A Theology of Interdependence
Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray
November 9, 2014
Reading: Connections Are Made Slowly by Marge Piercy.
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting, after the long season of tending and growth,
the harvest comes.
Sermon: “A Theology of Interdependence” Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray
Marge Piercy writes, “Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground. You
cannot tell always by looking what is happening.”
Welcome to November and our month long exploration of what it means to live a life of interdependence. Now the meaning of interdependence, unlike some of the themes we’ve explored,
such as forgiveness and commitment, may not be so readily or immediately familiar. But interdependence it is an essential part of contemporary Unitarian Universalism thought and theology.
It is articulated in our seventh principle, to affirm and promote respect for the interdependent
web of all existence of which we are apart.
So what is interdependence? The dictionary defines it as the quality or condition of being mutually reliant on each other, or mutually dependent on each other. We are early in the month of
November, but already, we’ve shared some concrete ways that interdependence is reflected in
our lives.
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Last Sunday, at our Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, service, we remembered the ways our
own lives are connected to those who came before us and those who will come after us. We celebrated the ways that our loved ones who have died have shaped us, nurtured us and we remembered them so that their lives might continue to be connected to ours and be reflected in our own.
In this same way, we know that the choices we make today, the way we live our lives, what we
value and how we nurture those who come after us, will have an impact well beyond our lives.
This is one way that our lives are mutually dependent, interwoven with the past and future.
Yesterday, we held a blessing of the animals service, and were reminded of our how our lives are
connected to the larger family of creation. [One story from the service yesterday - such a great
moment. Throughout the service there were dogs yipping and barking, sometimes they would
get going a bit, so it was not a quiet service. Then Rev. Linda talked about the grief of losing our
pets, or having to euthanize them. As she talked, the dogs kept barking. Then she invited us into
a time of what she called “not so quiet time” to honor our beloved pets who had died. And all of
a sudden it was quiet. The dogs made no sound. We were all quiet - connected in that moment.
It was amazing.] Remembering and connecting to our relationships beyond the human family is
a part of interdependence too.
Interdependence is a relatively new word but the concept and meaning of it is ancient. So let’s
look at some sources for it.
Unitarian Universalists’ articulation of the importance of interdependence really came out of an
appreciation for biology, ecology and physics. Science is an important influence in our tradition.
We don’t see science as being in conflict with faith; rather we see faith helping us to make meaning and shape values and ethics in our lives given scientific understandings of life.
From ecology and biology, we know that no living thing exists in isolation from its environment.
We know from physics that the iron in our own blood is from ancient star explosions. We know
from biology that all life evolves and that all living things on this earth today are descendants of
previous species going all the way to the beginnings of life on the planet. All life depends, even
if we can’t always see by looking with our eyes, on the connections.
It is like the image from the mythical story that Director Anne told about the spider and her web,
and every place that threads connected, life appeared. Life, wherever we find it, springs from
connection, from dependence on something prior.
It is not just modern science that tells us this truth. This idea of interdependence is also found in
ancient Buddhist teaching. A central concept or teaching in Buddhism is that of dependent origination or dependent co-arising. Simply put, it means that all things arise in dependence upon
multiple causes and conditions. Like a web, everything is interconnected. Everything affects
everything else. Everything that is, is because other things are. We are all fundamentally connected and dependent upon others, upon this planet, upon so many connections and factors, both
seen and unseen. Life in isolation is simply not possible.
There are many ways in which we intrinsically understand this. We know we depend on the
earth for air, for food, for sunlight and energy. We know we depend on our parents -- those who
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gave us birth for life. But what a theology of interdependence challenges us to do is to live
mindfully and intentionally aware of the interconnections of our lives. And this is radical, for a
theology of interdependence is, at its heart, non-hierarchical and based on mutuality and right
relationship.
Within Western philosophy and theology, the emphasis has long been on hierarchical dualities. I
know, that is a mouthful. Let me explain. Western philosophy has typically broken things down
into pairs, or dualities, which are classified generally in a hierarchical relationship. For example:
God and man, heaven and earth, sacred and profane, us and them, subject and object, individual
and society.
A theology of interdependence explodes these binary relationships to reveal a much more
dynamic web of connections that is not hierarchical but based in mutuality. This is so critically
important! Because duality creates a theology of separateness, of us and them, of sinner and
saved, worthy and unworthy, a theology that establishes barriers, walls, disconnection and fear
among people. We see this in the perpetuation of war and violence, in the continual breakdown
of communities around class and race and most especially in power and the abuse of power. We
also see it in the increasing materialism of our lives to the detriment of the environment; we see
it in the wanton disregard for the earth and in the lack of meaningful opportunities to share our
gifts with the world.
Fundamentally, what is breaking down, and it shows in so many ways, is our attention and care
for our interdependence. Too much emphasis – especially in the U.S. -- is focused on short-term
gains of wealth and achievement with disregard for the environment, the poor, the future for all
our children. And we see it coming back around in the break down of community engagement,
community involvement, even neighborhood organizing. It’s all connected. This growing isolation -- shown in so many studies -- is a reflection of the ways things are connected and come
back around in unexpected ways.
