Living and Dying with Reverence

Living and Dying with Reverence

Rev. LoraKim Joyner, DVM

January 25, 2015

Service at the First Religious Society – Unitarian Universalist

 of Newburyport, Massachusetts

In this service I lift up the teachings of Albert Schweitzer’s Reverence for Life Ethic and how it can be applied to the First Principle Project and the challenges of living in a multispecies world.

Sermon:

Let us imagine a family of humans walking along a road. A daughter walks slightly in front and her mother gently and fondly holds her hand. Across the street walks another family, a pair of chimpanzees. There too a mother holds with affection her daughter’s hand.

Now imagine that the human mother reaches behind her and takes the hand of her mother, so now they are 3 – grandmother, mother, and daughter.  On the other side of the road the chimpanzees do the same. Then each grandmother takes her free hand and grabs the hand of her mother, who takes the hand of her mother, for generation upon generation.  On each side of the road is a very long line of great apes, spanning hundreds of thousands of years.

Then something very special happens. The two lines begin to converge, they get closer and closer together, until there is only a line separating them, and then this line disappears and terminates into the hands of the shared ancestral grandmother of both humans and chimpanzees.

It is a blessing to see these two lines converging into one.  It shows that we all belong to the family of life on this earth, that we all have inherent worth and dignity, no matter our species.

To not reach out and join our hands with others is to say that those who come after us do not belong, or those before us.  It is to distance others from our compassion and care.

Ultimately, we become isolated, lonely.

But we primates only have two hands.  It is a challenge to reach out to the many to welcome them, and to be welcomed. So we often give up in exasperation or confusion, and we drop the hands of others. Instead we use our hands to draw lines of separation, on one side are those who live, and on the other, are those who shall die.

Where to draw that line between those within the realm of moral concern has captivated philosophers and ethicists for millennia, and divides many within the animal well being movement, in which I am deeply embedded.  One area in which I work for the benefit of all species is the First Principle Project, a consortium of UU groups and congregations that seek to improve the lives of all of us by engaging and changing the UU Principles.  We are asking how our UU principles might guide us in living in a multispecies world where science and the changing cultural paradigm tells us that there is no sharp distinction between human and non. To spark discussion we specifically are starting with the First Principle - changing it from the inherent worth and dignity of every person to "every being."  The goal is not to diminish the flourishing of humans, especially those marginalized and oppressed, but to reach out and grasp the hands (flippers, wings, paws, pseudopods) of others and lift them up higher into human awareness and compassion.  To symbolize this shared interdependence of well being, the logo of the First Principle Project is a human hand grasped by a chimpanzee hand

Where it gets tricky is what we do after the shared ancestral grandmother. How far back do we grant inherent worth? Does it extend to protoprimates that looked like rats, fish, invertebrates, or unicellular animals of ancient seas?

Unitarian Universalists vary as to where to draw the line of having and not having inherent worth and dignity.  Let's try a little experiment here and see if that variation also exists here. Please look around and see the other, and see the possible sharing and deepening that is possible between us.

How many agree that all humans have inherent worth and dignity?

How many would say that all great apes, including early humans and pre humans have inherent worth?

How about other highly intelligent social animals, such, dolphins and whales?

Now let's add other species of vertebrates who are often smart and social - crows, parrots, other species of birds, dogs, wolves?

Okay all vertebrates? Cats, fish, amphibians, reptiles?

How about invertebrates - such as tool using octopi, worms, insects?

How about trees and plants? (Albert Schweitzer transplanted trees instead of killing them when clearing fields)

How about rivers and mountains, rocks?  (Yes, here too Albert Schweitzer saw reverence. He wrote of caring for ice crystals and said" Respect the order that is, and do not interfere any more than you have to").

