The Unmooring, Issue 4 - The Environment by The Unmooring Journal

Issue 4 Summer 2022

The Unmooring

www.theunmooring.org

Volume 1, Issue 4 issuu.com/theunmooring

Cover Art: “Sleeping Porch” Betsy McCray, 16” x 16” Acrylic on Wood Panel, 2022 PO Box 2835 Ventura, CA 93001 editors@theunmooring.org

Editors

Bonnie Rubrecht | Kylie Riley

Art Editor R. Sawan White Published June 2022 under Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0

United States of America The Unmooring Journal takes First North American Serial Rights in print and digital format as well as non-exclusive rights to utilize work promotionally in perpetuity. Additional Credits: Photography featured in this issue was sourced from a commercial commons website online and from the editors’ personal photography. We are grateful for the work of Julia Volk, didssph, Rachel Clai, Taryn Ellio, Sakshi Patwa, Maria Orlova.

Editor’s Letter

rom the beginning of Christinaity and the early church, there has been an ongoing emergence of dualism intent on separating the physical world from the spiritual, labeling the latter as less than—less holy, less important, less incarnate. Dualism, though officially considered heretical, continues to thrive today and has shaped the way we interact interpersonally and with the ecological world we are a part of. From the dualist perspective, the earth and worldly things are separate from the spirit of God and lower in the hierarchy of matter than humans—lending credibility to the narrative of dominion that led to this moment of environmental crisis. When we begin to make new choices that consider and advocate for the environment, we are, at a basic level, admitting that the natural world is as valuable as humankind and that we, as humans, are not separate from this world, but very much a part of it. As such, we are in a unique position to hold within our power the ability to contribute to the earth’s ecological well-being. When seen through a Christian lens, this change of attitude is an acknowledgement of God, the Divine Creator, in every living thing. Issue 4, the capstone of our first volume, is our attempt to reconcile the tension between ecology, humanity and God. This tension exists due to humankind’s misunderstanding of our place and role within nature. We have taken God’s calling to care for creation as a hierarchical design instead of one of cohabitants and caretakers. We have chosen four liturgies, submitted by Jessica Hertherington, to help navigate this issue. Each one acts as a waymark to move us from “commitment” to “stillness,” through “confession” and ultimately to “transformation.” The journey through Issue 4 takes us from a place of observation to one of action and calling where we not only see God’s spirit in all living things as creator, but learn to count ourselves among them. Along the way we encounter artwork that inspires contemplation, prayers that bring us closer to God and truth, and essays that shine light on different facets of the environment and our relationship to it as Christian women. Each piece selected for Issue 4 approaches our theme from a unique perspective, creating a beautiful tapestry of wisdom, calling, and reconciliation. Our hope is that this issue connects you with both God and our environment in ways that help all of us move forward in humility and love.

Kylie Riley and Bonnie Rubrecht

Contributors

April Bumgardner

Caroline Collins

April Bumgardner is an avid reader of literary fiction and theology. She lives in central Indiana with her husband and three sons. She is a home educator and author of Immanuel: When God Was One of Us, Thoughts on Advent.

Caroline Collins (she/her) is a graduating Masters of Theological Studies student at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Throughout the completion of her MTS, Collins has been an editor at Bridwell Library’s Theological Writing Center and assistant to Dr. Ted Campbell in the MAST (Minister-Author-ScholarTeacher) Program.

Caroline Burton Auckland artist Caroline Burton creates abstract artworks, often with 3-dimensional elements. Wisps of wool and silk fibre are used as painterly brush strokes, creating works which bridge a perceived gap between fine art and crafting. An award winning artist, her work is exhibited throughout out New Zealand.

Katie Callaway Katie Callaway is a pastor and writer who recently served as Co-Pastor of the historic First Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia. Katie received her M.Div. from Wake Forest University, and Th.M from Emory University. She is currently working on her Doctor of Ministry in Creative Writing at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Jessica Hetherington Jessica Hetherington, PhD, is an ecotheologian and ordained minister who inspires people of faith to transform their lives and actions in response to the ecological crisis. She lives and serves in Ontario, Canada, on the unceded territory of the Algonquin First Nation.

Laurie Hoen Laurie Hoen comes to her studio after long years working as a documentary film producer, as a professional chef, and a high school visual arts teacher. Hoen makes her home in Richmond, Virginia. When not in the studio, she enjoys volunteer work, camping, canoeing and music of all kinds.

Lavender Mariehone

Sarah quint

Lavender Mariehøne, a storyhearer, seeks to listen to untold stories. She is presently curious about modern Christian witness, how to make candles, and the process of information design. Mariehøne was previously published in The Curator magazine.

