The days continues to lengthen and the earth begins to warm. The daylight lingers almost to eight o’clock in the evening and the birdsong accompanies the diminishment until all is dark. When we are in touch with the natural rhythms of the earth, even our busiest of days end in similar fashion. (Sometimes it’s best if you don’t try to cram too much in to one day.) This weekend is Mother’s Day and we have a special service planned at UUHoulton with Joshua Atkinson titled “Gratitude for Mothers.” There are many reasons to celebrate mothers, and compassion touches all of them. The men have agreed to provide coffee hour on Sunday, so that should be interesting. You will find a special poem for Mother’s Day by May Sarton in today’s Support Page and an article by Thich Nhat Hanh on loving the planet.  

YouTube Channel content for this week is a continuation of our EarthCare theme with part eight of our study series titled EarthVison, a looking back and a looking ahead regarding climate-related issues. It is an exploration of perspectives; historic “time-frame” perspective and personal perspective. The understanding or vision you have of the earth will affect your actions or impact you have on the earth.  It’s all a matter of perspective. 

We hope you can join us for one of the services. 

In Ministry,

Dave

For My Mother

May Sarton1912 – 1995

Once more
I summon you
Out of the past
With poignant love,
You who nourished the poet
And the lover.
I see your gray eyes
Looking out to sea
In those Rockport summers,
Keeping a distance
Within the closeness
Which was never intrusive
Opening out
Into the world.
And what I remember
Is how we laughed
Till we cried
Swept into merriment
Especially when times were hard.
And what I remember
Is how you never stopped creating
And how people sent me
Dresses you had designed
With rich embroidery
In brilliant colors
Because they could not bear
To give them away
Or cast them aside.
I summon you now
Not to think of
The ceaseless battle
With pain and ill health,
The frailty and the anguish.
No, today I remember
The creator,
The lion-hearted.

“For My Mother,” from Coming Into Eighty by May Sarton. Copyright © 1994 by May Sarton. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

THIS WEEK’S YOUTUBE SERVICE:

HERE IS THE SERVICE LINK FOR THIS WEEK’S YOUTUBE SERVICE

(Please note it won’t be active until 10AM on Sunday morning)

HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY COFFEE HOUR:Topic: UUHoulton zoom coffee hour & check inTime: May 12, 2024 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)   Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/81880286111?pwd=vlN8YurDY0xe0DGbPOF0y8YHvB0tlk.1
Meeting ID: 818 8028 6111Passcode: 162132

Calendar of Events @UUHoultonMay 12 Sunday Service:  Joshua AtkinsonMay 14 Meditation Group  4PM  (online)May 18 LGBTQ+ Luncheon 12 NoonMay 18 Houlton Coffeehouse  7PM    Feature: Simon Pritchard ep release partyMay 19 Sunday service: Mark Horvath & David HutchinsonMay 26 Sunday Service: Rev. Dale HoldenMay 28 Meditation Group  4PM  (online)June 2 Flower Communion Service     David Hutchinson New Members Recognition Sunday Potluck BBQ Party following the service 

Virtual Offering Plate
If you would like to send in your pledge or donation simply drop an envelope in the mail. The address is listed below.  You can also send your donation electronically with our new payment system on the church website.  Simply go to uuhoulton.org and click “Donate” on the menu and it will explain how the system works. You can set up a regular monthly payment plan or donate in single transactions.  Thank you for your generous support!  
UU Church of Houlton

61 Military Street

Thich Nhat Hanh’s Love Letter to the Earth

The earth is you. You are the earth. When you realize there is no separation, says the late Thich Nhat Hanh, you fall completely in love with this beautiful planet.

THICH NHAT HANH

At this very moment, the earth is above you, below you, all around you, and even inside you. The earth is everywhere.

You may be used to thinking of the earth as only the ground beneath your feet. But the water, the sea, the sky, and everything around us comes from the earth. Everything outside us and everything inside us come from the earth.

We often forget that the planet we are living on has given us all the elements that make up our bodies. The water in our flesh, our bones, and all the microscopic cells inside our bodies all come from the earth and are part of the earth. The earth is not just the environment we live in. We are the earth and we are always carrying her within us.

The earth is not just the environment we live in. We are the earth and we are always carrying her within us.

Realizing this, we can see that the earth is truly alive. We are a living, breathing manifestation of this beautiful and generous planet. Knowing this, we can begin to transform our relationship to the earth. We can begin to walk differently and to care for her differently.

We will fall completely in love with the earth. When we are in love with someone or something, there is no separation between ourselves and the person or thing we love. We do whatever we can for them and this brings us great joy and nourishment. That is the relationship each of us can have with the earth. That is the relationship each of us must have with the earth if the earth is to survive, and if we are to survive as well.

If we think about the earth as just the environment around us, we experience ourselves and the earth as separate entities. We may see the planet only in terms of what it can do for us.

We need to recognize that the planet and the people on it are ultimately one and the same. When we look deeply at the earth, we see that she is a formation made up of non-earth elements: the sun, the stars, and the whole universe. Certain elements, such as carbon, silicon, and iron, formed long ago in the heat of far-off supernovas. Distant stars contributed to their light.

