The Interdependent Web
by Rev. Dan Schatz
March 17, 2024
When I was a Latin American Studies student in Austin, Texas, I used to attend services at the First Unitarian Church, a few miles up the road from my apartment. There was one guy in the congregation who would stand out in any crowd. His name was Charles, and he was a small man, made smaller, I think, with age. Charles was 96 years old, though he didn’t look a day over 93. He had a big gray beard, wore funny hats, and what he lacked in height he made up for in emphasis. You could hear his high pitched, staccato voice ringing across the social hall, usually making some comment about philosophy. I remember him saying, in that falsetto, “the Greek philosophers were all sexists. They were threatened by intelligent women.” It was almost like hearing an impassioned Mickey Mouse with a PhD. We spoke briefly a couple of times, and in one of those conversations Charles asked if I was a philosopher, to which I replied, “No, I’m studying Latin American Studies,” and he said, “oh,” and walked away.
I have regretted that answer ever since, because I later learned that Charles Hartshorne was widely considered one of the greatest living philosophers and theologians on Earth. I also learned that he only talked in that high pitched voice when he was excited, and that he was excited all of the time. So I missed my chance for a deeper connection with a thinker who now occupies almost an entire shelf of my bookcase.
What Charles was famous for was called process theology, and of all the various theological threads in the rich tapestry that is Unitarian Universalism, Charles’s process theology embodies more than any other the Unitarian Universalist value of interdependence. Charles saw reality not as physical stuff – this pulpit, that chair – but as process, a series of moments, events unfolding through time. It’s just another way of thinking, but when you look at reality that way, everything becomes connected. Everything becomes related. What you in this moment impacts me, and helps to shape the next moment we will both live in. And like a stone dropped in water, the ripples of our actions spread. Existence constantly renews itself, and every change in every place becomes part of shaping the whole. For Charles, that living, re-creating, constantly unfolding process of interconnection, plus a little bit more, was God.
Now, that’s a very cosmic way of thinking about interdependence – and for that matter it’s a pretty cosmic way of thinking about God – but it’s one that has always made sense to me, and part of Charles’s process theology has become part of my own. You don’t need to name it God. I generally don’t, but I do recognize that there is something sacred in this web of interconnection, and I’m hardly the only one.
The idea that what happens in one place or at one moment affects the larger whole is both thousands of years old, and startlingly new. It’s embedded in the creation stories of the Hindu Vedas, and the theology of Hua Yen Buddhists, and the modern insights of ecofeminism, and the teachings of neopagans, and of course the science of ecology.
Interdependence is so central to Algonquin peoples, including the Lenape, on whose ancestral land our congregation sits, that it is expressed in just three words – “All My Relations.” The Ojibwe author Richard Wagamese wrote, “All My Relations means that you recognize everything as alive and elemental to your being. There is nothing that matters less than anything else. By virtue of its being, all things are vital, necessary and a part of the grand whole, because unity cannot exist where exclusion is allowed to happen. This is the great teaching of this statement.”
That’s powerful. “Nothing matters less than anything else.” “Everything” is “alive and elemental to your being.” All My Relations.
Of all the Unitarian Universalist values or principles, “We honor the interdependent web of all existence” is the most deeply theological. You can get into some mind blowing head space really quickly. I may have already done that, and I’ve just begun the sermon. But it’s one of the most beloved of our values, because it also takes us out of that head space and invites us to a sense of wonder. We are part of a web that includes every human being on Earth, every animal, every plant, the biosphere in which we live. We are all connected. We are all related. And it’s more than that, because we are also related with the soil and the waters and the air and the minerals and gasses that make up our planet. We are connected with every planet, all of the stars, the whole of the universe itself. Stardust literally runs through our veins, and everything that happens becomes part of a new creation, again, and again, and again.
What’s not to love in a value like that?
I think the other reason the interdependent web holds a special place in Unitarian Universalist hearts is that it takes us beyond the human. Our other values and principles are important – equity that calls us to lift the worth and dignity of all people, pluralism that gives life to freedom, our sense of justice that bids us overcome oppression and embrace inclusive democracy, the spirit of generosity which reminds us to serve beyond ourselves, a commitment to transformation that bids us remain open to change, and the love that lies under it all. All of them are important and central to who we are, but for the most part they speak to human interactions and human society.
That’s as it should be, because, after all, we are literally only human. But if we were to stop there we’d miss too much. We’d miss part of what it is to be human, because to be human is to be connected with the world outside ourselves. Interdependence reminds us that we are all caught, as Rev. Dr. King said, “in an inescapable network of mutuality,” but we are also connected to the natural world.
That’s why, as much as I love theologians like Charles Hartshorne and the teaching of the Vedas, and the Ojibwe, and all the rest of it, I find that I grow spiritually when I get outdoors and experience that sense of connectedness. Maybe it comes through seeing the first skunk cabbages emerge through the snow, or the six bluebirds that landed all at once on the winterberry outside my front window. Maybe it comes from a David Attenborough documentary. Now there’s a way to experience wonder, even when we can’t get out of the house. There’s a way to remember all our relations.
