Reflections on Unitarian Universalism's Seventh Principle

We affirm and promote: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

For those of you with spider and snake phobias, beyond the usual eeewwh factor, I apologize.  I’ve been there.  I used to be terrified of snakes, but I had a true spider phobia. At the sight of a T-tiny jumping spider I would hyperventilate. I still jump when surprised.

Once, in my parents’ home, in Fort Myers, there was a dead wolf spider on the floor, barring me from the kitchen…sprawled between me and the coffee pot. I crawled over the kitchen “bar” to get to the coffee, and crawled back over, cup in hand. I waited for my Dad to get up, find, and dispose of the wolfie before I came out of my room again.

My folks relied on pest control, almost as soon as we moved to Florida. Tightening our belts meant my Dad going room to room with noxious pesticides. So, for the most part, the only spiders I ever saw were dead spiders.

Then, a number of years later, I found myself living in Cross Creek—the North Central Florida town made famous by Majorie Kinnan Rawlins. It was a sane two-bedroom, cement block home—butted up against the marshes of Cross Creek.

What was I thinking?

Nature, as I’d never known her, was all around. In the evening I’d gaze out over the creek to cypress trees festooned with Spanish moss, and I woke up to the sounds of a family of barred owls nestled into an oak beside our window. Late at night, the frog song was so loud the walls vibrated.

But Nature was inside as well…a loaf of bread would mold if left out a day, and spiders marshaled each corner of the garage. I tried not to look. One morning I went to slip on my gym shoes, for a hike, and swear I heard a shriek…”No! Don’t!” I was tired and didn’t listen until my toe was smack dab against the screaming spider.

To my credit, I wore those shoes again, many times.

We weren’t terribly welcome in the neighborhood—we didn’t attend the local Baptist Church, my black cat arched her back in the window when we weren’t home, and we let the yard go—lawn orchids popped up uninvited and a quarter acre of purple spider wort was our pride and joy. The neighbors hired our adolescent friend to mow it all down.

The same young man came over shouting one day. “Jeff.” “Renée.” He barreled into the house with a small corn snake in his hands to tell us about the five or six-footer he’d just stepped over to get to us.

Before my eyes they hatched a scheme, the adolescent and my then husband, to photograph the huge snake. The young corn snake was foisted into my hands and only returned when it was my turn to grab the two and a half foot branch they’d annoyed the huge snake onto so I could lay it up against a tree…so Jeff could get some shots. It struck at me twice before careening at lightning speed up into the crown of the wee tree out front…no photos were taken…and I’ve loved snakes ever since.

We affirm and promote: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

After six months we moved away from Cross Creek, from the air boats that would blast into the marsh that was our yard, from the bellowing gators that literally lifted the deck beneath my feet, from the barred owl that shared its hunting evenings with us. We moved to the sandhill—remnant of a phosphate-mining-development boondoggle—a dry, misused, but no less lively habitat.

We were quiet. And the creatures came back. Squirrels and raccoons busted the bird feeders. Spiders set up housekeeping in the upper corners, safe from the cats. They took over pest control. I squealed and found an eyepiece to look under the deck to watch a wood rat build her home. I called her Pumpkin. Then the snakes moved into the yard—black racers, yellow rat snakes, even an indigo.

Native roaches chewed into bitter acorns, and rarely found their way inside.

A friend turned the 8 x 10 pool into a pond, and during a drought I had to pause on the drive to let the toads and frogs find their way. Dragonflies laid their eggs, and we watched pupa and tadpoles transform. Real life resurrection!

I heard a great horned owl take a raccoon, and watched swallow-tailed kites rounding the skies above the pond. Grey fox turned old gopher tortoise burrows to their liking. Red-shouldered hawks prowled. You could almost hear things falling into place, back into place.

We affirm and promote: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, but only a part… .

Thoughts to prompt discussion of Unitarian Universalism’s Sixth Principle—

We affirm and promote:

The Goal of World Community with Peace, Liberty and Justice for All

This principle, sixth of seven, is perhaps the easiest to read right through without savoring —thegoalofworldcommunitywithpeacelibertyandjusticeforall—

a seedless grape rather than a pomegranate.

Toward the end of the day Friday, I got into a discussion with a woman I work with about pomegranates.  She and her husband grow food for the farmer’s market, and she was listing off all the fruit trees they’d just planted. I wanted to know if you could grow pomegranates here. She thought yes, but she had no idea what you do with a pomegranate.

“I’ve seen the containers at the store, but I don’t know what you do with it.”

I’ve seen those containers too, little plastic cups filled with pomegranate seeds—all neat and tidy.

That’s no way to eat a pomegranate!

First you find your pomegranate. You can’t tell what’s inside, so you need to go by feel. You hold it in the palm of your hand and feel for the heaviness, for the juice full to bursting in each seed.

Then you’ve got some work to do. You need to get inside and pull it all apart, separate the seeds from the bitter membranes. Your fingers get stained red, as does everything else if you let the seeds escape the bowl.

Makes the little containers of seeds sound promising, doesn’t it?

The Goal of World Community with Peace, Liberty and Justice for All

It’s just a goal after all. We’re not saying we’re going to bring about world community, we’re not promising to grant peace, liberty and justice. Just pull off the lid and sprinkle the seeds on a salad and enjoy—let’s move on to number seven.

For Unitarian Universalists, this principle can even feel a little disingenuous—in the beauty pageants of religion, it our pat answer to the personal question at the end of the pageant.

I want to help bring about world peace.

Do you remember those questions? I haven’t watched a pageant in years, but when I did, when I was a little girl, in between bouts of walking with a book on my head to improve my posture, I remember waiting for it. Yep, now she’s going to talk about loving children and wanting world peace.

Then there was a pageant that changed everything. It was a Miss Universe pageant, and instead of a lovely evening gown—how I loved the evening gown competition—Miss Israel walked out in a tight-fitting black jumpsuit, with a machine gun slung over her shoulder.

I was stunned.

Sitting on the floor in front of the black-and-white television, alone, I cried—as devastated by the sight of a woman with a gun as I was by the notion that fire power was the answer to the question—how do you plan to contribute to the world community?

But then, hasn’t that always been the answer? The country with the most weapons, the biggest, baddest weapons, dictates what the world community looks like, feels like, tastes like. Toss that pomegranate in the air, and shoot it. Yes. Just like skeet shooting.

Everything ends up stained red.

We affirm and promote:

The Goal of World Community with Peace, Liberty and Justice for All

As we enter this new week, with the loudest shout out for women’s rights being that American women are cleared for combat, with Walmart fending off a run on ammunition, and with so many parents burying their lost, blood-stained children—that’s no seedless grape of a principle, no neat little package of seeds either—isn’t this principle asking us to put the pomegranate back together?

Where do we start—overseas, in Washington or Chicago, or just a few blocks away from here? How in a world of so many different faiths, beliefs, and philosophies? How in a world with child soldiers and gang warfare? When do we start? When everyone is armed alike, or when we see who is left standing? What can we do?

I don’t have the answer, perhaps no one does. But I do know this…if I take your hand…and your hand…and you take the hand next to you…we’ll have all the arms we need.