Reserves of Reverence

Earlier this morning, I tumbled out of bed to saunter over to the shore of Lake Winnipeg and watch the sun rise at 7:54 with my wife. I’m not a morning person, but Cindy is – I burn the midnight oil while she wakes to greet the dawn. According to family tradition, Cindy’s grandfather, Mankichi Eyemoto, rose every morning to worship the rising sun and I have no reason to doubt it, so she comes by this morning ritual honestly.

By contrast, I come from a melancholy people who watched the sun set in the west and then kindled fires for the kvöldvaka, the evening wake, when they would sing and dance, dine and weave, read and tell stories until they fell asleep. If my northern ancestors watched the sun rise, it was most likely in midwinter when it didn’t slip above the horizon until about half past eleven.

Still, this ritual was easier this morning than it is during the early days of summer when the sun rises before half past five. At that time of year, when Cindy is more likely to rouse me to join her – and I’ll admit that she often has to make the trek to the beach on her own – I still tend to stumble and complain all the way to the shoreline. And when we get back to cabin, I go back to bed.

Sunrise over Lake Winnipeg – © Stefan Jonasson

Notwithstanding my uncooperative behaviour, though, something magical happens and we stand and wait for the rising sun. No matter how many times I see the sun inch above the distant horizon, there is something exhilarating about watching it. Some of the birds that sing during the morning twilight go silent once the sun is up, or change their tunes, while the waterfowl that rest along the shore take wing in waves until all that’s left are ripples lapping the sand. Some mornings the waves beat against the shore, while other mornings the lake is as still as glass. On clear days, the horizon glistens in orange, while on cloudy days there are hues of pink and even crimson. I love it when the clouds and the sun weave together, giving the sun the appearance of Mars or Jupiter if you take its picture. When it’s completely overcast, only the lightening shades of grey in the sky bear witness to the sun being there at all.

The deer and racoons have long departed by the time the sun is up, but a brave fox may sometimes happen by. And this year, we’ve had to keep our eyes open for the bears who have taken up residence in the neighbourhood after many years of absence. So far, if they’ve been around at all, they’ve been watching us as we watch the sun. On a quiet morning, we can faintly see and hear the fishers miles out on the lake, the sounds of their work and catch echoing across the water.

I whine and complain when Cindy wakes me to wander to the lakeshore, but when the sun appears, I am inevitably overcome with awe. Along with the birds, I hold my peace. It never gets old. Every sunrise is a new experience.

“Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning

Born of the one light Eden saw play!

Praise with elation, praise every morning,

God’s recreation of the new day.” (Eleanor Farjeon)

There is something about a sunrise that sparks a sense of awe and wonder, serenity and reverence that is almost indescribable. It inspires a feeling that is beyond words, even for a night owl such as me. For a few moments, at least, I join the children of the morning and the beauty of the Earth is etched upon my soul like an iridescent tattoo.

Direct Experience of Mystery and Wonder

Unitarian Universalists profess to draw upon “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.” It is precisely this kind of direct experience of Nature that inspires the mystic and the scientist, the poet and the philosopher, and instills in them a sense of reverence for life and the Universe itself.

But reverence can grow out of any human experience of the world in which we live. It doesn’t take a sunrise or a sunset, the glow of the stars or a burst of Northern Lights. Sometimes reverence flows from the elegance of a piece of amber or the vestiges of nearly forgotten life found in a fossil, the sombre ceremonies that mark moments of courage or the irrepressible strength of a flower growing through the crack in a piece of pavement, the smell of a forest or a library, or our awareness of microscopic forms and invisible forces that affect us. 

“A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths,” declared Carl Sagan in his book Pale Blue Dot. “Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge,” he predicted with surprising confidence for someone who was not generally associated with religion in the public consciousness.

He had ample reason to support his bold assertion. “In some respects,” he observed, “science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe,” and he expressed genuine surprise that no major religion had yet proclaimed: “The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed.” 

People commonly associate reverence with religion – and traditional piety, at that – but it seems to me that reverence is a feeling, an attitude, a way of relating that can spring as easily from science or philosophy, and it’s as relevant to politics and family life as it is to faith. At a time when it’s easy to succumb to cynicism and despair, we need to draw upon our reserves of reverence, wherever we find them.

