{"id":1576,"date":"2012-05-13T20:04:19","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T03:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegatheringcincinnati.org\/?p=1576"},"modified":"2012-05-13T20:04:19","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T03:04:19","slug":"may-13-2012-the-gospel-according-to-dr-seuss-the-lorax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/2012\/05\/13\/may-13-2012-the-gospel-according-to-dr-seuss-the-lorax\/","title":{"rendered":"May 13, 2012, "The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss: The Lorax""},"content":{"rendered":"

Message 94, \u201cThe Gospel According to Dr. Seuss: The Lorax\u201d, 5-13-12\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the message or see below to read it:<\/p>\n\n

 <\/p>\n

Last year I announced that I was not going to specifically celebrate Mother\u2019s or Father\u2019s Day anymore.\u00a0 They seem like anachronistic events designed more as marketing tools to sell flowers or boost restaurant sales than heartfelt celebrations.\u00a0 If one truly appreciates his or her mother, than one ought to be expressing that each and every day of the year – much like I do for my mom – I tell her I love her each and every day………..\u00a0 (Not really, but I like to make myself look good!)<\/p>\n

But, in keeping with this month\u2019s theme on the \u201cGospel According to Dr. Seuss\u201d, I decided to break my own rule and acknowledge today our one true mother – the one true womb from whom we each have come, the one true nurturer and sustainer of all life, our mother earth.\u00a0 I don\u2019t intend to engage in an environmental rant, however.\u00a0 Rather, just as Seuss did in his children\u2019s book The Lorax<\/span>, (show slide One) which is the focus of my message today, I hope we can consider the value of the environment from a spiritual perspective.\u00a0 Do we pay lip service to its well-being or can we be environmentalists in an honestly balanced way – one that offers respect and protection while still enjoying the benefits of nature?<\/p>\n

Theodore Geisel published The Lorax<\/span> in 1971 – a year when the environment was very much in the news with oil spills staining the California coastline and Cleveland\u2019s Cuyahoga river infamously catching fire.\u00a0 While Dr. Seuss said he wrote his books mostly for the reading pleasure of children, it is clear that The Lorax<\/span> has a very pointed message.<\/p>\n

The story opens with a young boy visiting a grim and polluted place to meet a reclusive figure whom we never fully see – the Once-ler.\u00a0 (show slide 2)\u00a0 The boy asks the Once-ler why the surroundings are so devastated, barren and grey.\u00a0 The Once-ler says that when he first arrived, the area was a pristine place – a bright and colorful Eden teeming with Brown Bar-ba-loots, Humming-Fish and large tufted Truffula trees. (show slide 3)\u00a0 The trees were of particular interest to Once-ler since they could be used in the manufacture of his invention – a \u201cThneed\u201d that is apparently invaluable to any person. (show slide 4)\u00a0 \u201cA Thneed\u2019s A Fine Something That All People Need!\u00a0 It\u2019s a shirt. It\u2019s a sock.\u00a0 It\u2019s a glove.\u00a0 It\u2019s a hat.\u00a0 But it has other uses.\u00a0 Yes, far beyond that!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Once-ler then began to mass produce Thneeds – all to meet insatiable consumer demand.\u00a0 A factory is built, employees are hired and Truffula trees are cut down all in the name of progress and the production of Thneeds.\u00a0 (show slide 5)\u00a0 A creature called The Lorax protests this mass deforestation.\u00a0 \u201cI speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues\u201d<\/strong> he tells the Once-ler.\u00a0 (show slide 6)<\/p>\n

But the Once-ler admits that he paid no attention to the nagging Lorax.\u00a0 In his greed and pursuit of profit, he pushed ahead until, after a while, every Truffula tree had been chopped down.\u00a0 (show slide 7)\u00a0 With no more Thneeds to be made, the factory shuts down, employees lose their jobs, the Brown Bar-ba-loots and Humming Fish leave the new wasteland and even the Lorax departs for a better world.\u00a0 (show slide 8) The Once-ler is left to live in a grey world of his own creation – one with polluted air, no trees, a shuttered factory and, of course, no people or creatures.<\/p>\n

