LENN Dec 2014

Loretto Earth Network News Divest/Reinvest/Commit December 2014

Vol. 22, No. 4

Reflections on a Year of Urban Farming

By Jessie Rathburn

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do not say that I am a farmer; I have spent the last year running an urban farm, but I do call myself a farmer. Not yet.

For most of my adult life, I have taught English to international students prior to them enrolling at US universities. When I resigned from CU Denver in 2013, I had no leads on a new job; I simply knew that I must not continue to be inside all day, every day. I had a desperate need to be connected with Earth that could no longer be ignored. After applying for numerous park ranger and park naturalist jobs proved fruitless, an opportunity arose for me to take care of a small urban farm. My then-partner-now-husband had been developing the property while working another full-time job for several years, but that was no longer feasible. So in the last weeks of 2013, we decided that I would fully take over the farm and see where it might lead.

Our small farm is right in the heart of the city, only five blocks from the hubbub of downtown. We are joined to two other farms, each only 1/3 of an acre. The land we farm is owned by the Denver Housing Authority. The rest of the block is currently empty, though there are movements toward an up-scale housing development every day.

Though our farm is tiny and we often have to justify to a passersby that it is, in fact, a working farm, I am

amazed at the amount of life thriving there. We have installed beehives and worm bins, planted multiple kinds of perennials (raspberries, strawberries, elderberries, sunchokes, gooseberries, currants, horseradish, apple and cherry trees), constructed a greenhouse for germination (growing 25,000 seedlings this year), and assigned several rows for rotating annuals. It is not uncommon to see an American Kestrel hovering overhead and diving down to catch mice out of the compost bins; bunnies have made homes under our sheds, and migrating birds can often be seen feasting on the sunflowers. Our produce is sold to a variety of markets and restaurants around town. At least three or four times each month we give tours to community groups, host field trips for local schools, or teach classes about composting and back yard gardens. Folks from the neighborhood stop by daily to see what we’re growing and how the gardens are doing, and children from the school across the street volunteer with their parents.

When I began this project, I was very intent on setting up a wellfunctioning business, growing as many pounds of produce as I could, and turning the property into what I thought it could be.

Soon I was swept up in all the ways that life was abounding, regardless of whether or not I was even present.

My perspective shifted to being a grateful participant and obedient caretaker, rather than a commanding overseer. I have witnessed lady bugs attacking aphids, strawberry plants bounding out of their designated space, and early-producing raspberry canes shock us all by producing another complete harvest at the very end of the season, even while it began to snow. I could never have orchestrated these phenomena, but I am so very grateful to be a witness to them.

Earth shocks me with her efficiency and simplicity. Nothing is wasted.

Each seed that falls, each plant that grows, each bee and bird all work together to use everything that is available. I have learned to reuse every piece of wood, every plastic container, every string of twine.

When looking at our farm, it looks quite ramshackle, but I am immensely proud that we have used almost no new materials in constructing our various buildings, compost bins, trellising systems, and work stations.

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Editor’s Note

Urban Farming

Mary Ann Coyle SL

I have learned to take the long view and never to hurry; whenever I do, I inevitably have to go back and fix what I did too quickly. Earth works in seasons and years, not just the immediate. She takes her time in growing, in living, even in dying and being reborn. Each spring we plant cover crops that will come up early so the bees will have some early nectar before the major crops come in. We do not plant sunflowers for ourselves, but so the bees and the birds will have nourishment late in the season, after many other seeds have fallen away.

We pull the dying plants from their rows and throw them in the compost bins, mixing all the compost back into the earth, renourishing it for future growing seasons.

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I unexpectedly ran into a former student of mine on one of the tours I was giving. He is originally from Libya, now getting his Master’s degree in Denver. He was shocked to see me out of the classroom, covered in dirt, managing this farm. While we caught up, he asked me what it was that I liked so much about this new life. I tried to explain it in a variety of ways – I love the challenge, I love working with my hands, I love being inseparable from nature. But finally, I realized it came down to one thing.