“I am convinced that no [one’s] life is complete without some kind of an emotional experience that we may call religious,” said naturalist John Burroughs, anticipating Carl Sagan’s words by nearly a century. “Not necessarily so much a definite creed or belief as an attraction and aspiration toward the Infinite, or a feeling of awe and reverence inspired by the contemplation of this wonderful and mysterious universe – something to lift a [person] above purely selfish and material ends and open [one’s] soul to influences from the highest heavens of thought.” 

In other words, something to keep us humble. Something to remind us that whatever we may or may not be, we are not super beings, let alone gods. We are not the pinnacle of creation, but rather participants in a magnificent web of existence.

Reverence and Veneration

Reverence is commonly defined as “a feeling of profound awe and respect and often love” or as the veneration that flows from those feelings. It is the kind of feeling that led Moses, in the presence of the holy, to remove his shoes from his feet. 

Some 14 years ago, now, I visited Vimy Ridge with my brother Chuck, along with Don McKinnon and Myrna McGregor, whom some of you will remember as having been members of this congregation. Truth be told, we would have bypassed Vimy Ridge if Don hadn’t been along, but he had a deep longing to see the monument, since his father had served overseas in Belgium and France during World War I. Don and Myrna had patiently accompanied my brother and me as we made our way westward across Europe by train, visiting family and places we wanted to see, and this was Don’s only special request.

When we arrived at Vimy Ridge late on a September afternoon in 2007, heavy skies loomed overhead – a deep battleship grey – and the atmosphere served to accentuate the emotional intensity of the experience. 

It was an overwhelming experience – indeed, something of a haunting one – with the grey skies overhead, sheep grazing on fields where humans are still forbidden to tread because of unexploded munitions, the preserved remains of trenches, and the magnificent monument itself, glistening amidst the surrounding landscape. Here, in this peaceful and pastoral setting, one of the deadliest battles of a dreadful war had raged just two generations earlier. Not even the Earth has fully healed itself at this spot, but it still takes an awareness of history and a vivid imagination to picture what it must have been like in 1917. 

The four-day battle at Vimy Ridge, in April of 1917, left 3,598 Canadian soldiers dead and 7,004 wounded. The full extent of German casualties remains unknown. The base of the Canadian War Memorial there bears the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who died in France during World War I but whose remains were never found. The memorial itself is beautiful, even if the events it memorializes are tragic, and the monument inspires both dread and reverence.

There are no pathways to take visitors around the Vimy Ridge memorial, so if you want to get from one side to the other, you have to walk over the monument. I stood there for a few minutes, emotionally paralyzed, unable to take the first step, until I remembered the story of Moses, who removed his shoes before stepping onto holy ground. So, I removed my shoes and walked across, for this monument is truly sacred to the memory of those who fought and died there. It stands on holy ground. 

Reverence and Human Limitations

“Reverence begins in a deep understanding of human limitations,” according to philosopher Paul Woodruff; “from it grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies beyond our control – God, truth, justice, nature, even death. The capacity for awe, as it grows, brings with it the capacity for respecting fellow human beings, flaws and all. This in turn fosters the ability to be ashamed when we show moral flaws exceeding the normal human allotment. …  Simply put, reverence is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.”

In other words, humility – not hubris – is the offspring of sincere reverence. And even when we are most certain in our beliefs, a reverent spirit should make us cautious about inflicting our views and values upon others.

For instance, Woodruff intimates that what we admire in a religious tradition with beliefs and teachings that may differ from our own is not the content of their faith so much as it is the reverence exhibited by its adherents. This is especially important in a religiously pluralistic society. We can acknowledge the reverence of others and the integrity of their living without acknowledging the truth of their beliefs. This allows us to negotiate between the “trap of relativism” on the one hand and the clash of incompatible truth claims of the other, for while mutually exclusive “beliefs cannot be equally true … the associated feelings of a reverence may be equally sincere.” 