Sarah Quint is a citizen of the Mattaponi Nation of Tsenacommacah, Turtle Island (Virginia, USA). She is faithfully working towards a decolonized and contextual practice of the Jesus Way. This journey has led her into traditional story telling and song writing in her tribal tongue. Sarah is currently the Co-Pastor, along with her husband Steve, at Monroe City Church in Monroe, MI (Traditional Potawatomi territory).

Betsy McCray Betsy McCray is a visual artist who lives in Richmond, Virginia. When she is not in her studio, you might find her working in the garden, mowing the lawn, or going for long walks.

Jessica Miskelly Jessica Miskelly is a recovering scientist, seeking to fill the philosophical, literary and theological holes in her understanding. The insistence on black and white certainty on all sides of the faith/ rationality argument disturbs her in its lack of nuance.

Lisa Swander Lisa Swander is a freelance writer and aspiring gardener who loves writing about the intersection between feminism and spirituality. She lives in Indiana with her husband and two children.

Joann White Joann White is a Presbyterian minister, writer, spiritual director, and enthusiast of wild places. She is the author of Blest Be the Tie: Fables of Faith from the Far North. When she isn’t at church, you might find her wandering the trails near her home in the Adirondacks.

A Springtime Prayer of Stillness & Noticing Jessica Hetherington

A Wilderness Not Distant from Ourselves Lisa Swander

A Prayer of Ecological Commitment Jessica Hetherington

26 20

The Beauty of Water April Bumgardner

Born To Be Katie Callaway

Return To Mine: A Call & Response Liturgy Caroline Collins

Artwork Caroline Burton

Artwork Laurie Hoen

Collect April Bumgardner

Contents 58

Beneath The Surface: The Abundant Table

A Call To Witness Lavender Mariehøne

Be Not Do Jessica Miskelly

The Sacred Why Joann White

Artwork Betsy McCray

Free Market Ecology Sarah Quint

Ebb Tide

Prayer of Call & Transformation Jessica Hetherington

57 A Prayer of Ecological Confession Jessica Hetherington

Prayer of Ecological Commitment Jessica Hetherington O God, I am standing outside on the ground in my yard. An ordinary patch of grass and dandelions. I am reminded that this, all of this, is your creation. The sky above and the birds who fly the trees and the river nearby the oceans to the west and to the east the Arctic ice and the African deserts the flora and fauna the vast diversity of people and cultures it is all your creation. Suddenly, I feel like Moses. For I realize that this ordinary patch of grass and dandelions, part of your creation, is holy ground. All of it: sky and birds trees and river oceans, ice and deserts flora and fauna people and cultures is holy ground.

I take off my shoes. And like Moses, I hear you calling me. You called him to lead your people out of Egypt. You are calling me to Earth healing. I hear you calling me, God, your voice speaking from within the burning bush that is your whole creation. I take off my shoes, on this ordinary patch of grass and dandelions and I say yes. AMEN.

“Peripheral Vision in Gold” 23.2” x 16.5”, Fine Art Giclee of Ephemeral Fibre Artwork, 2020

Caroline Burton

I seek to uncover connections between the physical and the spiritual, often through an exploration of landscapes both seen and unseen. Of particular interest in recent works is the notion that, in the information age, we are losing the ability to sit with mystery. Drawing parallels between the unseen depths beneath our feet and the mysteries of spirituality, I use recurring motifs of structured lines and arrangements of dots amongst organic forms to represent the incursion of the known into the unknown—and vice versa. In physical terms, I allude to our probing of the earth for resources. Because my background is in mining engineering, it helps to inform my questions around our responsibilities as caretakers for the land. A greed for knowledge and a greed for material things so often drown out the still, small voice that guides us to sit with mystery, care for our land and for each other.

A Wildness Not Distant From A Spiritual Journey in House Lisa Swander On a cold pandemic day in March, I stood over my kitchen trash can with a ceramic pot and the corpse of an anonymous succulent. I never knew what species it was. I didn’t even mean to buy it. It came with half a dozen other vaguely desert-esque plants, packed into a low rectangular planter my daughter presented to me in line at the hardware store. This was the last one left. Its leaves had shriveled into wrinkled, yellow sponges, despite my eager attempts at watering, and its roots smelled faintly of mildew when I upended the pot. I uttered a brief eulogy as I scraped out its remains. “Sorry,” I said, sighing. “I tried.” And I had, which was unusual. Historically, I would bring home an unsuspecting plant every few months, put it in the sunniest window available, and then ignore it for the rest of its mortal days. I had never tried anything more robust than hope.

