Thanksgiving traditionally is a time when we give thanks for the abundance of the harvest as the farmer and the hunter collected what they reaped from the labors of the spring, summer, and fall and prepared for the coming of winter.  As such, Thanksgiving is about the abundance of nature and how our survival is inextricably connected to nature.  What she gives and what she withholds.

Today our society is increasingly alienated from nature.  It is ironic that instead of resting in the bounty of nature and feeling thankfulness for having enough, Thanksgiving more often than not marks the start of the Christmas shopping season.  It is like a gun shot that begins the frantic shopping spree race to the finish of a huge mound of Christmas presents.  The stores open especially early the day after Thanksgiving as if saying, “Alright already enough of this.  Let’s shop till we drop!” 

The truth of the matter is quite different.  Christmas is the celebration of the coming of Christ to the world.  We use the word “Emmanuel”  which means “God with us.”  We sing during the season of Advent, “O come, o come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel.”  Christmas is the celebration of the revelation of God with us through the Christ.  Thanksgiving is also a celebration of God with us.  It is the celebration of an earlier, primal Emmanuel that of God in and through God’s creation.  Christ and nature these are the two great appearances of God.  At the end of the Bible we have Jesus.  At the beginning of the Bible we have creation.  Psalm 8 that we used as the call to worship this morning recollects:  You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge, made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild, birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean depths.  God, brilliant Lord, Your name echoes around the world.

To say the least, the great prayer of Thanksgiving that we say at our family tables with the turkey and the cranberry sauce and the pumpkin pies should be one of gratitude for the bounty of the earth.  It should be profoundly ecological.  It should reflect the mystery and awe of God’s creation and our relation to it.  For instance listen to this prayer by Sedonia Cahill:  I send prayers of gratitude to all that has given of itself on this day.  The strong beans, and the hardy grains, the beautiful leafy green plants and the sweet juicy fruits.  I thank the sun that warmed and vitalized them, just as it does me, and the earth that held and nourished them, just as it does me, and the waters that bathed and refreshed them, as they do for me.  I thank the fire that transformed them, just as I wish to be transformed by the fires of the Spirit.  I thank the hands that grew and prepared this food, just as I thank all those that have touched me in so many ways.

Nothing in the history of humanity has prepared us for what our generation and our children is now living through.  We hear phrases such as “the death of nature” or the need to “save the planet.”  The planet is in danger, yes.  But, there is another great danger.  In our pursuit of material progress which means consumer products we are compromising our souls.  Less and less will we be able to find God in nature.  The quality and meaning of our lives will become hollow.  This is the crisis of what is called “deep ecology.” 

I am sure that every one of us here has had an experience of deep ecology like that of the author Rick Bass.  He writes about a time in his childhood when he was with his father, uncle and grandfather at their ramshackle hunting shack.  It was New Year’s Eve.  No more than 10 he was sent out on that foggy night to go down to the brook and get some water.  At that time he remembers an epiphany.  He writes:

  Somewhere above me it was a clear night with stars, and the geese were up in that world, circling and looking; and then below that, there was a skin of fog wrapped around the earth; and on that frozen earth was a small boy with a flash light; and with the probe of the flashlight’s beam traveling through and then beneath the skin of the ice there was creek water running beneath; and in that cold water there were those little fish, their tails ruddering them in place, fish hanging suspended in that one probe of light, as if the light was the ice, and they were captured, their world revealed.  And behind me, up on the hill, the world of men and manhood,….were playing dominoes, safe and warm in the cabin of yellow window square light, while I was out in the cold, alone for the moment but also not alone, listening to and seeing all these different worlds at once and knowing that some were calling to me louder than others, and that I could choose, or be chosen by, any one of them…

Does this sound like an experience you have had?  It might not have been in the winter looking at fish below the ice.  But, it was outside somewhere.  You became caught up in it.  Nature gained a sudden presence to you.  You were a part of something much larger than you had been aware of seconds before.  For me I can think of times swimming at our lake in New Hampshire.  I would swim around the bend and scramble up on a granite rock/island.  I was all alone with the loons and the mountains and the sun beating down on me and the rock radiated heat up through me.  The winds blow.  The tall white pines sway.  I become part of a wider world of life and wilderness.  I became apart of a world of wind and clouds and pine and chickadee, and turtle and heron, and lilies.  I found myself unaccountably at home in it and at the same time longing for it. 

