Sermon 1:
Humanity lives and dies in networks. Networks of ideas, networks of language, networks of relationships and connection, networks of economy. This is so apparent that it is a given. You pull your phone out to check the facts; you buy all your food relying on a supply chain; you talk to your friends sharing a common discourse. The internet, the market, the language are some of the networks here. You can think of more. But importantly, we relate and live through a black box of networking and relating. It is a black box that is useful to us, but mysterious.
Love simplicity. Some, afraid of the black box, try to figure it out. Dissect it. They inquire, reshaping the box, but their knowledge can never eliminate it. Instead, live simply and learn to love it.
The natural world rejuvinates the spirit, teaching humanity to love simplicity. For although the natural world might contain complex ecosystems, intricate environments, and life so contingent on a delicate balance of actors in a biological network--although the natural world runs into the same unavoidable, anxiety-ridden problem of existing in our own proliferating networks--we can enter it with a small, partial sense of irreducible individuality. Of being alone in the world. No worries. Nothing to pull you away.
But step into that natural world; retreat into a cabin and breathe the fresh air that vitalizes the soul. Breath that air in order to escape the tyranny of our networked, fragmented, overburdened lives. Step into a natural world that refreshes your soul.
Here is the secret. We do not escape language. We do not escape the internet. We do not escape the market. Although, we can minimize all of these things. But we cannot escape. We can only abandon their tyrrany, no longer assenting to a life entirely out of our own hands.
When our souls become weary, exhausted from the shallow magnetism of empty language, capitalistic desire, and inauthentic community, remind us of that natural world, with rivers running free, ignorant of the effects of our industrial, capitalistic society. Rivers where the soul wanders free. We only need to allow ourselves to experience it.