deaths suffered at my hands had nothing to do with my utter ignorance of their basic light, water, or nutrient needs; it was fate. Some people were born with green thumbs, I said. Mine was black. A label like that is nice for the ego. As long as I was a non-plant person—or, less charitably, a plant killer—I had an excellent excuse not to try too hard to keep them alive. Trying is a vulnerable endeavor. It’s alerting others that you want something you don’t have, and for most of my life, that was not the kind of information I wished to disclose. For me, this new state of trying with plants was even more vulnerable than ordinary trying. This trying was admitting that, even after years of spiritual searching, I could feel that something was still missing. It only took a pandemic to convince me. *

I had always explained this lack of success by saying I just wasn’t a plant person. The many plant

By the time COVID sent my children and me home

m Ourselves: eplants “By the time COVID sent my children and I home from our classrooms in March 2020, I had already been through a few painful years of squeegeeing out the patriarchal water I’d absorbed in church.”

from our classrooms in March 2020, I had already been through a few painful years of squeegeeing out the patriarchal water I’d absorbed in church. I was getting in touch with the sacred feminine, reading about Jesus and feminism, goddesses and matrilineal societies.

I was becoming aware of the places I’d choked feminine qualities like openness, nurturing, and nonduality out of my psyche. I was getting softer and more grounded. I was letting go of little bits of control. I was embracing the messy complications of human existence. Really, I thought I was crushing it, right up until the day we were sent home. As a middle school teacher, my work did not come to a screeching halt in that second week of March. If anything, my paperwork, planning, and anxiety

doubled as we moved our classrooms online and struggling students began to fade into the ether.

What did come to a screeching halt, however, were all the ways in-person work and in-person busyness had been patching up the cracks in my personal wellness. Pre-COVID, my family was as overextended and overscheduled as the next. My job left me stressed and exhausted much of the time, but I had the social buoyancy of my students and coworkers to keep me afloat. Parenting and shuttling my kids to various activities took care of any idle time. Besides, my spiritual remaking had included therapy and a meditation practice already. There didn’t seem to be anything else left to do. Post-COVID, we were no longer short on time but suspended within in. Along with everything and

“With nothing driving us out the door, I was forced to consider the environment of our home almost for the first time.” everyone else we used to enjoy. The gains I’d made in my mental health wobbled. With nothing driving us out the door, I was forced to consider the environment of our home almost for the first time. It was a long way from keeping any of us afloat. *

Before COVID, I thought of our house in the ways it could facilitate our eating, sleeping, or storing things. I told myself I didn’t have time for matters of decor or ambiance or feng shui. That was for other women I wasn’t like—women with Pinterest addictions, influencer accounts, or nothing better to do. Outside the house was no different. We paid someone to touch up the mulch every spring, and although I liked to put a few basil plants in the garden, I’d usually let them go to seed by the end of June.

If pressed, I would have told you that I could remember a time when I enjoyed being outdoors, but just barely. In my adult life, nature was an afterthought. Something I liked to see when I was on vacation, but not something I could pencil into my daily grind. At the same time, I thought of myself as someone who cared about the environment, at least in an abstract way. We sorted our recycling. I drove a hybrid car. But before the plants, I’m not sure I even understood what the environment was, exactly. Over the couple of years prior, I had inverted the ratio of Bible study to quiet contemplation in my life. Meditation was more in line with my Quaker heritage and the preference of my soul, as far as I could tell. It was also one of the few non-work tasks I made space for in my day, every day. During COVID, I sat in the same spot to meditate that I always did—on a chaise lounge in my

bedroom, next to the window. What was different during those early pandemic days was that I spent almost as much time looking out the window as I did repeating my mantra. Something called to me in our frost-covered yard. Something I couldn’t hear until I slowed down enough for the wind to stop whistling past my ears. A part of the sacred feminine I’d assumed I could live without. It was nature, right out my window. Right where I had left it as a child. Every morning, I watched the branches of our sycamore tree sway against the gray sky and felt like I might be able to make it. I said hello to the twiggy hydrangea under my window. I got to know every pair of cardinals and bluebirds in our yard. I knew if nature could keep showing up day after day, even as the world was collapsing, then I could too. On the most superficial level, I started on houseplants because I wanted to bring the nature I saw outside into our space. What I experienced out the window each day was nothing short of transcendent, and I wanted a piece of that I could hold. Touch. Integrate into the energy of this utilitarian house that suddenly had become our entire world.