Here, where my only goal is to care for Earth and enable her to thrive, I am not doing any harm. I certainly could do some things better, but I am not harming anyone. There are no power struggles between individuals, no fossil fuels, no marginalized groups. All I’m doing, my entire focus, is learning how to best care for this small piece of land while doing no harm.

Jessie Rathburn’s reflection on her year of urban farming is very personal and enjoyable. You can actually envision the sunflower as it turns to catch the nourishing rays and provide nuggets for others to enjoy. I just noticed my copy of Yes! Magazine (Winter 2015) and guess what? The lead article is “Cities are the future now!” The copy brings home urban innovations, rooftop gardens and vacant lot cultivation.

So I don’t call myself a farmer, as I do not feel that I have farmed anything.

For now, I am a grateful participant in this beautiful system of life, death, and renewal, as I learn more and more what it means to do no harm in this small corner of Denver.

his issue of Loretto Earth Network News represents the work of a number of writers, some of whom you may remember from past issues. When I awoke this morning realizing that our masthead reads December 2014, I was thinking of other events going on throughout this month. I was also reminded of a cartoon I saw of a little girl looking at her tree, acknowledging that it is cold out, the skies are grey and winter is just around the bend. But the little one says to her tree: “Holding on to the last leaf from your tree is only giving you a false sense of a lingering autumn!”

It is my belief that we use LENNews as a tool in hopes that you, our readers, might wonder, question, and write op-ed pieces for the locals in your regional areas challenging them to do likewise. I am not a community organizer but it seems to me I observe this trait in those who are trained organizers. Does that ring true for you?

In addition to Jessie showing us the way, you will enjoy the articles by Maureen McCormack, Maureen Fiedler, Sharon Kassing, and Joseph Kenny. Mr. Kenny, a writer for the St. Louis Review, tells us of the approach the Franciscan Sisters of Mary took in divesting certain funds from fossil fuel corporations.

Sharon Kassing, Maureen McCormack, and Maureen Fiedler are all Sisters of Loretto. Sharon participated in the yearly Prairie Land Festival in Salina, Kansas and found the experience rewarding and fascinating. Maureen McCormack is writing of two great loves: Bioneers and Craig Hamilton!

Both articles provide many insights. Be especially aware of her reference to Naomi Klein’s new book: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. It feels to me that we all would profit with this new book on our shelf—but only if we have read it first. Maureen likewise encourages all of us to give Craig a chance to allow us to become more conscious of our own individual evolutionary path.

Maureen Fiedler, our political observer par excellence, keeps us in tune with the ups and downs of factions for, against, and in the middle of the political arena.

We always enjoy hearing your comments about our newsletter. We know we can improve and hope you will tell us new ways to do it.

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Investments going to companies providing clean energy Franciscan Sisters of Mary pledge $10 million, divest from fossil fuels.

By Joseph Kenny (reprinted with permission from the St. Louis Review)

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he Franciscan Sisters of Mary are divesting of companies that profit from fossil-fuel production and directing investments to projects and companies that increase energy independence and decrease greenhouse-gas emissions.

The community of women religious has pledged $10 million to support businesses and entrepreneurs that generate market-rate financial returns while making a measurable social and/or environmental impact.

“Both producing and consuming fossil fuels damage Earth and the creatures who live here,” said Sister Rose Mary Dowling, president of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary. “Mining those fuels destroys the regions where they are harvested, and the air and water pollution caused by refining and burning them have a huge impact on greenhouse gases and climate change -- not to mention the devastating effects on the health of people and other creatures in those areas.”

Instead, FSM wants to invest in companies “providing the structure, products and services we need for a society based on sustainable, clean energy. Wind power, solar power -- we see the range of sustainable solutions growing every day,” Sister Rose Mary said.

The strategy focuses on clean, sustainable energy, part of the FSM commitment to missionrelated investing, also known as impact investing. Examples include companies and organizations that promote energy efficiency and renewable energy, mitigate climate change, reduce production of greenhouse gases, further

conservation efforts and support sustainable land use and agriculture.

