Month: November 2016

“Returning to a well-loved story that gives me strength”

Chalice Lighting, Nov 20, 2016

Scott Denning

For the past 10 years, I have told the story of the Three S’s of Climate Change: Simple. Serious. Solvable.

The Three S’s is a story about how the world really works that connects directly to people’s lives. There’s no way to sugar-coat the threat of climate change: We do have to talk about that middle S. Instead of “Serious,” you might call it “Scary.”

It’s very important to never stop at the second S! The story of the two S’s is an unmitigated tragedy, like ending The Lord of the Rings with the capture of Frodo in Mordor at the end of The Two Towers. The two S’s is a story of despair and hopelessness. It sucks the joy out of life and drains us of any motivation to do anything about climate change.

By contrast, the three S’s is a story of hope and a call to action.

Climate Change is Simple: We know that adding CO2 to the air warms the climate for precisely the same reason that day is warmer than night, summer is warmer than winter, and Phoenix is warmer than Fargo. Heat in minus heat out equals change of heat. All the Earth’s heat comes from the Sun, but if “heat in” was the whole story the Earth would just get hotter and hotter until it melted and vaporized! Heat out is IR radiation that passes through the atmosphere. We’ve known since Abraham Lincoln was president that CO2 absorbs IR radiation, so it slows down the heat out. When the Sun adds more heat to the Earth than it can emit through the CO2-rich air, it warms up.

Climate Change is Serious: CO2 is not like the Denver brown cloud of smog. Smog hurts our lungs because it’s chemically reactive. CO2 is chemically inert in the air. It’s thermodynamically spent, the ashes of the Earth’s living carbon cycle. Some of it will remain in the atmosphere for many thousands of years after we stop burning coal, oil, and gas. Without very strong international policy to rapidly convert the entire world economy system to carbon-free energy, we will add as much heat to the World in the next two human generations as was added over 10,000 years to end the last Ice Age. The world would be transformed as much as deglaciation, but 100 times as fast. That’s way too fast for ecosystems to adapt. We’d leave our descendants with a ruined world of mass extinctions, droughts, and floods. All the coastal cities in the world would be lost to rising seas, displacing half of humanity. And the misery would last for millennia. Not just the 7 billion people currently on Earth would suffer, but also hundreds of generations yet to be born.

Thank God Climate Change is Solvable! We know exactly what to do to avoid catastrophe. We have to stop setting fossils on fire! From an engineering point of view, this is a solved problem. We have a wide range of non-carbon alternatives ready to deploy that can provide abundant energy to both the developed and developing world, enabling a bright future. It will be expensive, but no more so than the incredible accomplishments of our ancestors: indoor plumbing, rural electrification, interstate highways, the Internet.

All that’s lacking is political will. And there’s the rub.

I was personally devastated by the results of the election, and have watched in horror as new Cabinet posts are filled with zealots who propose to tear up everything we’ve accomplished through 20 years of hard work and delicate diplomacy.

I realize that my story has left me deeply vulnerable. Will we now lose that critical third S?

To move forward into the future, I need faith. The story of the Three S’s is ultimately a story of moral courage.

It’s wrong to wreck the world.

We must pull together with our children and grandchildren and with everyone around the world, to build a sustainable future. A song from my youth said, “to sing the blues, you’ve got to live the blues and carry on.” Remember the refrain? “Rejoice! Rejoice! We have no choice, but to carry on.”

I light the chalice this morning to honor that sacred flame in the darkness that is our deep and abiding faith in the goodness and courage of people everywhere.

Rev. Sean Neil-Barron

Rev. Sean is Foothills Acting Senior Minister while Rev. Gretchen is on Sabbatical.
Responsible for Worship, Justice Ministries, Faith Formation Strategies and sits on Foothills Executive Leadership Team with Director of Finances and Operations Katie Watkins.

Sean was born on Treaty 7 land in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and comes to Foothills after four years in New England where he completed seminary at Harvard Divinity School where he studied alongside future imams, rabbis, justice activists, and other Unitarian Universalists. Sean is a self-proclaimed nerd — particularly about history, current politics, science, and Star Wars. Outside of ministry you will find Sean hiking or cooking up a storm with his partner Charles, watching his son’s basketball games, all under the watchful eye of their dog Dollie.