The first crack the houseplants wriggled into was my love affair with control. There’s that oft-quoted verse in Genesis 1:26 about God intending humankind to rule over the earth “and everything that creeps upon it.” It’s perhaps the origin of evangelical Christianity’s historical disregard for conservation; if we were meant to rule the earth, what we’re already doing to it must be right. Right? Houseplants are the cure for that particular piece of poor theology. Nothing will disabuse you of the notion that you hold dominion over nature like a hibiscus in a north-facing window. It turns out that an aloe vera doesn’t care how nice you thought it would look in that dark corner of your bookshelf. Nor will a snake plant share your daughter’s enthusiasm for misting it three times a day. Every plant needs something different, and unlike a dog or a cat that can be trained to live within your parameters, a plant is not interested in negotiating. You will either learn to serve its needs or you will learn to dispose of dead plants.

“Before the plants, I believed in the same false dichotomy between humans and the environment that most Westerners do—what anthropologists call the nature/culture divide.” 14

I bought a lot of plants in the beginning, tacking them on to our grocery orders or toilet paper searches, and I assumed they could fit neatly into our color-coded daily schedule. E-learning, morning snack, water plants. They lived in a line in our bay window, and I opened the blinds at the same time each day to ensure everyone received the same amount of sunlight. Most of them were dead in a couple of weeks. *

After the last of my daughter’s hardware store succulents died, I broke down and bought a book

called How to Houseplant. I learned that most plants don’t want to be watered every day. I learned that only some plants want to live in my west-facing bay window. I learned about plant food and root rot and repotting. I learned that the plants need what the plants need. And they have given me something I need: a reminder that I’ve never actually been in control. Yes, I’ve prayed for Jesus to take the wheel many times, but even the act of asking suggests I have some say in the matter. It’s refreshing to have to serve an indifferent pothos or a fussy Boston fern. The natural world operates

according to rules that predate not only me and my schedule, but our entire species. And we are not in control of those rules. Our insistence otherwise might make the earth uninhabitable for us, but self-destruction is not the same as control. When we’re open to the feminine, we can surrender to a loss of control. We can accept that the order we try to impose on wild things is held together with the thinnest of threads. I thought I understood that before COVID. Before the plants. I knew connection with the feminine meant a deep and inextricable connection to the wildness of nature. I just left out the part where I did any of that connecting myself. I thought nature lived on one side of the window and I lived on the other, and that we could exist side by side in a picturesque binary reality. That was the other crack the plants had to worm their way through. *

As I learned more and overwatered less, I felt a symbiosis between us and the plants I’d managed to keep alive. I knew they were purifying our indoor air, of course—every container at Lowes comes with a tag guaranteeing as much—but there was also something more nebulous about their presence. The rooms with plants were rooms I wanted to be in. My daughter began to soothe her temper by petting the long leaves of the dragon tree. If I graded papers next to the hens and chicks succulent, I gave higher scores. When the most terrifying—and frigid—days of the pandemic were behind us, I spent more time among the plants outside as well. I planted a full garden of vegetables. My children and I took regular walks again, something we’d stopped once they went to school. I sat on our deck every morning and our front porch every evening, following the sun. Some of that was conscious—I’d read exactly how much sunlight a human needed per day for

optimal health—but much of it was more like a compulsion. An instinct I’d never given myself time to follow. It’s been two years since I started trying not to kill my plants. From this vantage point, the plants seem to be the tail end of what has been a long journey to recover the sacred feminine within me. Within is the key, the cement in that second crack. I began with an effort to bring nature to me, but now I know such a task was never possible. Nature is me. As Henry David Thoreau put it, “It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such.” Before the plants, I believed in the same false dichotomy between humans and the environment that most Westerners do—what anthropologists call the nature/culture divide. It exists insomuch as we even have a word for “the environment.” If we understood ourselves to be part of the environment, we wouldn’t need to call it anything at all. And of course, it’s not difficult to lay the nature/ culture divide on top of the gender divide. Sharon Blackie writes that most ancient cultures viewed women as “guardians of the natural world, the heart of the land,” an association that has never really gone away. We still call her Mother Earth or Mother Nature, after all. If you need more proof, watch a Disney movie. Any female character will either be talking to animals, singing to flowers, or cooking up potions made from plants (as long as she’s not someone’s mother, in which case she will be dead). It’s no wonder, then, in a world dominated by patriarchal systems—including many iterations of the Christian church—we don’t see nature as an equal to humankind. We see it as something to be controlled, as women have been in nearly every society for centuries.

