READINGS
1. from Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or Life in the Woods, Ticknor & Fields, Boston, 1854:
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

2. from Barry M. Andrews, Thoreau as a Spiritual Guide, Skinner House Books, Boston, 2000:
"Thoreau and his fellow Transcendentalists felt they were writing
modern-day scripture to promote what they termed 'self-culture,' the
cultivation of the soul. First and foremost, Walden is a book about
spiritual renewal and reformation…"

3. From David Robinson, quoted by Barry M. Andrews:
"Like a pauper who searches for the next meal, never knowing of the relatives whose will would make him rich, American Unitarians lament their vague religious identity, [while] standing upon the richest spiritual legacy of any denomination. Possessed of a deep and sustaining history of spiritual achievement and philosophical speculation, religious liberals have been, ironically, dispossessed of that heritage."

THE SERMON
We often forget that Henry David Thoreau is one of our spiritual ancestors, and that his book, Walden, is part of our "Holy Scripture." Perhaps in this beautiful spring season, and so close to Earth Day, we might remind ourselves.

From 1845 to '47 Henry David Thoreau lived in a small wooden cabin he built himself on the shores of Walden Pond on the outskirts of Concord, Massachusetts. During the time he spent at Walden Pond, Thoreau supported himself by cultivating a vegetable garden, doing odd jobs, eating frequently at the home of his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, letting Mrs. Emerson do his laundry, and otherwise living cheaply. The major portion of his time was devoted to studying nature, to writing, reading and thinking, and to long conversations with his neighbors. Thoreau explained his sojourn at Walden, famously, "I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." In his little book, Thoreau as a Spiritual Guide, Barry Andrews notes that there is a deep longing within many people today for something more, something different, and something better. We would like to have more beauty in our lives, more of nature in our cities, more time for contemplation, more of an opportunity to enjoy life in all of its fullness and vitality. But most of us have a hard time making a commitment to what Thomas Moore calls "the care of the soul." After all, the cultivation of the soul takes a certain amount of time and discipline. "Soul work" has a tendency to point out discrepancies between our higher aspirations and the everyday choices we make. But it can also be an exciting voyage of self-discovery, and may be the only way to true happiness. The philosopher Epicurus wrote, "It is never too early or too late to care for the well-being of the soul." Whether or not they fully realize it, many people today are complaining about the lack of soul or depth in their lives. Ministers come to understand that many people feel a certain emptiness or sense of meaninglessness. They are vaguely depressed or disillusioned about commitments and relationships, and they feel a yearning for personal fulfillment and spiritual growth. These concerns are a reflection of the hunger for spirituality that has brought so many people to our congregations in the past several years. We have a very religious nation. Christian conservative churches are growing, American Muslim communities are growing, Buddhist meditation groups, Women's Spirituality groups, Wiccan and Pagan groups, Bible study groups, "A Course in Miracles" groups and many other religious or spiritual organizations are attracting interest and followers. There is a spiritual hunger in our society. And we have a growing understanding that the rewards our society usually offers, including money, sex without commitment, power, entertainment and material goods are ultimately distractions and hindrances to living a more meaningful, fulfilling and spiritual life.

THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS
In the midst of this great American search for spiritual sustenance, we Unitarian Universalists suffer from a vague sense of our religious identity and our marginal place among the established American faiths. Yet like other Americans, many UUs are searching for a greater sense of spirituality in their lives. And we don't seem to know that we are standing on perhaps the richest spiritual legacy of any American church. Thoreau was a member of the inner circle of the American Transcendentalist movement. To the Transcendentalists, the deepest religious and moral truths - the existence of God, the difference between right and wrong -could not be demonstrated through practical experience or the scientific method. They could only be known intuitively, by faculties that transcend the senses. Hence the term Transcendentalism. They looked for the voice of God within, to counter what they believed was the corrupting influence of worldly experience. They wanted to move Unitarianism away from dry intellectualism and make it more a religion of the heart and hand. Theirs was a religion of insight and not tradition.
All of the Transcendentalists were either active Unitarians, or were, like Thoreau, former or non-practicing Unitarians. They may be thought of as the radical wing of Unitarianism prior to the Civil War. They included Ralph Waldo Emerson, their leading light; Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, the Rev. Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott, the Rev. George Ripley, the Rev. Orestes Brownson, and the Rev. Frederick Henry Hedge of Bangor, Maine. The Transcendentalists saw themselves as spiritual heirs of the Rev. William Ellery Channing, "the prophet of American Unitarianism."
Channing had been the acknowledged leader of Unitarianism as we separated from the Calvinist Congregationalism of the previous generation. He was a deeply spiritual figure who inspired and supported the Transcendentalists. Emerson referred to Channing as "our Bishop" and "the star of the American Church." In particular, the Transcendentalists seized on the notion of "self-culture" that Channing had articulated so convincingly in his sermons and lectures. Now, the English language has been constantly changing since the 1830s, so it may not be apparent what Channing meant by "self-culture." By "self," Channing meant "spirit" or "soul." And he used "culture" in the sense of agriculture or cultivation - thus, the cultivation or care of the soul.
Channing wrote, "He who possess the divine powers of the soul is a great being, be his place what it may." Channing's emphasis on the spiritual capacity of the soul, and the importance of cultivating the seed of divinity within each individual, had tremendous appeal to the Transcendentalists. Almost all of them were engaged in one way or another with the pursuit of self-culture, and it accounted for everything they did - from lectures and book discussion groups, to methods of spiritual discipline, anti-slavery agitation, the introduction of kindergartens to America, and the establishment of the Brook Farm commune. And it was for self-culture, the cultivation of the soul, that Thoreau went into the Walden woods.