Charles understood that. He had a passion for wild birds, and became an internationally regarded expert on bird song, because apparently being one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers wasn’t sufficient. Even the most intellectual among us need wonder and connection.
It would be easy to just stop there, enjoying the feeling of interdependence and spiritual bliss that is a David Attenborough documentary, or a National Park, or the Milky Way, or the song of a thrush, or the feeling of looking into the treetops. It would be easy to imagine it is enough to let the Interdependent web wash over us and just relish the sensation of it all. It would be easy, and we absolutely should do that. I think we need to do that if we are to become fully realized human beings. But it would not be enough.
The author Evan Pritchard, of the Canadian Micmac people speaks of “life as a circle of being, a sacred hoop which interconnects all of us,” and he writes, “Although we are distinct spiritual beings equal to any who have ever lived, in this world we are largely defined by the sum total of our relationships, to nature and to each other.” “It is a humbling thought,” he says, “and humility is always welcome.”
What is important about interdependence is not merely the fact of our relationships with other beings, but the quality of those relationships. Unitarian Universalists are finally beginning to understand that with interdependence comes responsibility. In the words of the proposed value – “We honor the interdependent web of all existence. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it.”
As much as we have appreciated nature throughout our history, we’ve often treated it like a tool or maybe a piece of art. Instead of seeing ourselves as part of nature equal in intrinsic value to any other, we’ve acted as overlords. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson, that grand Unitarian minister who famously left his pulpit, as one critic said, “to reform the world by growing onions,” wrote of nature as a resource to be harvested, mined, and used. He judged the worth of nature by what he could get out of it.
Today’s Unitarian Universalists seek a different path. “With reverence for the web of life, and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it.” It’s a long overdue correction, because interdependence is more than a statement of scientific truth or religious wonder. It’s a value that teaches us how to live with each other and on this earth. If we take interdependence seriously, then we have to learn to live responsibly. In the words of the proposed UU value, “We covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation. We will create and nurture sustainable relationships of care and respect, mutuality and justice. We will work to repair harm and damaged relationships.”
Remember, our actions and choices in this moment shape the world as it is coming into being. That means we have a measure of responsibility not only for our own lives but also for the impact of our living on each other and with the Earth. Humility teaches us that we can’t center our choices on what is most convenient for us, without considering others, and without considering the whole.
To put it simply – what you do matters. And it’s not all about you.
So much of our Unitarian Universalist way of living boils down to that. You are important. The integrity of who you are matters in this world. Your experiences, your values, your opinions, and your passions make a difference. And the same is true of everyone else. So we can’t just do whatever we want and call it good. As we embrace our freedom, we also must acknowledge that we will never be independent. We are part of a community – a religious community, a geographical community, an ecological community, the universal community.
We can’t survive alone, nor, I think, would we want to. In community, we all depend on each other. That’s literallyinterdependence. And for good for ill, our actions impact the world around us.
The environmentalist author and poet Wendell Berry told the story of a pond he had decided to put into a hillside, so he could use the ground on that part of his farm for pasture. At first it seemed a great success, but after heavy rains and snow the following Autumn and Winter, the hill collapsed, taking with it a part of the woodland floor. “The trouble,” he said, “was a familiar one: too much power, too little knowledge. The fault was mine.”
He recognized that anybody could have made that mistake, and that in general he’s dedicated himself to healing a damaged landscape, “but now,” he said, “part of its damage is my own…. I have made a lasting flaw in the face of the earth, for no lasting good.”
Sometimes our actions will hurt others, or damage the whole. We know this. It doesn’t make us bad people, any more than a damaged woodland makes Wendell Berry a bad environmentalist. It just makes us human. Accountability means that we are willing to recognize when we’ve caused some damage, do what we can to repair that damage, and most importantly, learn from the experience. It’s not about shame or punishment, but knowledge. As Wendell Berry said, “To lose the scar of knowledge is to renew the wound.”
Holding on to that knowledge, we can begin to choose, in the best ways we are able, to live for the good of the whole. It doesn’t mean we’ll never harm another being. That’s a bar very few if any could ever reach. It does mean that we choose to live responsibly, as best we are able, be aware of our impact, own up to our missteps and mistakes, and try to put more good into the world than harm. That’s all that is asked of us.
And I think that’s a good way to live. Every action we take in this moment affects every part of existence all around us. I am changed, in the moment that is unfolding, because you are here. We are all related, all interdependent, all coming into being. For Charles Hartshorne, this, plus a little more, was God. The little more, he said, was a tiny influence towards the good – not a mandate, but a persuasion, a tip of the balance. I’ve never been real sure about that part of his theology, but I do know this.
When we live the values that we hold precious, we do our part to make the world better. When we reach out to those in need, not because we know them, but simply because they are in need and there’s something we can do, we move the world toward the good. When we learn the needs of the Earth and of other species, and take steps to fix what damage humanity has done, we honor interdependence, and this world becomes better.
This is what interdependence teaches us.
So I ask you this – that you live for the world by being the best version of yourself that you can be. Feel the community of life and relationship that surrounds and envelopes you. Enjoy it. Rejoice in it – and in the holiness of your living, make it even better.
Live well on this blue boat home.
Grow, love, and serve beyond yourself.
Let your spirit turn the world.