First Parish Sermon Archive

Some of you may know what important event Tuesday commemorates; it is of course the
birthday of the world. If you didn’t know, please don’t feel bad, I have to admit, I didn’t until I read The Map That Changed the World, it is just one of the many things I learned from that small yet remarkably engaging book. It is true that according to early church teachings at the remarkably civilized hour of 9:00 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 23, 4004 BCE God began creating the world. The rest of the story is familiar to most, that he finished some six days later and took a day off to rest and consider all he had done.The calculation that resulted in knowing the exact moment that creation began was the work of
Bishop James Ussher of Ireland in the 17th century. Ussher came to his conclusion relying most heavily on the lengthy genealogies of the Old Testament. Once he did so, the church accepted his postulate and began preaching it as fact. More than a century after Ussher came to his conclusions Bibles would still be printed in two columns. To the right was the narrative to the left the year in which the event happened. So for instance a Bible of the time would have in the left hand margin next to the first Chapter of Genesis the date 4004 BCE As the events recorded in the Bible continued along, up to and beyond Jesus’ birth, the dates would move along with them.

This was the world that William Smith was born into in March of 1769. A world that was locked
firmly in the truth and inerrancy of the Bible, the teachings of the church and the hold the two had over individual lives, the pursuit of knowledge and the decisions of state. It was a time when the Bible was considered “nothing less than a documentary history of the planet.” (Map, 112)

Yet, it was also a time when the Industrial Revolution was “at hand.” (p.17) “As indeed it was:
for the first time in British history the word industry was no longer being used simply to describe the nobility of human labor and had come instead to mean what it does today.” (p.17) [the conjunction of man, labor and machines]

Smith’s early years were spent in a period that was at once “vibrant and deeply challenging.”
(p.23) Surely with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, changes were underway in areas of science, in artistic expression and socially as well. Any hesitation of advancing civilization was centered not on what could be done but on the deeper more inherently troubling questions of why they were, what was the point, who was responsible and what was their fate?

Like so many other stories of men and women whose actions, or words or thoughts had such
tremendous bearing on history timing is everything, such was the same for William Smith. He was the right man at the right time, even if his time would take most of his life to come to fruition.

Smith had an uncanny ability to see what others could not in seemingly everyday objects. This
first became apparent as a young boy in his home county of Oxfordshire where his Aunt, like many others in the county used the very strange yet interesting stones found around the county as weights for her butter scale. The stones were flat on one side, rounded on the other and almost perfectly circular. Some were indented, some were five-sided - some had on their outer surfaces a decoration of fine lines and elegant patterns. Not your typical rock to say the least.

Yet, to most their appearance was not as important as their weight - which was close to 22
ounces the exact measurement of a “long-pound” of freshly churned butter and because they were mostly flat they wouldn’t roll of the scale. To Smith though, they were something other than practical they were out of place.

He saw that the patterns of the rocks were amazingly similar to pictures he had seen of modern
sea urchins. “Just what was a creature of the oceans doing, preserved - so strangely - as part of a rock? Just how did one solid become so firmly embedded inside another? Just what did such things, such weird phenomena, the encapsulation of objects from the see deep inside the rocks of Oxfordshire really mean?” (p.31) After all the closets ocean was 300 miles away.

Although he took note of these and other captivating phenomena at the time that was all he could
do. He knew the prevailing thought of the times. “They were unique creations placed there by God- “they existed for one reason only….to reinforce in humankind’s’ collective mind the omnipotence and imaginative beneficence of God.” (p.35) In other words God created these strange, yet beautiful creature, used divine force to place them in the rocks so that humans could be reminded of the mysterious and wondrous ways in which he works. Smith wasn’t buying that entirely any more.

Through a growing number of questions Smith found a love for the earth and all of its bounty.
He entered into limited academic training - but was denied a university education because of finances. Nonetheless he had excelled in geometry, had an aptitude for drawing, as well as a finely honed sense of “rural knowledge.” At 22 he arrived in Somerset to work as a surveyor, planner and engineer for an owner of several coalmines.

It was in those mines that he again saw what others saw everyday, and yet so much more. As he
traveled down into any of the mines he came to understand that the different layers of earth he saw always appeared in the same order. Certainly the miners had seen the same thing but for necessarily and practical reasons what they saw was different from what Smith was able to realize. For the miners dropping down into the darkness or coming up into the light - the layers were a roadmap of sorts - they would be able to tell where they were, how far they had yet to go down or up by what rocks and such were in front of them.

Yet for Smith, he noticed that the upper strata in the shaft also seemed to lean gently to the east,
while the lower ones headed into the earth at a much steeper angle. Eventually he came to understand that the rocks had been laid down as sediments - with the oldest on the bottom and the youngest at the top. Perhaps, most importantly, each layer was home to different fossils from that Smith surmised that if the remains of the same creatures turned up in rocks elsewhere - then the rocks containing them would most likely all be about the same age as others miles away.

Smith realized that it was not simply a matter of noticing the difference. “It was possible-
desirable-and perhaps important-to find our just why there was a difference in the first place.” (p.84) So it was in a mineshaft in Somerset, England during the summer of 1792 that the science of stratigraphy and as such modern geology was born.