Dr. Seuss does not end the story here, though.\u00a0 He concludes on a hopeful note as the Once-ler bestows on the boy the very last Truffula tree seed.\u00a0 (slide 9)\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong>the Once-ler tells the boy.\u00a0 \u201cAnd Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.\u00a0 Plant a new Truffula.\u00a0 Treat it with care.\u00a0 Give it clean water.\u00a0 And feed it fresh air.\u00a0 Grow a forest.\u00a0\u00a0 Protect it from axes that hack.\u00a0 Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Equal to his many other books, Dr. Seuss\u2019s The Lorax<\/span> is filled with creative characters, vibrant illustrations and humorous, rhyming verse.\u00a0 As a children\u2019s book, it tells a compelling story while respecting the active minds of young people.\u00a0\u00a0 This is no simple story.\u00a0 Its characters are complex and imaginative.\u00a0 The plot is alive and interesting.\u00a0 While its message is not as subtle or perhaps as funny as that of Cat in the Hat<\/span> and Green Eggs and Ham<\/span>, The Lorax<\/span> encourages its young readers to think about a great issue of 1971 and even of today.\u00a0 As an ardent progressive Christian, Geisel was also making a strong spiritual appeal.<\/p>\n

That fits well with my intention today to celebrate the earth as our ultimate mother.\u00a0 As we often say at the Gathering, spirituality is not about offering answers and ironclad doctrine regarding what we should<\/span> believe.\u00a0 Rather, spirituality is concerned with asking questions about ourselves and our world.\u00a0 It is about grounding us in the reality of what is true of human nature and then encouraging us to change for the better – to reform ourselves such that our better angels guide our actions.\u00a0\u00a0 If our purpose is to live so that we improve ourselves and the world, then care for our mother earth is a spiritual endeavor.\u00a0 It is a spiritual task to ask ourselves how we are doing in that regard.<\/p>\n

Indeed, we each accept that ALL creation is sacred – all plants, animals and humans – even rocks and soil – are bound together in a divine unity.\u00a0 We share one creator, one source, one mother and are thus interconnected in a vastly complex system.\u00a0 The dust of the earth and the trees of a forest will one day be me just as you and I are made of the stuff of ancient plant and animals.\u00a0 All life is dependent on other life for existence.\u00a0 While this is not only scientific fact, it is also a spiritual one.<\/p>\n

And that is the message of Dr. Seuss in The Lorax<\/span>.\u00a0 The book is not, however, an environmental scream at humanity to be better.\u00a0 Nowhere in the book does it imply or say that a tree should not be cut down.\u00a0 Nowhere does it suggest that nature should not be used to provide for our needs.\u00a0 Indeed, the book implies that good can come from nature – useful products and employment for workers who make them.\u00a0 Dr. Seuss uses the Lorax character to voice an ironically conservative message regarding human nature and the environment – \u201cSometimes progress progresses too fast.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

What the book suggests IS bad, is human excess – our propensity to want more and more of anything good.\u00a0 Human greed is the problem.\u00a0 Not human need.\u00a0 How do we fulfill our purpose to build heaven on earth with less disease, hunger and poverty – while still ensuring we do no harm to the earth?\u00a0 That is a spiritual question facing humanity.\u00a0 Can we increase food production to feed the world, can we find new drugs to cure disease, can we create new technology to make life easier, can we offer meaningful employment to all – can we do all these things and yet preserve our natural world?<\/p>\n

The Dalai Lama says that care for our earth is a simple spiritual matter.\u00a0 It is as simple as taking care of one\u2019s house.\u00a0 The earth, after all, is our one and only home.\u00a0 The Book of Ecclesiastes, part of the Jewish and Christian Old Testament, quotes Gods as saying, \u201cLook at My world, how beautiful and perfect is everything that I created.\u00a0 I created it for you.\u00a0 Be careful not to ruin and destroy My world.\u00a0 If you ruin it, there is nobody to restore it after you.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