This week, some -- hopefully many of us went to the polls to vote -- a communal act, making
visible some of the ways we are bound together, but what struck me most powerfully of all the
outcomes is that only 36 percent of eligible Americans voted. This was the lowest turn out since
1942 during World War II. People may argue about what the outcomes of the election mean, but
overwhelmingly these numbers point to a wide separation between politics and political parties
and the actual lives of the vast majority of Americans. Clearly what the politicians are arguing
about and what each side is offering does not resonate with the realities of people’s lives.
So what do we do? This is the question for our time. What do we do when the vast majority of
people are tuning out of the political system. What do we do as we see a political system that is
increasingly inept, dysfunctional and unable to address critical issues. What do we do as people
of faith, who value the web of life and principles of fairness, as we see increasing disparity, unending war and militarization, environmental devastation, growing prisons and failing schools.
My answer is there is no quick fix. What we have to do is the long term and radical work of living and growing a theology of interdependence -- choosing and nurturing relationship and connection, the long good work, over short-term wins.
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This is why I chose Marge Piercy’s poem for our reading this morning. Connections are made
slowly...you cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
Let me tell you a story about this reading. It’s in our hymnal under the title Connections are
Made Slowly, but it is actually titled “The Seven of Pentacles.” How many of you know this reference, the Seven of Pentacles? I had to look it up.
The Seven of Pentacles is a Tarot card. The card itself portrays a young man taking a rest from
the work of harvesting his abundant crop. He gazes meditatively at the rich greenery and blossoms of the abundant thicket in which he works. Pentacles, a symbol of wealth, grow on the
vines. It seems that his work has paid off. He is finally taking a break to admire his handiwork
and the benefits of his labor.
There is a disclaimer here. I am not educated in Tarot, but a little internet research explained the
meaning of the Seven of Pentacles as indicating a person who has a strong desire to invest in
those things that will provide long-term benefit. Someone who is careful into putting time and
energy into things of value that will have long-term, sustainable rewards, rather than quick wins
or quick wealth.
This is what Piercy is describing in her poem. She is describing the long-term work of value, the
long-term work of building and attending to connections. Live a life you can endure, she writes,
make love that is loving. And she describes this type of living, of dedicating oneself to the sustainable future, a future built on connection and relationship.
Work deeply, she says, without trumpet or fanfare like the earthworm. Fight persistently, stay
engaged, like the creeper that eventually takes down the tree. Spread out, share what you have
found, like the squash plant that takes over the garden. Keep going even in the dark, use the sun
to make sugar, to find sweetness.
Weave real connections, create real nodes, places where life and meaning arise from connection,
build real houses. Dedicate ourselves to care in our work, care in our homes, attend to what is of
value in our lives. And keep reaching out, keep taking more in. As she says, it may look like
chaos, a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside, but to us it is interconnection, pathways
and sanctuaries connected. I love this image. It speaks so well to how it can feel to be a Unitarian Universalist. It might look like chaos from the outside, a mess of things, no duality, no hierarchy, and yet from the inside, it’s relationship and meaning and caring, it’s safe places and
worthy endeavors. It’s beauty. It’s connection. And it is hopeful.
It’s easy to be undermined by the short-term, either our fears about our failures in the short-term,
or caught up in seeking wealth and achievement in the short-term. But tending to our interdependence, tending to the connections in our lives, to the relationships of love and care, and our
relationships to how we live on this earth, this the long-term work. This is the real work, the
work of value. The work that is needed. It is what living a life of interdependence looks like.
It’s living a life you can endure, its living as if you like yourself. It means we must reach out,
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keep reaching out, keep bringing in, connecting ourselves and staying attuned and mindful of our
connections.
Piercy’s poem is one of hope. The Seven of Pentacles is a hopeful card. It means when we
attend to the work of value, the work that is most important, the harvest comes. We must
remember in these days when so many things are out of balance, that the most radical thing we
can do is too focus on the long-term building of relationships, not just here in this community,
but everywhere.
Theologies and more than that our stereotypes, class divisions, all the things that separate us by
greed and wealth and lack of access, will only be overcome by working together. To do that
we’ve got to build relationships. We’ve got to recover our interdependence. It’s there, it’s always there and the imbalance we see is a result of the ways we have severed ourselves from our
connections. The slow work of attending to relationship, to keep reaching out and bringing in
and learning from the connections and the meeting places, that is where we nurture health, that is
where we will make change. Keep reaching out, to your neighbors, to strangers you meet
throughout your day, keep bringing in, sharing yourselves, your voices, your experiences with
others. Keep listening. Keep building, even if it goes unseen. For...
“connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground. You can’t tell always by
looking what is happening. More than half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet. Keep
tangling and interweaving and taking more in. Live as if you like yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in. This is how we are going to live for a long time:
not always, for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long
season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.”
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