Listen to “Waking Up”

This past Sunday, we had 180% more of you than usual, and it was what writer Glennon Doyle Melton calls “brutiful,” a combination of beautiful, and brutal. Beautiful to gather, beautiful to sing, to breathe, to laugh and cry and simply come together after a week where, as I said on Sunday, we experienced a “global plot twist.”  I could feel the force of love among us.  But also brutal, because what inspired so many to show up on Sunday was pain, grief, anger, fear, even despair.  It was one of the most powerful Sundays I’ve ever experienced, and I’d give nearly anything for it not to have been necessary.

As we move forward, I want to clarify and underscore two commitments of our faith and our congregation that I hope you’ll help me uphold.

First, we still don’t do shame in our church.  We don’t shame each other for who we voted for – no matter who that is, or for coming to different conclusions than we have about big and complex topics, or about how we will move through these complicated times (aka, life).

The emerging future is going to require a lot of learning.  And learning requires imperfection, humility, laughter, and grace.  We’re going to screw up a lot, and we’re going to state strong opinions that later we realize we were wrong about.  A few months ago I preached on what it feels like to be wrong, exploring some of the ideas in the TED Talk by Kathryn Schulz  What she says is that being wrong feels exactly the same as being right – only once we realize we are wrong does it feel differently.

We have to give each other and ourselves the space to be wrong, without shame.  In place of shame, let us ask more generous questions (the topic of our Wednesday night Civil Conversations gathering by the way!).  Instead of shame, try to listen for what’s hurting, what’s being wrestled with, what value is being expressed.

Growth and change require a level of safety – which is not the same as comfort.  We need to create safe spaces where we can be uncomfortable together.  This is the sweet spot of deep learning – real transformation, and courageous love.

Which brings me to the second commitment: there’s still no “them;”only us. Our world seeks to divide us, to harden the categories of who is worthy, who is good, who suffers the most, who is to blame, who is the enemy, and who is our kin.  Our religious lens asks us to not let the categories, or our hearts be hardened to any other, but to keep up the practices that grow more supple hearts, hearts of compassion that can hold ever more complexity and willingness to see ourselves in the other.  (This is the work of our upcoming Healing the Heart of Democracy series.)

This second commitment does not mean that we don’t have strong convictions. We are called to a practice of compassion with boundaries, covenant by way of self-differentiation.   As my message on Sunday proclaimed, our faith compels us in this moment to a greater justice, a braver and bolder living out of our principles, our living Unitarian Universalist tradition, and our mission.  Wherever hatred has been unleashed, we are called to unleash courageous love.  The great discipline before us is to discern what that love looks like, and what it asks of us.  And for that, we need each other and our religious community, more than ever.

Thank you for being present in the struggle, learning together, and unleashing courageous love for one another, and for our greater world.  I have never been more grateful for this community, and our promise and commitment that we are all in this together.

Rev. Gretchen Haley

Rev. Gretchen Haley has an audacious ambition for the liberal church, believing in its capacity to transform lives and our world by way of hyper-local relationships and partnerships that inspire the unleashing of courageous love. She oversees worship, community resourcing and outreach, and the intersectional work of our justice teams. She also serves as chief of staff, and ministry lead to the Board. In all of these, she is inspired by the commitment of the countless people who show up to do the sometimes-messy work of the church, and who are leading us to live into our mission for Northern Colorado as it is growing and changing. Her ministry is infused with her relentless curiosity about most things, especially the big stuff of theology, the beauty of creation, the magic of collaboration, and the joy of pop culture. She’s all in on adrienne maree brown’s emergent strategy, and finds solace in the trails in and around Fort Collins. She moved to Colorado from Washington state over 20 years ago for grad school in theatre, and knew immediately that she would never leave. She and her amazing partner, Carri, have 2 teenagers, Gracie and Josef, who both relish and resent being PKs, and who keep her grounded, frustrated, inspired, and humbled, everyday. She is basically obsessed with her two dogs, both large mutts, Charlie and Archer.

Responsible for: Worship, Community Resourcing and Outreach, Justice Ministries, and Congregational Leadership