Acting contrary to God\u2019s appeal, however, humanity is quickly eliminating much of the world\u2019s primeval forests – just as foretold in The Lorax<\/span>.\u00a0 These are forests untouched by human development – places where vast numbers of unique species exist and where indigenous human tribes have dwelled for thousands of years.<\/p>\n

The Amazon rainforest, the forests of Madagascar, Indonesia and southwest China are all in peril.\u00a0 Over 150 acres of untouched forest are destroyed each and every minute – the loss of of 216,000 acres a day – all cut down for logging, mining and farming.\u00a0 At this rate, scientists estimate the world will be devoid of primeval forest within forty years.<\/p>\n

And such a loss comes with significant consequence to humanity.\u00a0 Over three-hundred drugs have been derived solely from rainforests.\u00a0 These are drugs that treat cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer\u2019s and AIDS.\u00a0 Muscle relaxants and plant based steroids to treat multiple sclerosis were just recently discovered in the Amazon.\u00a0 25% of all<\/span> <\/em><\/strong>current drugs on the market have at least one chemical compound found within the Amazon rainforest.\u00a0 And yet scientists have analyzed only 1% of Amazon plants for their pharmacological potential.\u00a0 What miracle cures could yet be discovered if the Amazon rainforest is somehow saved?<\/p>\n

Human diversity is also being destroyed along with the forests.\u00a0 Before Europeans first landed in the Americas, experts estimate that over 10 million indigenous people lived within the Amazon basin.\u00a0 Today, fewer than 200,000 native people live in the forest – and that number is rapidly declining as Amazon tribes are encouraged to develop, clear land, begin farming and thus, supposedly, improve their lives.<\/p>\n

A number of years ago, I travelled to the Central American nation of Belize with an outreach team to work at building homes.\u00a0 We did not travel to the resort and beach towns along the coast of that Carribbean nation – the Belize most tourists see.\u00a0 We ventured to small inland villages many miles from the coast where people lived in huts made of tree branches and thatched roofs.\u00a0 Pigs and chickens ran wild, the young children were unclothed, the villages lacked running water and electricity.\u00a0 People survived through subsistence farming, hunting and foraging.\u00a0 Initially, I believed such villages were terribly poor and in need of assistance.<\/p>\n

With an arrogant western attitude, I assumed that by building cinder block houses with cement floors, the lives of these people would be improved.\u00a0 Other agencies were helping to dig wells and run electrical lines.\u00a0 Slowly, some of these villages were being transformed.\u00a0 Progress was coming.<\/p>\n

But was it?\u00a0 I came to conclude that perhaps what we were doing – supposedly building better homes – was not for the best.\u00a0 Is a house with a tin roof and cement floor better?\u00a0 In a tropical climate, are young children richer if they wear clothes and watch TV instead of run and play naked outdoors?\u00a0 Indeed, I was forced to ask myself that, when comparing native village life and its close to nature existence with my own life of houses, cars and grocery stores, which is richer and which is poorer?\u00a0 Who is happier and more fulfilled?<\/p>\n

While Theodore Geisel was a progressive and he even described his writing as subversive, he was a NOT a wild-eyed radical.\u00a0 The Lorax<\/span> was initially banned in many schools and libraries, however.\u00a0 Even today, it is regarded as controversial.\u00a0 But just as Geisel encouraged kids to have open minds and free thinking in Green Eggs and Ham<\/span>, as we discussed last week – he implicitly asks the same in The Lorax<\/span> about nature.\u00a0\u00a0 Industry is not bad by itself nor is the use of wood products derived from trees bad.\u00a0 Geisel\u2019s books and his profits, after all, were printed on paper made from trees!\u00a0 We are grossly mistaken if we assume The Lorax<\/span> promotes a radical environmentalism that forbids any development.<\/p>\n

As I have often said in here, answers to difficult questions and issues usually lie somewhere between two extremes – somewhere in the middle.\u00a0 This is true in politics, religion and life in general.\u00a0 It is comfortable and easy to stake out an extreme position on any matter.\u00a0 Truth, however, is far more complex.\u00a0 With regard to the environment, human beings are simply one species here on earth who are not to abandon the use of nature, but to coexist, protect and sustain it.\u00a0 The indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest or of any other forest in the world do not live apart from nature.\u00a0 They are a part of it and they USE it for their very survival.\u00a0 We must do the same.<\/p>\n