When we look into a flower, we can see that it’s made of many different elements, so we also call it a formation. A flower is made of many non-flower elements. The entire universe can be seen in a flower. If we look deeply into the flower, we can see the sun, the soil, the rain, and the gardener. Similarly, when we look deeply into the earth, we can see the presence of the whole cosmos.

A lot of our fear, hatred, anger, and feelings of separation and alienation come from the idea that we are separate from the planet. We see ourselves as the center of the universe and are concerned primarily with our own personal survival. If we care about the health and well-being of the planet, we do so for our own sake. We want the air to be clean enough for us to breathe. We want the water to be clear enough so that we have something to drink. But we need to do more than use recycled products or donate money to environmental groups.

We have to change our whole relationship with the earth.

Reprinted from Love Letter to the Earth (2013), by Thich Nhat Hanh, with permission of Parallax Press.

THICH NHAT HANHThich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022) was a renowned Zen teacher and poet, the founder of the Engaged Buddhist movement, and the founder of nine monastic communities, including Plum Village Monastery in France. He was also the author of At Home in the World, The Other Shore, and more than a hundred other books that have sold millions of copies worldwide.

The doom vs. optimism debate

Depending on how you look at it, the climate story is one that can inspire genuine optimism or a fair bit of doomerism.

On any given day, there are news stories, academic studies and memes that support two dueling narratives:

This week brought yet another slew of data that provides an opportunity to hold these two seemingly contradictory truths at the same time.

There are elements of truth to both perspectives, of course. It’s a disorienting dynamic that we grapple with as reporters covering climate change. Our work involves reporting on the world as it is. Sometimes that means staring down hard facts about the mess we’ve made, and sometimes that means highlighting the real progress that is underway.

Yes, planet-warming emissions are still on the rise, and the effects of climate change are growing worse. And also, yes, renewable energy is coming online at record rates, and there is a huge global effort to deal with an overheating planet.

On Wednesday, a new report highlighted the stunning, record-breaking gains in wind and solar power around the world. A full 30 percent of global electricity was generated by renewables last year, according to Ember, an energy think tank.

On the very same day, however, the latest figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Observatory revealed record levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This was the largest 12-month increase ever recorded on the so-called Keeling Curve, which has been used to measure the concentration of CO2 since 1958.

To help make sense of this split-screen moment, I turned to Tony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Leiserowitz, who tracks public perceptions of global warming, is finely attuned to the often jarring work of reconciling conflicting story lines.

“More than one thing can be true at the same time,” he wrote in an email. “We are witnessing astonishing growth in clean energy. Meanwhile, the hourglass of time we have left to limit global warming at ‘safe’ levels is running out.”

‘Take heart in this news’

Gains in clean energy generation is a theme we’ve been tracking for years now.

Solar power has gotten exponentially cheaper over the past decade, thanks largely to low-cost Chinese manufacturing. And in recent years, it has become more affordable to install wind turbines.

The result, according to Ember, was a 23 percent jump in solar power generation last year, and a 10 percent jump in wind generation. Much of the growth came in China. The country accounted for 51 percent of new solar generation and 60 percent of new wind generation.

Global fossil fuel production grew less than 1 percent last year.

“We should take heart in this news,” said Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia state representative who is now senior counsel at Rewiring America, a nonprofit group working to promote clean power. “We now have more evidence that our shift to clean energy sources is the only viable path to healthier, more resilient communities and a safer climate, here and around the globe.”

And it’s not just power generation that is changing for the better. As my colleagues Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich report, giant batteries are beginning to play a meaningful role in keeping the lights on and stabilizing the grid.

But Abrams cautioned that good news about renewables shouldn’t lead to complacency. “We can’t for a moment slow down,” she said. “These twin reports demonstrate the urgency of action to ratchet down reliance on fossil fuels while speeding delivery of investment in clean generation.”

‘We sadly continue to break records’

The Keeling Curve data offers another reminder, as if one were needed, that planet-warming emissions, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, are continuing to transform our planet.

For more than 65 years now, scientific instruments atop volcanoes in Hawaii have monitored how much carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere. The data “reveals a saw-toothed line that ticks continually upward over time,” my colleague Elena Shao wrote in 2022. “That pattern is considered by many scientists to be the most important evidence that the climate is changing because of human activity.”

This week’s update was a doozy.

Not only did the concentration of CO2 reach an all-time high, but the trend is accelerating: This was biggest year-over-year jump ever seen. The NOAA report also said CO2 concentration tends to rise quickly toward the end of El Niño cycles like the one we’re currently experiencing.

Which leads us back to the Ember study. The world is making steady progress in ramping up renewables. And that’s a real cause for optimism.

“The notion of a ‘doomer camp’ is overstated,” Leiserowitz said. “The larger majority of Americans reject a fatalistic view of climate change. In fact, the far larger and more important problem is that most Americans are not worried enough.”Mother’s Day garden 

MaryAlice posing with her lighted head decor for Beltane!

Another group photo post eclipse in the sanctuary 

Prayer List
For those working for social justice and societal changePray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nationThe war in Ukraine continuesPrayers for those in Palestine and Israel as the war continues into its seventh monthPrayers for the worsening humanitarian crisis in GazaPrayers for those affected by the recent tornados in the Mid-West and American SouthPrayers concerning the protests and turmoil on US college campuses 

The Four Limitless Ones Prayer

May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.

May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.

May we dwell in the great equanimity free from anger, aggression and delusion.

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