This stuff makes for some pretty lively arguments, for we bring to it our very deep love and care for life - ours, and others. There is a lot on the line, and there is an urgent sense that we get it right. Billions of animals are suffering every day used in production and situations for human benefit, and we are losing our wildlife. We are staring not only at their deaths, but also our own. The task to focus and change who we are can be overwhelming. How do we have compassion for the many when our biology, evolution, and culture keep pulling us to turn away from the beauty and worth of the other?

Rev.  Rebecca Parker said,” The task given to us here and now is to do what we can to advance reverence for life and deepen the promise of love. this is what congregations are for:  to teach us to give reverent attention to life”.  I like that, for in my experience within Unitarian Universalism, by discussions and arguments alone we will not reach the Promised Land.  We need something more, our lives for life.

Albert Schweitzer promoted not arguments, but life through reverence when he said, "My life is my argument." How does reverence help make our lives an argument?  What if we used our two hands to not draw lines, but to bow down before the beauty and grandeur of life?  Might we use reverence as a means of leading a prayerful life as the starting line for an ethical and compassionate life?

Some have criticized Albert Schweitzer by saying that having reverence for everything results in a water downed ethic. We risk slipping into relativism and treat everything the same without using degrees of suffering or our absolute need as a yard stick for our actions.   We might also dilute reverence when we superficially acknowledge reverence or worth as permission for our actions.  One example I hear often enough is that reverence means saying a prayer before we kill or use animals, such as the often cited example in some Native American traditions.

Reverence is not a rote prayer and cannot be dismissed lightly.  Reverence takes study, attention, and risk.  It means taking the time to know the science, ecology, biology, and behavior of the animal before we act.  What is the animal thinking and feeling?  It means slowing down to take in deeply the knowledge that evolution brought them here, and the spirit of life is shining through them.   It means holding in one's heart that your direct actions and decisions are taking life or causing suffering.

The order for reverence isn't eat, love, pray.  It's pray, love, and then eat, but as Albert Schweitzer would say, only if it is absolutely necessary to our lives.

Reverence also means seeking support so that we can be vulnerable while taking risks, and failing.  This is a new territory we are asking each other to journey into.  Like our first great ape ancestors when they left the African jungles for the savannah, we need each other, and like those apes before us, this challenge can grow our intelligence and emotional capacity of empathy.

With reverence we do not judge one another for the tragic decisions we all make to benefit at the expense of another.  Reverence calls us to be present to the inherent worth, benefit, harm, and death in life.   And in this crucible if awareness, we are made more compassionate, more whole.  The dance of reverence is the two step, life, then death, then life, and the music is the compassionate decisions that we sing in response to beauty.

This song is not easy to hear, or to sing, but is life- giving regardless.  Each responds to this song of life differently, and I do as a wildlife veterinarian in Latin America.  My work is a spiritual endeavor. To be able to witness all the tragedy I see in the senseless suffering of parrots and people, I must truly open to beauty as much as I can.  At one time during the Guerilla warfare years in Guatemala in the 1990s it because too much. I closed off, and had to leave conservation work for over a decade.  I got better, reverence leading the way so now once again I work in several countries.  Reverence still calls me mightily to task, such as this past year in Honduras. 

I came right up, for the umpteenth time, to that seemingly impenetrable wall of harsh reality.  Once again I saw most of the wild parrots there poached illegally from their nests, torn from their families while still so very young.  Once in captivity they are treated without much knowledge or intention, suffering and languishing before dying.  The people too lead lives of desperation, seeking a better way while in the throes of income inequality, drug violence, corruption, and the highest homicide rate in the world.  But the Miskto indigenous people with whom I work are making a stand, reclaiming their lands and fighting against poaching. 