This is because “reverence is to be defined as a capacity for certain feelings ...  When we say that reverence is true or false, I think we mean that the feelings that flow from reverence may be sincere or faked.” Now this is not to say that the sincerity of our religious feelings, in and of itself, absolves us of responsibility for our beliefs and actions.

In a time when hubris seems so commonplace, and because “reverence and a keen eye for the ridiculous are allies,” Woodruff argues that reverence and respect and not the same thing.  “Reverence calls for respect to only when respect is really the right attitude,” he says.  We need not treat the silly as though it were serious, the specious as though it were plausible, or the rogue as though they were honorable.  While we may be able to revere the irreverent, especially when it points through the ridiculous to some deeper reverence, reverence for others does not demand that we tolerate the intolerable. Rather than uncritical respect or indifferent tolerance, “[r]everence, as a virtue, is primarily a capacity for having certain feelings at the right time and in the right way.”  It is “the well-developed capacity to have the feelings of awe, respect, and shame when these are the right feelings to have.”  But it is not reverent at all to feel a sense of awe in the face of banality, to respect people who are disreputable or positions that are indefensible, or to allow others to manipulate us by inflicting shame in an effort to embarrass or humiliate us.

We may be reverent without knowing all the answers, without having an unshakable faith, without agreeing with one another, whether we’re talking about public policy or personal morality, the metaphysical or the mundane – but we cannot be reverent without feeling, especially those feelings of awe and wonder, humility and gratitude that remind us that we are human.

Captain Kirk Goes to Space

Sometimes, what might be hubris for one can be met with humility displaying reverence by another. A good illustration of this might be the difference between the billionaires who went to space this past summer and the subsequent voyage of William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk on the television series Star Trek. There was considerable hoopla surrounding monied men venturing into the edge of space but also considerable consternation and criticism. After all, their golden tickets to space were purchased with their enormous wealth, amassed through an economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many. And then there are the serious concerns about the harm that space tourism would cause to the tiny band of atmosphere that envelopes our fragile planet.

In his memoir, Up Till Now, which came out some years ago, Shatner described the special relationship that the cast of Star Trek developed with NASA. Indeed, there was a direct correlation demonstrated between NASA rocket launches and Star Trek’s ratings, not to mention a correlation between the TV show’s ratings and Congressional appropriations for the space program. Shatner was invited to NASA launches and, when he finally accepted, he says that he was treated like space royalty. 

So, even though William Shatner’s trip to space can be viewed as a publicity stunt for one of the companies that hopes generate profits on space tourism, the ecosphere be damned, which is hardly reverent at all, the 90-year-old actor’s brief foray into space touched the hearts of many who boldly went with him where no one had gone before – or will ever go for that matter – when we were all younger. The spectacle caught our collective imagination and, unlike the hubris of space billionaires, Shatner’s experience tapped into our sense of awe and delight. It was natural that it would spark something akin to reverence among those who saw their own imagined space travels unfold vicariously.

After all, Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, in which he wrote about “reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths,” was, at its heart, a book that sought to articulate “a vision of the human future in space.” But however reverent the scientist may be in imagining travel to the stars, notwithstanding the warning of the myth of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun, space tourism ultimately shows more hubris than reverence, although it may well inspire reverence for the Earth and the life that flourishes upon it.   

* * *

In the end, I think Paul Woodruff has it right. “Reverence begins in a deep understanding of human limitations” and “from it grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies beyond our control.” At its best, this will lead us to respect the Earth and the creatures with whom we share it. It will caution us to be humble in the face of our limitations and careful in our stewardship of Nature. It will remind us that, whoever we think we are, we are not gods. The spiritual life – all genuine religion – draws upon reserves of reverence that lead us to appreciate life in all of its richness, seeing the world as it really is and opening our souls to the highest influences and most sublime experiences.

This sermon was delivered online for the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg during the COVID-19 pandemic when all services were held virtually.

Works Cited

John Burroughs, Accepting the Universe (1920).

Eleanor Farjeon, "Morning Has Broken" (1931).

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (New York: Random House, 1994).

William Shatner with David Fisher, Up Till Now (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford University Press, 2001).