What Geisel promotes is greater regulation on excessive greed – a frailty of human nature that no amount of religion or morality has been able to eliminate.\u00a0 He does not speak against development, factories or jobs – merely that such advantages cannot be focused solely on short-term profit.\u00a0 Indeed, he echoes an important spiritual theme.\u00a0 As the Bible says, money is NOT the root of all evil.\u00a0 We are NOT told we must live in poverty without any money or resources.\u00a0 Rather, the Bible says that it is the LOVE<\/span><\/em> of money that is the root of all evil.\u00a0 Such a love of money is what causes misuse of the environment.\u00a0 In The Lorax<\/span>, manufacturing Thneeds from the Truffula trees is not evil.\u00a0 It is the greed of the Once-ler in cutting down ALL of the Truffula trees that is evil.\u00a0 As ironic as it might seem, Geisel\u2019s appeal to regulate greed is actually an appeal to insure that development and progress might continue.\u00a0 Spiritually speaking, he is asking humans to save themselves from themselves!<\/p>\n

A nuanced and balanced approach to celebrating and protecting mother earth acknowledges her resources and the benefits they provide.\u00a0 With such a recognition, must come an important effort to protect her long-term well-being.\u00a0 If we are to reap the benefits of new drugs found in rainforests, we must protect them from being wiped out just as we must protect any part of the environment from unrestrained destruction.<\/p>\n

And this is not a matter of simple tree-hugging.\u00a0 As I said earlier, it is a spiritual concern.\u00a0 The Bible tells us that God put all creation under the dominion of humanity to use and enjoy its fruits.\u00a0 A spiritually balanced approach, though, tells us that we must protect and preserve creation for the long term – just as the Dalai Lama says we protect and preserve our homes for our own benefit.<\/p>\n

Even more, we protect and preserve our earth mother because she is an intrinsic part of us and we are a part of her.\u00a0 Just as we are sacred, so is she.\u00a0 It is holy, right, moral and spiritual to be concerned with preserving the earth since doing so preserves human life.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of The Lorax, the Once-ler shows the boy a small pile of rocks, one of which has the word \u201cUnless\u201d inscribed on it.\u00a0 (slide 10)\u00a0 \u201cWhatever that meant, well, I just couldn\u2019t guess\u201d, <\/strong>writes Seuss.\u00a0 \u201cThat was long, long ago.\u00a0 But each day since that day I\u2019ve sat here and worried and worried away.\u00a0 Through the years, while my buildings have fallen apart, I\u2019ve worried about it with all of my heart.\u00a0 \u2018But now,\u2019 says the Once-ler, \u2018Now that you\u2019re here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.\u00a0 UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.\u00a0 It\u2019s not.\u201d\u00a0 (slide 11)<\/strong><\/p>\n

On this day of the year when we are asked to celebrate the perfect ideals of motherhood, we can heed the same message toward our mother earth.\u00a0 Good moms, like my mom, are nurturing, supportive, protective and giving.\u00a0 In their presence, we feel love and security.\u00a0 When we walk through a local forest, hike across mountain meadows or gaze upon vast oceans, we experience the same feelings of love and security.\u00a0 In the bosom of this earth we are fed, housed, healed and entertained.\u00a0 Such is a sacred gift offered to all humanity and all creation.\u00a0 For our sake and for the sake of creating heaven on earth, we must honor and protect this mother of all life so that we may continue to benefit from her.\u00a0 We must restrain human propensity toward greed and misuse.\u00a0 In that regard, may we wish our true mother a happy mother\u2019s day – one that she might celebrate for many, many years to come.<\/p>\n

I wish you all peace and joy…<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Message 94, \u201cThe Gospel According to Dr. Seuss: The Lorax\u201d, 5-13-12 \u00a9 Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved Click here to listen to the message or see below to read it:   Last year I announced that I was not going to specifically celebrate Mother\u2019s or Father\u2019s Day anymore.\u00a0 They seem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}