But not all of them. One man defied the laws of his country and his village's collective decision, and continued poaching.  One day he climbed a tall pine tree to take the two wild scarlet macaw chicks from the nest. He made a mistake while climbing, and fell.  He died at the base of the tree, as did one of the two chicks he fell upon.  A cross and grave stones mark the place where he died, and I visited it with the villagers one day.  They began to cry, kneel, chant, and pray.  Though this man had gone against their wishes and was threatening their biodiversity, he was still loved.  I was moved, and remembering a Zuni Pueblo prayer I sing every day at home, I too began to sing:

I add my breath

To your breath

That our days may be long on this earth

That the days of all beings

May be-long

Looking down at one end of the tree was death, but as I craned my neck upward I saw a beautiful giant of a tree and imagined the family of macaws roosting there in the years to come. Then I looked back down at the base of the tree and saw this man’s grandchildren, healthy, playing, and in healthy relationship with the rainbow birds that fly above them.

 He and his kind are responsible for much pain in my life and the lives of many, but do not let our fear of pain deter us from love.  Out of an awareness of death and loss, comes life and love, and family arises. We cannot choose who is in our family, or in the family of life, but we can choose how we interact with those whom we share our lives and planet. By calling all into the family, we choose the way of reverence.

This path is not easy, for to face harm and suffering in this world, especially when we personally or our species are responsible can paralyze us.  Life is too precious to spend it in guilt, shame, or blame.  We need joyful and compassionate action, saying yes to truth, life, and love.

How to do so and also solve life’s wicked problems is not clear.   None of us know the exact path that will stop the poaching, save a species and a people, reverse climate change, or mend a broken relationship.    Albert Schweitzer nonetheless invites us to go forward by becoming a sibling to all who live, suffer, and die.  In that relationship of reverence, I am clear that we can be healed, and can bring our principles to life.   

Take courage friends.

The way is often hard, the path is

never clear,

and the stakes are very high.

Take courage.

For deep down, there is another

truth: you are not alone. – Wayne Arnason

And are held in beauty and belonging.

Opening Words

Albert Schweitzer says,  "The human spirit is not dead It lives on in secret. It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to humankind."

And so we gather today to bring out of secret our human compassion, and proclaim that spirit is not dead, but lives in the breadth and depth of this gathered community.

Responsive Reading #470

Readings - From Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker

We must learn again to live with reverence. 

It is response to life that falls on its knees before the rising sun and bows down before the mountains.

 It puts its palms together in the presence of the night sky and the myriad galaxies and recognizes as Langston Hughes told us, “beautiful are the stars, beautiful too are the faces of my people.”  

Reverence greets all humanity as sacred. 

It genuflects before the splendor of the grass and the magnificence of the trees. 

It respects the complexity, the beauty and the magnitude of creation and does not presume to undo its intricate miracles. 

Instead, it gives life reverent attention – seeking to know, understand and cooperate with life’s ways.

Reverence for life has to be learned. 

It is not just a feeling – it is a way of life that is manifested in more than an isolated moment of appreciation for nature or awe before its destructive as well as creative power. 

Reverence involves full-fledged devotion enacted in deeds of care and responsibility.  It involves knowledge, study and attention.

Reverence is a form of love that needs to be learned and affirmed.   And this is what congregations are for:  to teach us to give reverent attention to life.

The task given to us here and now is to do what we can to advance reverence for life and deepen the promise of love.

Hymns:  #203 – All Creatures of the Earth and Sky

     #83 - Winds be Still

      #6 - Just as Long as I have Breath

Benediction:

We leave here now friends of all, inwardly united with everything, the secret of life's beautiful interconnection brightly illuminated with the light of our shared time together.  And so our service has now ended, but our service to the world has just begun. Go in peace and love. (adapted from Albert Schweitzer)

Dignity - Our Principles Defined Part IV

Let us begin with a description of what dignity means according to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia:

Dignity is a term used in moral, ethical, legal, and political discussions to signify that a being has an innate right to be valued and receive ethical treatment. It is an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. Dignity is often used in proscriptive and cautionary ways: for example in politics it is usually used to critique the treatment of oppressed and vulnerable groups and peoples, but it has also been extended to apply to cultures and sub-cultures, religious beliefs and ideals, animals used for food or research, and plants. Dignity also has descriptive meanings pertaining to human worth, although there is no exact or agreed upon definition of this worth. In general, the term has various functions and meanings depending on how the term is used and on the context.

