We are heading into the home stretch of the Walk. Soon many new people will be joining us, and our little community will be enlarged and changed. Before welcoming the day’s new walkers and setting out to cover the 6-mile stretch from Wellesley to Newton, our stalwart band decided to pause, take stock, and begin to say goodbye. Retreat leaders often call this exercise “naming the graces.” When you have set aside a significant chunk of time to listen to God, or have carried out a task for the love of God, it is good to sit down with your fellow pilgrims and to name how you’ve been changed.
So we sat in a circle in the UU sanctuary and told each other the truth. People spoke through tears about the relief of being with others who feel as passionately as they do about the Earth. For once they didn’t have to explain or justify why they weep to hear of bleaching coral, drowning polar bears, and warming seas. For once they didn’t feel they were alone in their ardor to care for God’s Creation with as much tenderness as they could -- from recycling every last Post-It note to changing their light bulbs to compact fluorescent. For once they didn’t have to explain their conviction that we -- the people who are living today -- are the generation that must protect the web of life into which we have been born, or else leave our children and our children’s children a much more ugly, precarious, and brutal world.
We talked about the relief of stepping away from the commercial transactions of ordinary life. For more than a week, many of us hadn’t bought a thing. We hadn’t spent time shopping and acquiring more stuff. We hadn’t pulled out our wallets or credit cards in an attempt to relieve anxiety or loneliness or boredom. We hadn’t rushed around in our cars, trying to get somewhere else. Instead we had focused on building our community, on finding ways to support and enjoy each other’s company, and on carrying out the mission that has been set before us: to bear witness to God’s love of Creation and the moral call to avert catastrophic global warming. We had been stripped down to essentials, and lesser things -- such as worrying about how we looked or smelled, or wanting the latest gadget or newest fashion -- had fallen away.
We talked about the beauty of the countrywide we had traversed, how it awakened our imaginations and made us feel more alive, and of the odd and powerful occasions when the natural world seemed to be speaking back to us. One woman described the herd of horses that came to attention as we passed, and stood watching, alert and still, as if they were saying, “Human beings are finally getting it together.” A man spoke of walking by a stand of apple trees and of seeming to hear one say, “Thank you.”
We talked of the contrasting effect of the cityscapes we had crossed, and in my mind I saw again the bleak stretches of tire stores and tanning salons, car washes and liquor stores, fast food stands and gas stations. What would it take to create human societies that are habitable, environmentally sustainable, and even beautiful?
As people talked and wept, often linking hands or putting an arm around someone’s shoulder, I thought of the power of truth-telling in any recovery program. Addicts in recovery know how that works: you gather in a small group and speak candidly about where you hurt and what you long for, where you’re tempted and what holds you to the path of life. You share your experience, strength and hope, and together you walk the next steps in that day’s journey.
If indeed we are a society that is addicted to oil -- if indeed we are caught up in an addictive culture of consumption, so that most of us are mesmerized and spell-bound by the craving to grab, buy, acquire, and throw away the next thing -- if indeed we are in the process of depleting the Earth and of stealing the future from our children -- then maybe we need, as any addict does, to create small circles in which to tell the truth. Maybe we need to help each other break the spell, so that we can be released from our enchantment with things and restored to connection with each other, with God, and with God’s green Earth.
Maybe we need to get sober.
The group meeting came to an end. We picked up our backpacks, laced up our shoes, and set out for Newton. We are very close to Boston, and now many more people will see our procession, read our signs, and hear our urgent message: the time has come to place care of the Earth at the center of our moral and spiritual concern.
As I walk, I will be holding to heart the words with which Brayton Shanley blessed us several days ago as we left the Agape community: “Remember the sacredness of your journey.”