I know now that my aversion to the plant person label was an aversion to the feminine. Plants were the domain of my mother, aunts, and grandmother, and I got the patriarchy memo early. From a young age, I assumed whatever the women were doing was not what would get me ahead. One more crack in my spiritual foundation. Until the plants let the light in, this one ran so deep I didn’t even know it existed. I thought I had wrung every drop of internalized misogyny from my soul before COVID, but now I’m humble enough to know that work will likely never be finished. And that’s okay. It’s enough to be willing to undertake it. If we’re going to “save the environment,” which is the same thing as saving ourselves, everyone will have to undertake it. All of us, men and women alike, will have to find the corks we’ve placed over the sacred feminine. We’re going to have to love and accept the nature within ourselves, the feminine within ourselves, or we’ll continue to see the Earth as something we can bend to our will. Right up until the day it breaks. This is hard work, especially if, like me, you want to keep Christianity. Wildness and the nature of our bodies, especially women’s bodies, haven’t been enthusiastically embraced in church. It takes work to find places where the feminine and the Christ are elevated together—and so far for me they’ve all been in books—but it’s the work of our lives. As evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould said, “We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature—for we will not fight to save what we do not love.” We have to love nature as we love ourselves because we are nature. It is a long battle indeed, but I’d suggest starting with a nice succulent.

Caroline Collins For the three persons all have one name to refer back to when called. God, the one who creates; God, the one who tabernacled, through which all things came into being; God, the one whose breath brought life into the lungs of humankind from the dust. Your boundlessness is our dwelling place. I am embraced. For the Scriptures bear witness to You traversing gender and gendered actions. Mother dove brooding over the waters of the deep, Father whose bosom is nestled in by the Word, Begotten Son cast in the light of the Woman Wisdom. From the cross’s blood and water outpour emerges abundant life and our birth within it. Your boundlessness is our dwelling place. I am embraced. For the recipients of Your calls are savored in being. Never abiding by boundaries of who vocationally can or cannot, never withheld from those deemed unworthy of the call and the response. No heart is cast aside from what Your finger inscribes. Your boundlessness is our dwelling place. I am embraced. For the children of God all have identities strong, beautiful, and wonderful in creation and growth. May the days of creation inspire our sustainment and nourishment of the Earth’s goodness. May the days of creation remind us to speak to the beauty of our neighbors’ making. Your boundlessness is our dwelling place. I am embraced. Take us to where it is safe. Take us to where it is free. Your boundlessness is our dwelling place. We are embraced.

Return to Mine: A Call and Response Liturgy 19

The Beauty of Water April Bumgardner The need to belong is visceral and universal. Followers of Jesus signify their belonging to Christ through a watery sacrament of baptism. Baptism is the identity marker connecting our material environment with the truer world of God. From our baptism on, we belong in ways we may not understand or even see. But from the moment water dampens and soaks into our skin, we are given a marker that gives us a fundamentally new identity. It transcends all others. Although we may be born into or become part of different groups throughout our lifetime, our belonging in Christ supersedes all else. Within the last few years, our world has heard increasingly divisive language which plays to the hate and fear brewing in so many of us. Instead of our faithful allegiance to Christ, our belonging is often contingent on nationality, ethnicity, economic status, or political leanings. While this may seem odd, it is idolatrous for a follower of Jesus. Our identifying mark or symbol is not a flag or a 401(k) account. Our only identity is through the slain Lamb, who through the senseless death of crucifixion, defeated a mighty empire by shaming violence. And so, our one marker which identifies us is first a symbol of death, then a proleptic reminder of

our resurrection. It is ordinary water made holy through God’s presence as we are grafted into this story. Our fragmented identities exist no longer, for they are cleansed in the baptismal font, washed away as we retroactively join the Israelite slaves fleeing Egyptian slavery. In dying with Christ, we admit we do not belong to empire, either a political or economic one. The need for power or control has no grip on us. Instead, we identify with the outcast, the fleeing, the marginalized, the abused. Our identity looks to the One who is gentle, who leads the bruised reeds. We join with Christ in his death and resurrection through our baptism, but we are also irretrievably joined to the newly formed people of God crossing through the waters of the Red Sea. This historical and metaphorical event is our first baptism. God surprises us by joining in with the material and created world. The Spirit of Christ mysteriously blesses us in the plants, the trees, the birds, the rocks, and in the water. Water is the host tying us to Christ’s death and resurrection. It is a sign of our belonging to God, solidarity with Christ’s church, and with the fleeing Israelites, our progenitors in

the faith. As God pushed back the boundaries of the sea, God set the boundaries in place for forming a new kind of people, a re-creation story formed by hovering over the waters and overpowering chaos.

the Egyptian myth of “nothingness” as something undefined, without boundaries, without meaning or form? In doing so, we would understand our Creator has no parallel nemesis, and this God creates from love and order.

God creates a people through victory over We read in the first of the Hebrew writings water. In the beginning, God first conquered that “God’s breath [was] hovering over the the chaotic, primordial waters, “welter and waters.”2 We are immediately introduced to a waste,” as Hebrew literary scholar Robert gentle Creator, with a feminine, avian image, Alter puts it. “When God began to create a mother bird not only intimately involving heaven and earth, and the earth then was herself with the creation process, but accomwelter and waste and darkness over the deep plishing it with no struggle, little effort, and and God’s breath hovering over the waters, with luxurious success. On the first pages of 1 God said, ‘Let there be light.’” Of course, we our Bible, we do not witness a ferocious battle are remiss in receiving this story properly if with turbulent waters, but a loving almost we focus on why the waters were there, how sensual act which God’s Spirit demonstrates God created it all so quickly, or whether it was in pushing back the boundaries for our world’s literally six days of existence and flourishing. work. Such questions “Why do these poetic images denigrate the genre, God’s Spirit moves over even matter in our (post) cosmology, and form all waters, ancient and of this magnificent modern, raging and modern world full of so story. What if we tame. Our baptismal many injustices?” placed this fantastic waters take us back to tale into an ancient, the original waters which mythological context? What if we contrasted were “welter and waste,” rife with lesser gods. this hovering, breathing, speaking Creator While the Babylonians feared the primordial with the Babylonian gods as they fiercely nothingness of the deep, our baptism, in battled the raging water demons, narrowly contrast, is the place of luxurious, abundant defeating them? What if we compared this creation where God pulls us out of chaos and frothy, tumultuous, watery beginning with breathes life into us. 1. Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible, Volume 1 The Five Books of Moses: a Translation with Commentary. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2019 2. Genesis 1:1

Why do these poetic images even matter in our (post)modern world full of so many injustices? Primarily, because if we do not identify with Christ in our baptism, we are prey to accepting any other divisive or myopic identities that may be handed to us: national, denominational, ethnic, or cultural. How we identify ourselves will determine how expansive our view of God is, and in turn, how we treat others. We reject the story that claims we were pulled from the creative soup of American exceptionalism, or regionalism, or any social ideology. It is by God’s breath hovering over the waters of our baptism, that we are recreated into the life of God and the politic of Christ’s kingdom. Because of generative, baptismal waters, the boundaries against injustice and false identities are pushed back as we are recreated into a beautiful life with God. The sacrament of baptism is where we encounter God in our environment, where the material and ephemeral meet the spiritual and eternal. We spend time contemplating these ancient waters because it is where God meets us. And it is because of this meeting that these waters become sublime. Our baptism blesses us not through our rational understanding of an immersive or sprinkling act, but through the beautiful mystery of God’s creative presence. It is through this liquid sacrament that Christ reminds us of his creative pre-eminence and where he invites us to join the life of the triune Creator. It is where we find our belonging.

Collect April Bumgardner Tying the significance of our baptism to the Genesis creation account. O Creator, Breath of Life, you ordered the chaos of the waters into a world of beauty and flourishing. And you order the chaotic false gods from our stormy depths to be subdued and rightly ordered. Grant to us a faithful memory of these generative and saving waters so that we may be renewed in our love and care for you, your creation, and your people. Through Jesus Christ the Resurrected, who eternally lives as one with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A Springtime Prayer of Stillness and Noticing 24

Jessica Hetherington Creator God, I am sitting here, still, before you. It is hard for me to sit still. It seems like I am always coming and going. Fretting and worrying. Not taking enough time to stop and rest. But I am sitting here, still, before you. Help me to stay still, for just a little while, so that I might notice you and your creation. You say: Be still and know that I am God. As I begin my journey this spring, a journey of paying attention to you and your creation, please help me to be still. Help me to slow down so that I may notice what is around me. Help me to see, to

really see the incredible world in which I live with its robins and cardinals crocuses and daffodils squirrels and rabbits wind and rain sun and mud. These are all the normal ordinary things around me, God. They are what I see today and they are what show me that your creation, this world that I am a part of in my humanness, as a species that you created is amazing. Be still and know that I am God. Today, I am still. And I know that you are God. AMEN.

“Weather the Storm,” 30” x 30” Oil on Panel, 2018

Laurie Hoen

I’m a storyteller at heart. My art is idea driven, layering easy-to-read images symbolically to create meaning. I use elements of still life, landscape, and allegory to create visualizations of social and environmental issues. My practice embraces a traditional language of representation in art while simultaneously engaging in contemporary conversations. I weave science, history, cultural symbolism, sociology, and references to current events into my work, inviting interpretation to shift depending on who is looking and how deeply. Balancing cautionary tales with opportunities for optimism, these paintings ask who we are, who we want to be, and what stories we want to author.

“River Mourning,” 45” x 30” Oil on Panel, 2019

In Memory of the Village Green, 30” x 30” Oil on Panel, 2021

The paintings investigate both the objective and the subjective nature of our intimate relationship with nature and our environment stewardship. They explore our embrace of both the realistic and the abstract in our search for the immanence of goodness in creation and our hope of a continuance and beauty despite the neglect we offer in return.

“The Myth of Solid Ground,” 45” x 30” Oil on Panel, 2020

Born to Be Katie Callaway Thursdays are our day to see the cougars. My daughter attends a pre-kindergarten program held at our local wildlife center run by the public school system. Cougars, wolves, deer, and bison have all received the designation of “classmate” from 22 four- and five-year-olds.

observation house, a three-sided building with one glass wall to ensure safe but close interactions with the animals. Most Thursdays, Ranier is crouching just below the glass on the left side and Olympia, the more dominant of the two cubs, is relaxing in the shade of the hammock just beyond our gaze.

On Thursdays, I pick up my daughter and instead Over the course of our weekly visit, we play with of going home to have snacks like every other the cougars. We act as prey, laying down under weekday, we walk just beyond the door to her their sight line, then pop up, enticing the cubs to classroom to the school’s wildlife trail lined with tap into their most natural of instincts. Olympia, Live Oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. My the queen of the enclosure, will pounce at the daughter leads the way as we almost float through window after a few temptations, landing on the the forest among the skittish lizards and aggravatcatwalk attached to the observation house. After ing mosquitos, until we arrive at what the wildlife a while, Ranier asserts himself, jumping onto center has dubbed, “The Cougar Crossing.” The the catwalk to receive a disapproving swat from closer we get to their enclosure, the faster my Olympia. heart beats knowing I am about to encounter these majestic creatures. The closer we get to Cougar Eventually, we simply sit back and watch these Crossing, the faster my daughter runs until she is lovely creatures play in the safety of their encloin a dead sprint up the final boardwalk to see them. sure. Their caramel coats and deep brown eyes Olympia and Ranier, named after the area from ignite something in me. It is an encounter with which they came, are cougar cubs who have quick- the soul of wildness, a side of the divine I am not ly carved out their place in the hearts of every person who has encountered them, “It is an encounter with the soul of wildness, including myself. a side of the Divine I have grown accustomed We enter the experience by stepping into the cougar

to not seeing in my life as an urban dweller and pastor of a downtown church.”

accustomed to seeing in my life as an urban dweller and pastor of a downtown church.

cougar on the cover—a cover girl, indeed. *

One particular Thursday, we scurried along the trail at our usual hasty pace to see Olympia and Ranier and then raced back to the car to go to the local outdoor supply store to purchase backwoods necessities for an upcoming backpacking trip. When we entered the store, there were mounted animals all over: bears, foxes, cougars, raccoons, and wolves. All were hunted and killed just for the sake of the hunt, their bodies preserved as a trophy to human dominance, though the folly of it is more than obvious. Our souls were still stirring with the glory and joy of playing with Olympia and Ranier only to enter this store to find cougars that could have been their kin stuffed and mounted along the walls. We were waiting in line to pay when my daughter found a magazine with a cougar on the cover: Predator Nation. As my spouse flipped through the magazine, we learned that it was all about the best way to hunt these creatures: which ammunition to use, how to bait a wild animal, the best place to shoot a cougar in order to mount it as a trophy. My heart dropped to my stomach. “Why would anyone kill these creatures?” I wondered as my daughter commented on the majestic

Olympia and Ranier ended up in Savannah, Georgia after being found in the backyard of a Washington State resident. Their mother had abandoned them along with their two siblings, leaving four vulnerable cubs to fend for themselves. Wildlife professionals quickly whisked the cubs off to the Memphis Zoo that was equipped to provide life-saving treatment and supervision to cougars. They arrived in Memphis malnourished and dehydrated. After some tender loving care, the zoo gave two of the cubs to the wildlife center in Savannah that had recently been grieving the death of their cougar, Shanti. The Memphis Zoo kept the remaining two cubs for conservation purposes. Olympia and Ranier arrived in Savannah and made their debut on February 2, 2022. Olympia and Ranier will never be able to live in the wild again because they became dependent upon human care after being found in such a vulnerable state. However, when one looks into their eyes, the wildness has not left them. Despite their dependence on human care, they will always carry the wildness with them. They will pounce at a person who is disappearing and reappearing over and over again because they have that wildness in them.