We all have had these times, and know of spots in the world where we can go and be one with nature.  Would some of you like to share one of those spots and times with us now?....

Not only are we connected to nature through these spots but also through our pets.  The bond between person and pet is like no other relationship.  The communication between fellow species is at its most basic.  One the one hand, I anthropomorphise my dog in ridiculous ways.  I talk to Shadow like he was a human and totally silly.  For instance, I will flip his ears back and say to Ian, “Look a new hair dew.  The blown back look.”  Or, he will but his paw on my lap and I’ll remark that it’s a secret handshake.   But, then when I go jogging with him on dirt roads, he will dart off into the woods, bounding effortlessly over fallen trees and boulders.  With his powerful muscles rippling under his shining black coat he is pursuing a different more ancient call within him.  It is one of hunting and centuries of his ancestors tracking game for their masters.  These were times with the person’s survival and the dog’s survival were intricately intertwined.  He is truly in his element out their in the woods.  It is beautiful to watch and so he opens to me a different more primal life in nature that I often forget about. 

The artist and writer Meinrad Craighead tells about looking into the eyes of her dog when she was seven years old on a summer afternoon under the hydrangeas.  She writes:

I held the dog, stroking her into sleep but she held my gaze.  I watched the dog and she watched me, a balance of equal weights.  As I looked into her eyes I knew that I would never travel further than into this animal’s eyes.  They were deep, as bewildering, as unattainable as a night sky.  Just as mysterious with another movement, the rush of water deep within me, the sound in my ears resounding from my breast.  I gazed into the dog’s eyes and I listened to the sound of the water inside and I understood:  “This is God.” 

What can we as the Blue Point Church do for the ecology and the world?  Certainly, there is a practical level.  We can start an “Earth Care Team” in our church.  It would work with the Maine Council of Churches and our church to developing practices of sustainable living.  Youth can be apart of this as well as adults. 

But, I believe we have something more to offer on the level of deep ecology.  After all, we live in Maine one of the most beautiful places in the world.  For instance, we live on a coastline that is legendary around the world.  Sailors dream of coming to Maine and sailing.  We know lakes a few miles from here.  We go skiing in fabulous mountains.  I believe the beauty around us has a profound impact on us daily.  It shapes our interiors.  I don’t know about you, but whenever I go anywhere else that is landlocked, I soon find myself longing to see a stretch of blue.  I go to New York City.  I have fun there.  But, I cannot fathom how people survive without being able to drive down to Town Landing in Falmouth with a cup of hot coffee on a freezing morning, park and watch the sea smoke rise in pink and purple swirls off a dazzling sea. 

So, we live in a place where thousands of small beautiful inspirations are available to us.  I think of our children how their earliest experiences of life are woven in with the smell of salt air.  There are countless epiphanies in nature that rise unsummoned from below available to us here in Maine like practically no where else.   Perhaps our spiritual mission in the world is to be a people who are not alienated from nature, but let our souls expand on a regular basis in and through nature.  This will not only save us from ourselves but perhaps somehow our witness will be a testimony to the world that is increasingly hostile to the environment.   After all, we know the ocean.  Our soul has grown deep like the ocean.  The same waves along the Maine coast have crashed against the glaciers calved from the polar ice caps.  They have white capped in the Mediterranean.  They have grown still in a small fishing harbor of Japan.  Their glistening reflection has caught the humpback breaching the surface somewhere in the Pacific on a moonlit night.  The same life that rocks the ocean rocks us as we walk along our beaches.   We have known oceans.  Can this be other than Emmanuel, God with us?