John O’Shaughnessy, chief financial officer of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, said the investments are in a separately managed account overseen by Imprint Capital of San Francisco, which measures the potential return as well as the social and environmental impact of the companies. The manager has a list of companies that are excluded from investments such as companies that produce contraceptives or abortifacients, tobaccorelated products, firearms, adult entertainment and more.

Added to that list are companies that produce oil, gas and consumable fuel, including coal. It includes not just the largest 200 companies that typically are considered, but companies of all sizes.

The energy sector represents a large portion of the stock market, and many people feel that cutting it off will hurt returns. However, O’Shaughnessy said, returns have matched indexed market returns. He cited Aperio Group, which works with groups concerned with fossil fuels and climate change, while tracking the indexed market. “We can buy any segment of the market using this manager and do it without owning any of these companies we don’t want to own and get market returns. And we pay less than half of the fees.”

He pointed to Liberation Capital Renewable Energy Fund, formed by three former GE executives, which develops projects to convert waste material into recycled materials or reduces the materials in the waste back to the original source material such as fossil fuel, rubber and steel.

They helped establish Rocktron, a firm that takes waste material from burning coal at utility plants and converts it into eco-material fillers used in manufacturing.

Lisa Johnston/lisajohnston@archstl.org

Franciscan Sisters of Mary stand near the entrance to West Lake Landfill to raise awarenes of the troubling fires smoldering near radioactive waste.

“You’re removing what would be a terribly noxious waste material from a landfill and using it in a product as a material that is lighter weight and cheaper than a raw material,” O’Shaughnessy said.

The company also takes products such as large tires and reduces them to raw materials such as oil, rubber and steel.

Other examples include: • M-KOPA, a rapidly growing Kenyan company, that produces solar products for people who are off the electric grid. It eliminates the use of polluting kerosene and often is less expensive than what people there pay when bringing their phones to a central location to get them charged.

“It has an environmental aspect and improves the quality of life for people who have very little,” O’Shaughnessy said.

• Clean Fund Holdings is a fund based in California that helps finance energy efficiency and renewable energy projects through the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program. The property tax-based structure enables the fund to provide long-term financing that provides environmental benefits and savings.

• Conservation Forestry, LLC acquires and manages timberland in an ecosensitive manner.

LENN December 2014

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BIONEERS CONFERENCE

By Maureen McCormack SL

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ioneers is an innovative educational organization that highlights practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges. I represented the Loretto Earth Network at the 25th Anniversary Conference, which attracted more than 2000 people.

The theme was: “Growing the Movement: The World We Want and How to Get There.” The closed stage curtain had larger than life heads of animals fashioned from steel, yarn and ceramic — cougar, bear, buffalo, pronghorn, elk and wolf. They were all looking at us as we spoke.

People are invited to contribute their own prayer or to read what others have sent in. To date, there have been over 100 million visitors to the site.

Here is a sample from Ann Palmer’s Yogic Prayer to Earth.

I breathe in energy of life; I breathe out love of Earth.

I breathe in inspiration; I breathe out love of Earth’s creatures.

I breathe in the winds of change; I breathe out love of Earth’s forms.

I breathe in the richness of biodiversity; I breathe out respect for all life.

There were many youth and native presenters. We were welcomed to their ancestral lands. I had never been at a conference where there was such awareness that this land belonged to Native peoples.

Tara Romero, a native speaker, said “We are still here.” That brought applause.

I’m going to share fragments from the many speakers I heard. One of Bioneers founders, Nina Simons, said “A Columbus Day Sale. That means I can take whatever I want – right?”

Later she asked: “If we would stand together on behalf of all life, what would it look like?” Dream a web of connections across differences. We can weave the world whole.

Fletcher Harper, founder of GreenFaith, encouraged us to join thousands of others throughout the world in taking the GreenFaith Pledge, "I pledge to make my life a blessing for Earth." Those who pledge may also include a brief statement of personal belief expressing what moves them to make this commitment. Fletcher spoke of his online program on Prayers for Earth.