Smith thought if he was able to follow the fossils he could trace layers of rocks as they dipped
and fell all across England, if it were true then perhaps it could also be mapped. “He could draw a chart of what could not be seen. And in doing so he could create what had never been created before - a true geological map.” (p.125) Taking any and all jobs that would allow him to travel, most usually as a canal digger he spent the next several decades travelling, digging and exploring the entire country.

The real work on the map began just after the turn of the century. He would work for 14 years to
create his remarkable work - a beautifully hand-painted map - more than eight feet tall and six feet wide, first published on August 1, 1815. “It was then, and it remains now, a truly magnificent thing - huge, beautiful, and filled with absorbing and elegantly managed detail. And, by comparison with modern maps of the geology of the country, in the very broadest sense, uncannily right.” (p.219)

Smith’s story is not one without complications. During the years leading up to the publication of
his map he would marry, only to have his wife’s mental health deteriorate until she needed to be
hospitalized. He would make decisions that would severely undercut his financial stability and he would try mightily to earn the recognition of the newly formed Geological Society of London.

His desire to be accepted as a member led precipitously to his downfall. In the early spring of
1808 he invited a small delegation from the Society to his home in London to see his work and the more than 2,600 fossils he had collected on his journey. The delegation had made up their mind about him before entering the house, he was of no lineage, no education and of no importance. Their visit lasted less than an hour - yet long enough for one of the members (the founder of the Society) to know that his was an idea to steal, and it was.

Though the plagiarized map would not be published until 1819, it came with the full backing of
the Geological Society and was to cost less than Smith’s map. The effect was devastating on Smith whose own map was not selling well, whose personal life that had taken it’s toll on him, that coupled with several bad investments, Smith was now bankrupt. The painful irony is that on the very day that the Society’s map was published Smith was arrested and taken off to debtor’s prison for 11 weeks.

Released, he left London, without recognition or profit and carved a new life for himself,
homeless, as he would be for the next seven years. He would settle down in Yorkshire, with his wife who he stuck by through her hospitalization and a nephew who would later become a well-known geologist in his own right. His employer at the time, a somewhat sympathetic nobleman contacted the Geological Society on his behalf. The Society now under new leadership made right the error committed against him and in 1832 Smith became the first recipient of the Wollaston Medal, Geology’s equivalent to the Oscar- inducted into the Society - and given a lifetime pension by King William 4th.

A happy ending to an extraordinary story, a story that has all the making of a Hollywood
blockbuster. Smith had the deck staked against him - he was poor - orphaned - ill educated - with no family ties to the upper class. He was also breathtakingly brilliant - hard working - and true to his family. He saw in the earth and on the land around him that which no one else could see. He spent decades travelling the countryside - digging canals - turning over almost every stone - charting coal mine after coal mine until he created a map so important that it became the bedrock of modern geology.

Smith is redeemed in the end - given the recognition he so profoundly deserved and the means
to live out the last few years of his life in relative comfort. A made for TV movie if ever there was one. As I read the story I kept expecting to hear music swelling up in the background. It is a story of ultimate triumph with the hero riding off into the sunset that is true. But what kept me riveted to the pages - what I found so fetching about his story was the thread that was woven thorough-out his life - that was there just below the surface of every page. That no matter what the swirl that was his life Smith stayed firmly grounded to that still small voice inside him.

He had a chance to escape prison by leaving England for America - but he didn’t. He had a
chance at any time during his decades long sojourn to give up his quest to create the map and settle in to a comfortable life - but didn’t. He could easily and without any recrimination have abandoned his wife - but he didn’t. He could have done any number of things differently that would have made his life less complicated and yet he didn’t.

That’s what captures me about the story still - why? What kept him going? What kept
him grounded? What in the middle of the whirlpool that was his life and situation, what kept him
tethered? To my reckoning, it was the still small voice inside him and his ability to hear it that allowed him to continue on. It was the strength that comes from knowing and trusting he was doing that which nourished his soul and filled his heart.

Quoting E.L.Doctorow, Anne Lamott once wrote ‘writing a novel is like driving a car at night.
You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you are going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. “This,” she concludes, “is right up there with the best advice about writing, or life, I have ever heard.”

I think it safe to venture that when he was examining his aunt’s pound stones, Smith could never
have imagined the mess that his life would become. At the same time, when he found himself in the deepest part of the mess his life had become, how could he ever imagine that things would ever be made right? Yet he kept on listening and trusting.

What is it in our lives that can help us do the same? What do we know to be grounding? Where
are our tethers?

Certainly few if any of us will ever find ourselves in such a situation of grand historic significance and intrigue as did William Smith. Yet, we all do lead lives that move seemingly just outside our control. Even before the events of September 11th our lives were complex - full of breathtaking joy and shattering heartache.

There is perhaps now - since early September - a greater urgency now to find that place inside
that grounds us - that allows us to move through life with all its complexity and hardship and sheer brilliance. Perhaps for some the guide along the way is the healing power of music, such as we heard this morning from the Wallin/Emery family. There is also, the time we spend with those who love us well and are loved by us. Or perhaps it is the simple act of entering this sanctuary to sit in one of your few moments of quiet all week - exhale - and let the strong-hold of this congregation wash over you.

There are many ways in which we have the luxury of connecting to that, which matters to us -
that which keeps us on course - the important thing is to keep knowing and trusting that it is indeed always there and available. It was I think what ee cummings was getting at when he wrote:

i am a little church (no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
- i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church (far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish) at peace with nature
- i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing.