free of stress and at our best as human beings, we can perceive more fully the presence of the loving Divine.
My high schoolers may not want to hear me say it again, but it is important that we come to understand how this world works, so that we can begin to work with it, not against it. As Swedenborgians, we also have the knowledge that the love and wisdom of the Creator is written in every leaf, every flower, every air cell, every landscape, every flowing river, every bird and beast, and, yes, every sparrow and every lily of the field. Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God, but only the ones who see take off their shoes...
The beauty of the trees,
the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass,
speaks to me.
The summit of the mountain,
the thunder of the sky,
the rhythm of the sea,
speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars,
the freshness of the morning,
the dewdrop on the flower,
speaks to me.
The strength of fire,
the taste of salmon,
the trail of the sun,
and the life that never goes away,
they speak to me.
And my heart soars.
-Chief Dan George
READINGS
Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 19:1-10:
A prophecy against Egypt:
See, the Lord rides on a swift cloud
and is coming to Egypt.
The idols of Egypt tremble before him,
and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear.
“I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian—
brother will fight against brother,
neighbor against neighbor, city against city,
kingdom against kingdom.
The Egyptians will lose heart,
and I will bring their plans to nothing;
they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead,
the mediums and the spiritists.
I will hand the Egyptians over
to the power of a cruel master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,”
declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
The waters of the river will dry up,
and the riverbed will be parched and dry.
The canals will stink;
the streams of Egypt will dwindle and dry up.
The reeds and rushes will wither, also the plants along the Nile,
at the mouth of the river.
Every sown field along the Nile
will become parched, will blow away and be no more.
The fishermen will groan and lament,
all who cast hooks into the Nile;
those who throw nets on the water
will pine away.
Those who work with combed flax will despair,
the weavers of fine linen will lose hope.
The workers in cloth will be dejected,
and all the wage earners will be sick at heart
New Testament Reading: John 2:1-10
On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
Readings from the works of Emanuel Swedenborg
Secrets of Heaven #2758. That genuine conjugial love is heaven is represented in the kingdoms of nature; for there is nothing in all nature that does not in some way represent the Lord’s kingdom in general, since the natural kingdom derives all its origin from the spiritual. What is without an origin prior to itself is nothing. Nothing exists that is unconnected with a cause, and thus with an end. What is unconnected falls away in a moment, and becomes nothing; from this then are the representatives of the Lord’s kingdom in the kingdoms of nature. That conjugial love is heaven is manifest from the transformation of little worms into nymphs and chrysalides, and thus into winged insects; for when their time of nuptials comes—which is when they put off their earthly form, or their worm-like form, and are embellished with wings and become flying creatures—they are then elevated into the air, which is their heaven; and there they sport with each other, perform their marriage rites, lay eggs, and nourish themselves on the juices of flowers. They are then also in their beauty; for they have wings decorated with golden, silver, and other elegantly marked colors. Such things does the marriage principle produce among such vile little worms.
Secrets of Heaven #4939. Once when I was elevated into heaven, it appeared to me as if I were there with my head, and below with my body, but with my feet still lower. And from this it was perceived how the higher and lower things in man correspond to those which are in the grand man, and how the one flows into the other, namely, that the celestial, which is the good of love and the first in order, flows into the spiritual, which is the truth thence derived and the second in order, and finally into the natural, which is the third in order. From this it is evident that natural things are like the feet, on which the higher things rest. Nature also is that in which the spiritual world and heaven terminate. Thence it is that universal nature is a theater representative of the Lord’s kingdom, and that everything in it is representative (n. 2758, 3483); and that nature subsists from influx according to this order, and that without such influx it could not subsist even for a moment.