These graces and prayers come from different cultures and religions.

Spiritual and religious leaders from around the world have launched the interfaith Ourvoices.net initiative to encourage world leaders to hear the moral imperative for a global climate treaty by the December 2015 meetings in Paris.

In a session entitled “Design for the 100% by the 100%”, leading women designers gathered by the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) explored the principles of participatory design – inclusion, cooperation, community, regeneration – and how we can design a human world that meets everyone’s needs without harming the biosphere. Elizabeth Thompson, BFI Executive Director, referred to Amory Lovins’ book and site, Reinventing Fire, which offers solutions for four energyintensive sectors of the economy: transportation, buildings, industry

and electricity. The book explores converting the United States to almost total reliance on renewable energy sources, such as solar energy and wind power. Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado, always focuses on solutions that conserve natural resources while also promoting economic growth.

Louie Schwartzberg, an awardwinning filmmaker, showed a short film, Humanity’s Great Transition, narrated by Morgan Freeman, about the beauties and destruction of Earth and what we can do about the devastation. He wanted to show it at the UN, but the bureaucrats said it would be over the heads of the leaders. Schwartzberg said “I was aiming for their hearts.” Watch the film and Schwartzberg’s presentation by Googling Louie Schwartzberg.

Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, said “We can’t change the laws of nature, but we can change our behavior.”

She noted that in Germany thirty percent of the electricity produced is coming from renewable resources, mostly wind and solar. What Germany has is a bold national policy. They may very well get to 50 to 60 percent renewables by 2030.

A group called Idle No More, led by an indigenous woman in Canada, has 300,000 active members. They work on stopping extractive industries.

Fracking is allowed by the Canadian government. If continued, thirty years of environmental progress is gone.

The question we are raising for the future should not be what kind of planet are we leaving for our children but what kind of children are we going to raise for Earth.

Chloe Maxmin, co-founder of Divest Harvard, was there. Those supporting the effort at Harvard grew to 70,000 by the third year. Chloe became an activist when she was 12.

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Bioneers Omimi Potawatomi, from the people of the seventh fire, asked: “Is land a source of belongings or belonging?”

Our relationship to land is broken. If we sustain Earth that feeds us, it will sustain us. She added: “In some places, if you talk to a plant, people think you are crazy. In our way, it is just good manners.”

Clayton Thomas-Muller is an Ottawa-based Indigenous rights activist and a member of the Cree Nation. He is Co-Director of the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign of the Polaris Institute. He has campaigned in hundreds of Indigenous communities to organize against the encroachment of the fossil fuel industry and the banks that finance them. He quipped: “Keep oil in the soil and coal in the hole.”

Wallace “J” Nichols, an awardwinning marine biologist who lives in the Santa Cruz mountains, was a favorite. When we entered the building the morning he spoke, we each received a blue marble.

Nichols has shared blue marbles around the world in celebration of our beautiful, fragile, planet. The Blue Marbles Project has set out to pass a blue marble through every person’s hand on Earth, along with a simple message of gratitude.

Nichols stands in awe at all that water gives us. Water connects us. Dolphins and whales make us happy. He says: “I do my best thinking in the water, whether it’s a hot bath, a swimming pool, or a lake. I’m clumsy on land, but in the water, I feel as graceful as a porpoise, and I need to swim every day.” Watch his talk by Googling I Wish You Water, Wallace “J” Nichols.

DVDs of the keynote addresses will be available some time in December. Others are available on You Tube.

Climate Change in an Election Year

By Maureen Fiedler SL

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irst, there were the election results on November 4th… a Republican takeover of the Senate, and an increase in conservative Republican representation in the House. For those who care about action to stem climate change, this was not good news. Climate change deniers increased in number and some will become key committee chairs in the new Congress, beginning in 2015.

But then, the election results were eclipsed—to some degree. President Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping announced a major deal on November 11, promising to reduce carbon emissions in their respective countries by dates in the 2020’s. This is a big deal on many scores, but especially because the US and China together account for approximately 36% of the world’s carbon emissions. The deal came after months of secret negotiations, and was a total surprise in political Washington.