Though dignity has long been used in conjunction with protecting vulnerable human groups, it is now used in discussions for other species as well.  Dignity, then, as used in the Unitarian Universalist First Principle, pertains to “beings” and their inherent right to be valued and to receive ethical treatment.  To have dignity does not prescribe how each is to be treated, and what precise actions are moral or ethical, only that the vulnerable group merits moral attention because of their presence on this earth, and that individuals’ needs matter. 

For humans, we might more easily see the dignity of those species more closely related to us, and who are more intelligent and social, including other primates, cetaceans, and smart and social birds such as crows and parrots.  Upon closer reflection, though, we can see how each species and individual evolved to exist in a particular time, place, and ecological niche, and that this placement is one that calls us to deeply respect the forces of nature that gave birth to such wonder and intricate relationships.Each individual portrays their deep embeddedness in a shared evolutionary path, and though this path may become crowded with the needs of the many, each occupies their place with dignity.  We know not where the road may take us all, but we do know that we journey together.

Rev. LoraKim Joyner, DVM

First Principle Project Facilitator

The Golden Rule and Our Seventh Principle: a Scientific Perspective

This is a sermon that was delivered and includes opening and closing words at the end.

Today's Guest Author:  John Laurence Kelland

Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of South County
Retired Life Sciences Reference Librarian

GOLDEN RULE

I believe I can use a scientific perspective to shed new light on some of our ethical principles.  During this talk I will be referring on occasion, to vast stretches of time. Millions, and even billions, of years.. Our seventh principle points to our being a part of the all-encompassing web. But just how intertwined are we humans with the rest of the animal world, with other species? Profoundly. I want to first discuss evolutionary relationships, and then something about the origins of our conscious mind, and the ethical implications.

I have a book at home, “The Last Human”,  (eight authors). It covers 22 species in the family Hominidae – that is our family, in terms of biological classification. The early species were rather apelike, and the later ones looked a lot like us. Some evolved into others, some went extinct, but they are all gone except for Homo sapiens. We are the last human. Each of these earlier species probably numbered into the thousands, nothing like our huge population.  About thirty thousand years ago, there were apparently FOUR species in the genus Homo, that is, four kinds of PEOPLE on the earth, side by side Our species, the Neanderthals, the Denisovans in Siberia, (once thought to be Neanderthals) and Homo floresiensis, a very small recently discovered species. If they were all here today, would the Golden Rule apply to them, or just Homo sapiens? Who does it apply to? They are all gone, and we may not have good evidence why they went extinct. To me, this all has implications for our understanding of the conscious mind, and this has profound implications for our ethical principles.  There are some traits which distinguish us as humans from all other animals, now that all the intermediates are gone. We have language, abstract thought,  ability to plan, a spectacular ability to build.  And intelligence and reasoning ability.

But some of these human traits have precursors among animals, even though  they are far, far simpler. There are some traits we share with other animals though, not the advanced aspects of the conscious mind. But I am convinced that the basic aspects of our own conscious mind, sensory perception, memory, some kinds of planning and strategizing, exist in many species. I believe consciousness has existed in other species for many millions of years, far, far predating our species, and that we inherited the basics of consciousness from prior species.

There are certainly other species who can experience positive sensations and can suffer. You have pets and you know this, but I wanted to provide a kind of background context for discussion. I note that when people talk about the Golden Rule they just focus on humans. This almost makes it seem that a fundamental aspect of the Golden Rule is that it applies to just to humans. I think we need to place the Golden Rule on a firmer logical foundation. I think the ability of a person or animal to have positive and negative experiences, and our actions to promote their wellbeing, IS the underlying basis FOR the Golden Rule. So we should broaden the Golden Rule to apply to other sentient species, or at least some sort of compassion, and that this broadening ought to be built into our religion.  We could also extend our first principle: Inherent worth and dignity of every person, and the inherent worth of other species as well.