THE OBJECT OF RELIGION
Although we might correctly associate Thoreau with environmentalism, he moved to Walden Pond primarily to expand his religious sensibilities. What, after all, is religion really about? Is it doctrine, or even liturgy? Barry Andrews writes, "Over the years I have changed my mind concerning the object of religion. It may sound heretical to say so, but I have come to believe that religion is not so much about thinking as it is about living. It is not so much about meaning as it is about passion. It is not so much about doctrines as it is about waking up, about being fully alive, in the awareness of the present moment. I agree with what Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his Journal. Religion, he said, is neither beliefs nor rituals. It is life. 'It is not something else to be got, to be added, but is a new life of those faculties which you have.' "I have been led to this conclusion," Andrews says, "largely by my reading of the Transcendentalists." Transcendentalist writers insisted that every moment is precious, that we must make the most of each one of them, that the greatest challenge of life is to wake up before we die, and that this is what religion is really about.
For his part Thoreau said, "In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick, too; to stand at the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment, and to toe that line." He knew, as we should also understand, that only in the present moment can there be happiness or change or growth. Life itself exists only in the here and now. "We are always getting ready to live," Emerson said. There is "very little life in a lifetime." Only by making the most of each moment can we be assured of living life to its fullest. This may seem obvious or even superficial. And when we're young we think that we have plenty of time to spare. As we get older, however, there is a growing urgency to savor experience as completely as possible. As with so many things, this is easier said than done. Awareness is the key. The best way - indeed the only way - to capture moments is to pay attention. Although this may seem simple, it is not necessarily easy. Our habitual lack of awareness, our tendency to be distracted or dissatisfied, keeps us anesthetized. To achieve awareness takes practice and discipline. This is what self-culture, the care of the soul, is all about. Thoreau went to Walden Pond as a personal experiment in developing attentiveness. Our "Walden" can be anywhere we choose to practice awareness. While he was there, Thoreau would often sit in his doorway for hours and simply watch and listen as the sun moved across the sky and the light and shadows changed almost imperceptibly. He describes it in this way:
"There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or the hand. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, on a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon... amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in my west window, or the noise of some traveler's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of work." Thoreau and the Transcendentalists challenge us to see the religious life as a cultivation of a sense of the miraculous in the everyday, and to recognize the interconnectedness of all things. Both of these are essentially a matter of perception, and not belief. Emerson insisted that "the inevitable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common."

WHAT THEY LEARNED
It was the Transcendentalists' common goal to develop ways of living that reduced their material needs to a minimum so that they would be freer to pursue leisure - that is to say, spiritual truths, aesthetic impulses and moral ideals. The experimental quality of these efforts can be seen in Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond, and George Ripley's commune at Brook Farm. Thoreau built his little cabin in 1845 and lived there for a little over two years. In Walden he gave an account of his life there, and his reasons for the experiment. Basically, he wanted to simply his life and find time for reflection and writing. He said he wanted to "transact some private business with the fewest obstacles." We often hear his reasons for going into the woods, but his conclusion is not so oft quoted. He wrote:
"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws will be expanded and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
A number of Transcendentalists drafted credos, or simple statements of life's purpose or religious meaning. Thoreau's friend, William Henry Channing, nephew of the great William Ellery Channing, titled his, My Symphony: "To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages with an open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, never hurry. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony." What is to be our symphony, or credo? Each of us must write our own, and work out our own destiny in our own way. But I would suggest that we might include an opportunity to read or re-read the "holy scripture" of Walden, and take this advice from the gospel according to Thoreau:
"When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above?"

PRAYER
Let us learn to simplify our lives
So that we may be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich.
Let us study hard, think quietly, speak gently;
And listen to stars and birds, babes and sages with an open heart.
Amen.

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