The carbon emissions targets in the agreement may not meet the scientific requirements to head off catastrophic climate change. But they are a beginning, and the deal undermines one of the chief political arguments used by opponents of climate change. They used to say, “Well, China is the world’s #1 emitter of carbon, and they won’t do anything, so why should we?” Now, China has committed to change. And the pressure is on the #3 carbon emitter, India, to do something. Climate change skeptics have lost one of their major arguments.

However, like it or not, climate skeptics and deniers will be running the US Congress for the next two years. Perhaps the most infamous is Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who will now become the chair of the key Senate committee dealing with environmental policy! He once called climate change “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people!”

Then, there is now-re-elected Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky who announced that he was “distressed” by the US/China deal to cut emissions.

Speaker of the House John Boehner claims ignorance on climate change. “…I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change,” he said in May. Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, Republican caucus chairwoman, once said that Al Gore (who incidentally won the Nobel Prize for his work) deserves an “F” in science. And these attitudes just scratch the surface.

Before, the election, “Politifact” looked for congressional Republicans who had not expressed skepticism on climate change. They came up with eight (out of 278)!!! Today, after the election, it’s worse.

But the publication, Slate, while acknowledging that the climate was the “big loser” in the 2014 election, offered a note of hope: “A recent poll of selfidentified Republicans found that only one-third of respondents agreed with the Republican Party position on climate change. There’s also been a noticeable backlash against politicians feigning ignorance by touting their lack of formal scientific training. In 2016, it’s now less likely that a presidential candidate can get away with flat-out denial that climate change exists and is largely caused by human activity…” (Slate, 11-7-14) One can only hope… and move to new horizons in 2016.

LENN December 2014 Page 5

A Reflection: Annual Prairie Land Festival in Salina, Kansas

By Sharon Kassing SL

Other speakers gave us “food for thought” as well:

n late September, four members of the Farm and Land Committee, a sub-committee of the Loretto Motherhouse Coordinating Board (Susan Classen, Eleanor Craig, Elizabeth Croom, Sharon Kassing) attended the annual Prairie Festival at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas.

• Robert Jensen, journalist: In naming the reality of the multiple cascading ecological crises of our times, he asked, “Can we imagine life beyond failure? In the next epoch, rules will be defined by nature not humans.”

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The founder of the Institute, Wes Jackson, was introduced this way: “His life work has been to revolutionize agriculture and put it in its proper place with nature.” Doing that involves listening to nature’s wisdom. Because prairie ecosystems are diverse, our agricultural practices must move beyond large fields of a single crop. Wes went on to say that our thinking must also be diverse, nourished and fed by a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives. The speakers at the two-day event reflected the diversity that Wes values.

Sitting in a straight metal chair in a red barn in the middle of the Kansas prairie felt a little like being in a college classroom. Were we trying to understand philosophy?

Well, no! This was the Prairie Festival. We were here to learn about crops, farming, the land, the earth, and natural grasslands. But the speaker/philosopher, Bill Vitek, made the statement that farmers and philosophers were one and the same. Both are system builders.

The philosopher works with ideas and thinks systematically about them. The farmer works with soil, seeds, minerals, and nature, and thinks systemically about them. Both put thought and action together to produce. The philosopher produces cultural systems. The farmer produces crops that provide calories, food. Both strive to improve the human condition. Vitek said, “If slow food is good, so is slow thinking…”

• Kristin McDivitt Tompkins, conservationist and former CEO of Patagonia Inc.: “If you know something and don’t act, it’s the ruination of the soul.” (Words shared as she described her own call to action, which has resulted in more than 2.2 million acres of land becoming national parks in Chile and Argentina.)

• Biblical scholar, Ellen Davis, reflected that Adam and Eve’s first sin was an “eating violation and that God’s generosity will meet our need but not our greed.”

• David Van Tassel, research scientist: while holding a jar of sunflower oil up to the light, “We’re making great progress with perennial sunflower seed oil!”