When I worked at URI Library, I was on a committee – the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, which managed the treatment of animals in laboratories. I was the Information Officer, charged with helping scientists find alternative treatments to surgery for example, if such existed. This is all based on compassion for animals, and governed by the Animal Welfare Act, and overseen by the USDA. It seems to me that UU can embrace compassion to animals who are conscious.

SEVENTH PRINCIPLE

I see a problem with our seven principles.  The first six deal only with human issues, and then suddenly the seventh, “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of witch we are a part”.  In an article on the web, May 16, 2004 (1) Don Southworth, reporting on a meeting at the General Assembly, said: “One of the ministers present, Paul L’Herrou, offered an amendment to the floor. He suggested we replace the proposed language of the seventh principle,  ‘respect for the Earth and the interdependence of its living systems’ with the new words, ‘respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.’ It was with those words the eternal breath of life, the spirit of guidance, of wisdom inherent in our human condition spoke out once again to the world of a new possibility, of a new hope, of a new Unitarianism and a new Universalism.” We might interpret that to mean life on the earth, or the whole universe (technically the latter).  My readings indicate that Unitarians writing about the seventh principle interpret it sometimes one way, sometimes the other.  We could even keep both wordings, as two different principles. I do see a lot of variation, since people are reading into it much more than it says. Let’s get some precision and clarity into it. I think, especially for nonunitarians, we should make explicit three levels BETWEEN Homo sapiens alone, and the whole web:

1 – nonhuman species;

2 – the great ecosystems of the world, such as forests and coral reefs;

3 – the great life support systems: air, soil, freshwater, the oceans, all of which we depend on for our very existence. Here I would include the great cycles, such as carbon and calcium and nitrogen. More, of course.

The purpose here is to more clearly show our  appreciation of the great moral problems relating to environmental crises, because these are becoming more and more to the forefront. Also to our green commitment.How would you assess the value of the principle ecosystems, such as forests and coral reefs? The huge biodiversity and beauty of them hints at their value.  The earth is 4.6 billion years old, and we know that life on the Earth originated at least 3.8 billion years ago, if not earlier.  During the first 3.2 billion years, there were only single celled microbes, principally bacteria. About 600 million years ago or more, an event took place which gave us multicellular life, and it developed with some major extinction events, into the world we know of today.  It took a vast stretch of time to build life on this Earth as we see it now. Most of that time we did not exist. I think that this means Life on Earth has its own inherent worth, regardless of us, Forests and coral reefs existing for such a vast stretch of time ought to make us understand why they are precious. We also should consider a principle or two which give, not just respect, but inherent worth (and dignity, even!) to other species, our beautifully interconnected ecosystems, and to the Earth’s life support systems. Why? To make it clearer that this church means to deal with the really major environmental issues of our time, incorporate them into our theology, and BE the religion for our time, which only WE can be!

Yet I am indebted to Dave Hurdis, who brought out another principle in his sermon last year. I recently read a book: “Alone in the Universe” by John Gribbin, an astrophysicist. He covers many factors which indicate that it is rare for a planet, like the Earth to have an uninterrupted 4.6 billion years which has allowed life to evolve to the point where there are intelligent beings who have a technological civilization.  After reading it, I think we are indeed very rare in the universe. SETI has so far not heard from anyone out there. Gribbin thinks we are alone, and I think we are at least rare, although there may be many planets, around other stars, with life at the level of bacteria or other beings which can withstand harsh conditions. What Dave pointed out is the rarer, the more precious! That to me is a profound and fundamental principle. We can call it the rarity principle. What if the Earth were absolutely unique in the Universe in having life or intelligence? Among all these galaxies? What a shame if we ran it down or ruined it.  I look at the rarity principle as the basis – the foundation – of all our environmental moral principles, giving the Earth and its life inherent worth.  And, sustainability is the principle criterion by which to judge all our major activities in the world.

Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist, quotes a letter attributed to  Chief Seattle to the President in 1852. Campbell refers to this as the Paleolithic Moral Order:

“The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.  Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow,  every humming insect.  All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests,  the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family.

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people.  The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give to the rivers the kindness you would give to any brother.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares the spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web,  he does to himself.

One thing we know: our god is also your god. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.

When the last Red Man has vanished with his wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shore and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it.  Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all.

As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know: there is only one God. No man, be he Red Man or White Man, can be apart. We are brothers after all.” (2).

Opening Words  - Larry Kelland

Native Americans had an ethic which respects the land and all its creatures as sacred. The great mythologist Joseph Campbell referred to it as the Paleolithic Moral Order. Our roots in the West have a different moral order, different from that of our great prophets. In Genesis 1:28 we are told to be fruitful and multiply, and have dominion over the fowl, beasts and fish.

In 1493 Pope Alexander the 6^th wrote the Doctrine of Discovery which gave European colonists rights to the lands of the indigenous peoples and to enslave them. In the United States we had the Manifest Destiny, to take over the whole continent.

Where is the Golden Rule? There is no compassion or respect in all of this. However, we have come a long way, as our seven principles clearly show. Maybe even full circle!

Closing Words

The realm of inherent worth is vast. I consider it to have inherent worth, the Native Americans consider it all sacred. And it is.

References

1.      Southworth, Don. The Interdependent Web . http://nwuuc.org/index/sermons/2004_Sermons/The_Interdependent_Web

2.      Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988. Pp. 34-35.

The Unbroken Chain of Inherent Worth and Dignity

Today's Guest Author:  Rev. LoraKim Joyner, DVM

Unitarian Universalist Minister in Multispecies Ministry and Compassionate Communication
Main blog: Lafeber Conservation
Main website:  One Earth Conservation and Ministry

There are many pathways into living a life faithful to this world's reality, and the concepts and tools of religion are just one of many.  In many religious traditions, science too guides us in knowing how we and others belong to earth. For instance, as a Unitarian Universalist minister I am also a scientist. Working as I do with evolutionary principles and evidence ever before me there is no escaping the reality of the long line of ancestors that brought Homo sapiens to where we are now.  I combine this knowledge with my Unitarian Universalist ministry mode of telling stories to share with you my sense of how all beings have inherent worth and dignity.

Imagine that along one side of a dirt road in Africa there is a family of humans walking.  The youngest daughter is walking in front, and she is holding the hand of her mother who follows behind. In one arm is an infant, and the other hand grasps and supports her mother.  On the other side of the road, another family similar in makeup is also traveling.  The young chimpanzee daughter walks in front holding her mother's hand, and her mother in turn reaches behind her with her other hand to grasp that of her mother.  So similar, and yet an apparent wide gulf divides the two families.

Now imagine that on each side of the road the grandmother reaches behind her to grab the hand of her mother, the great grandmother, who links up with the great-great grandmother.  Imagine this line of primate hands extending back, back into time, to all the mothers who came before until at one point human hands begin to grasp that of Homo neanderthalis who grabs the hands of earlier hominids.  On the other side of the road the chimpanzees are holding hands with ever more slightly different species. Then a peculiar thing happens. The road seems to  narrow as the two lines converge, until at one point, the human line is holding the hand of the same individual who is also holding the hand of the last of the chimpanzee ancestor line. At some point in our history, we share the same mother. 

Now going forward along both lines, at what juncture where two hands grasp, do we begin to say that one species belongs to the earth, and not the other?  That what owns more of the earth than the other?  That one has inherent worth and dignity, and not the other?  It cannot be done, for we all are sons and daughters of this one earth.