One of the most hopeful and energizing aspects of the Prairie Festival was the mix of generations seated together in the “Big Barn”.

Of course, there are farmers and conservationists from all over the United States, people who come to learn from and collaborate with Wes Jackson and his staff at the Land Institute. A good many deserve to be called old timers—both in the sense of their senior age but also for their long-term support of the Land Institute. Mingled among the adults of all ages are a surprisingly large number of young adults fresh from or still in university. With their mentors

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and teachers, these young people represent a fresh commitment to ecological sustainability.

We from Loretto were delighted to be at the Prairie Festival with some students and teachers who are our neighbors at St. Catharine College, just eleven miles from Loretto Motherhouse. They are the first crop of the Berry Farming and Ecological Agrarianism Program, a collaboration with the Berry Center of New Castle, Kentucky. Directed by Dr. Leah Bayens, with the support of Mary Berry Smith, St. Catharine’s program is designed “to meet the urgent need for bolstering rural communities, small farm production, and local markets” through multidisciplinary course work in both the practical and the cultural aspects of sustainable agriculture. The Berry Center chose St. Catharine College for this program because of its devotion to land stewardship and community engagement.

Our Loretto group met both Mary Berry and Leah Bayens at the Prairie Festival, and heard more about the interdisciplinary curriculum for the new program. We were especially interested in St. Catharine’s plans to facilitate conversations between students and community partners through collaborative research, internships, and sustainability workshops for local producers and citizens. We are enthusiastic about the chance to partner with St. Catharine—engaging in mutual learning opportunities both in the St. Catharine classrooms and on the Loretto Motherhouse farm.

Loretto’s new Farm Director, Phillip Mattingly, is eager to plan activities for St. Catharine student interns and share research interests with Dr. Shawn Lucas, Assistant Professor of Sustainable Agriculture. The inspiration of the Prairie Festival continues for Loretto in central Kentucky!

LENN December 2014

EVOLUTIONARY LIFE TRANSFORMATION

By Maureen McCormack SL

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his is Part 2 of highlights from a nine-month online course I took from Craig Hamilton, a pioneer in the emerging field of evolutionary life transformation. Part 1 was in the summer 2014 issue of this newsletter.

The process of radical spiritual transformation, higher development, and evolution beyond ego starts with a clear seeing of some truth about life.

This can apply to some very profound spiritual truth or it could apply to something that needs to change in our own life. Then we engage in a process. We see the truth, we see what it would mean to align with it, we see the ways we’re not aligned with it and the impact that is having.

We face the consequences. Our conscience is awakened. I have to change this for reasons bigger than myself. We commit to clear behavioral changes. Then I have to be honest with myself. Am I really following through? Reinforce that, but recognize the ways I’m not doing what I committed to do. That requires humility.

If we’re engaging in this process, it leads to a continuing deepening of insight, deeper layers of clarity.

Then new truths that need to be addressed reveal themselves. As we align with them, and commit to behavioral change, there is a continuing deepening cycle that genuinely transforms us, evolves us.

Direct radical spiritual transformation can unfold in our life. It is being driven by our own willingness to choose and respond to life differently based on the deeper truths we discover, practical simple truths about life, about our life, choices we’re making, as well as big, deep profound truths that might dawn upon us in our deeper moments.

Have we seen that we’re part of this vast, interdependent web, not separate from the whole, and that our life isn’t our own? Have we seen that it’s all up to us, and that our life matters?

I am evolution becoming conscious of itself. I am sacred impulse here to awaken in this life in human form and to enable this sacred impulse to be expressed in the world.

Where do we get sufficient motivation to awaken and to stay awake?

We get rooted in a deeper sphere of motivation that is beyond the personal. It’s not about me. It’s pointing us to the discovery of a context of ultimate meaning for our life and a radical sense of new priorities, beliefs, values—­a radical new identity.

It puts everything else into a totally different perspective— all of my needs, wants, hopes, fears, desires, goals, aspirations, self-definition. These things do not become irrelevant, but they are reprioritized in light of the discovery of something ultimately true, significant, important, which is the possibility of radically awakening.

When we discover spiritual awakening, even a glimpse of it, we realize that the only thing that really matters is that I serve as a vessel for the awakening of humanity to what is truly possible. The only thing that really matters is that I am becoming the solution to significant problems in the human condition. That’s what I am here to do.

There is a kind of tension in our soul, in our very being, about whether we

can live in alignment with this higher priority that is calling us toward it. Go all the way. Never give in to doubt that this choice is fundamentally good and that a miraculous possibility is here. Never give in to the inertia that says, I don’t know if I’m up for it. I don’t know if I’m ready yet. I need to do more healing of myself before I am ready to say “yes” in such a big way.

I need more time to prepare for such a big thing. Never give in to any of these voices of limitation.

No, I’m ready. This is it. No more time off. This radical possibility is calling us always from the moment we awaken to it. This is something much bigger than “I want to become a better person.” This is calling us to a much deeper knowing, to a recognition that there’s no time to waste being asleep, being casual, being unconscious, continuing to play out unconscious habits of the past.

Life needs everything from us. I’m going to go as far as I can with my own awakening in every moment.

Notice the spark of evolution within yourself, the part of you that cares about the unfolding of this life process we’re all part of. Notice the creative flow within you. Tune in to that deeper impulse that’s drawing us all forward on the path. Allow that impulse to be very present, alive, awake, engaged.

There’s a burning urgency to evolve now. We can’t rest for a moment until everything in the universe is an expression of an enlightened luminosity, until everything in the universe is wondrously conscious, until the whole human experience has been reconfigured into something extraordinary, something miraculous.

The awakening to evolution is still finding its way into the public mind.

Craig Hamilton thinks it is going to be one of the big spiritual ideas of this century, perhaps even of this millennium.

LENN December 2014

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Noah: the First Environmentalist

By Maureen Fiedler SL

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n September 21st, I headed for the People’s Climate March in New York City along with about 400,000 other people. It was historic: the largest march for environmental causes in history ever. And Loretto members and volunteers were there in force!

The faith groups were a sizeable contingent and easy to spot because they were led by a large replica of Noah’s Ark. On its side were the words, “We are all Noah now.” It was built by Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, with help from many partners.

Why Noah’s Ark? Well, the Hebrew Scriptures, the Christian Bible and the Qur’an all tell the story of Noah who built an Ark to survive a flood that threatened to wipe out life on Earth. On the Ark, Noah Sally Dunne, Maureen Fiedler, Kathy Wright brought two of every animal on earth. After 40 days, a dove signaled when the flood was over, and all the creatures on the Ark stepped onto a renewed Loretto Volunteers — St. Louis earth. In other words, as the story goes, Noah saved life on Earth from catastrophic destruction.

Who knew? Noah was the first environmentalist!

Aside from the Ark’s environmental significance at the March, it was a great interfaith rallying point. Onboard were Christian clergy, rabbis, imams and a variety of lay folks from many faith traditions. It turns out that the Qur’an, as well as the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Bible tell the story of Noah.

And those not of these Abrahamic traditions (Buddhists, Hindus, spiritual seekers, etc.) had no problem joining in.

This analogy to the climate pressures we face today is all too fitting. In fact, a study just released warns that the ocean will engulf Washington DC by 2100, just over 80 years away, if nothing is done about climate change.

I also asked many people of faith what drew them to the march. Most cited scriptural passages, but two Catholics with whom I spoke mentioned Pope Francis, even though he has yet to say much about the environment. But we need to stay tuned. An encyclical on these issues is reportedly in the works.

Kyleah Frederic, Michelle Garcia, and Eleanor Humphrey

Loretto Earth Network News

Coordinators

Loretto Earth Network Beth Blissman Karen Cassidy Libby Comeaux Mary Ann Coyle Maureen Fiedler Maureen McCormack Nancy Wittwer

A publication of the Loretto Community

Editor: Mary Ann Coyle SL

3126 S Osceola Street

Denver, CO 80236-2332

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