“I wanted to get in touch with the wildness I felt stirring in my soul. This wildness came alive when I left the confines of my home, when I entered onto the soft, tree-lined trail of my favorite mountain, and especially when I looked into the eyes of a cougar. It was a wildness that was unmistakably Divine.” They will swat at each other when they believe one has crossed the line. They will chase down their food and jump on limbs in their enclosure. Keepers will never be allowed to be in their enclosure with them because they will always be a little wild. Wild is what they were born to be. *

When I sojourned through a conservative Evangelical phase in my life, my Bible study group read Wild at Heart by Christian author John Eldredge and its equivalent for women, Captivating, written by Eldredge and his wife. In Wild at Heart, Eldredge makes the case that men are unsatisfied with life because they have become out of touch with their God-given “manly” instincts. The complementarianism in Captivating angered me. Though I could not verbalize it at the time, these men seemed to think they had a monopoly on the wild. According to Eldredge, men are the only ones who could go on epic adventures and be fulfilled by a boundary-free life. Women were subjugated to the home, entrapped by the four walls of domesticity, playing only a supporting role in man’s great adventure. Despite Eldredge’s imposition of complementarian ideology surrounding me, I wanted to get in touch with the wildness I felt stirring in my soul. This wildness came alive when I left the confines of my home, when I entered onto the soft tree-lined trail of my favorite mountain, and especially when

I looked into the eyes of a cougar. It was a wildness that was unmistakably divine. The Oxford English Dictionary defines wild as “living or growing in one’s natural environment.” Wild has very little to do with Eldredge’s toxic masculinity, after all. It is not the grunts of men trying to prove who is strongest, who can survive the longest in the woods, nor even who can shoot that trophy predator for the wall. It is flourishing in the place for which you were created. Wild is what we were born to be. *

Every time I look in Olympia’s eyes, I see a glimmer of wild—not in the sense of roaming the wilderness in search of prey. Rather, I mean wild as in the sense of a divine predisposition to a thriving life given the proper environment and conditions. Olympia and Ranier had very little chance of thriving in the conditions in which they were found as cubs.

Not only dehydrated and malnourished, they were birthed in the backyard of a human family, creating an unsafe environment for both humans and cougars. As the West Coast struggles with frequent droughts and heat waves, cougars have been found to wander into city-centers where there is more water and shade. The environment where cougars

thrive is shrinking, leading to more tenuous relationships with the humans that share geographic space with them. With wilderness depleting, multiple wilds are converging upon each other. Although in captivity for the rest of their lives, Olympia and Ranier have trees to climb and regular enrichment activities to engage the wild within them. The wildlife center where they now call home has tried to recreate, as best as they can, the conditions that mimic the environment for which they were created. Wild is what they were created to be. *

In “The Summer Day,” after an intimate look at a grasshopper, poet Mary Oliver writes, I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

When I look into the eyes of Olympia and Ranier, when I stand before a pack of feral horses on a remote island on the coast of Georgia, when I place my feet into the grainy sand of the beach or the soft dirt of the Appalachian Trail, I know what it means to be wild. To be wild is to pay attention to the environment around me that is devolving into chaos due

to human greed and self-centeredness, to the fingerprints of the divine—faint as they may be—that adorn the caramel fur of our new cougar friends and the bright blue eyes of my four-year-old who gazes at them, to the warning signs the earth provides for us as she cries out for help, to the sense of peace I get from simply strolling through the woods.

To be wild is to be attentive to the environment we are placed in, to be able to evaluate whether it is a place that will allow us to grow and thrive. If I have learned anything from Olympia and Ranier, it’s that wildness does not depend upon my ability to trounce freely in the woods nor act with a sense of ownership over the earth. Rather, to be wild is to grow and thrive where I am, developing a deep satisfaction for the gift of the divine that flourishes when someone can truly be themselves. Wild is what I was created to be.

A Call to Witness Lavender Mariehone LOOK BACK—LOOK BACK will you become a pillar of salt? God who smote Sodom and Gomorrah and rescued the righteous, may we turn towards the broken and unholy of this day. Let us become aware of the salt on our hands. May we go towards the unknown with open hearts. May we know that your holiness wreaths us when sin poisons, though we reason and beg. Your hands are as present as the angels’ hands, snatching Lot out of his house. Let us feel your touch here with us now. Remind us of the life you call us to, the witness you require of us. Let us know your grace is enough—even as our cities begin to burn. You are a God who listens. BEHOLD—BEHOLD take off your sandals. Merciful Lord who called to Moses from a burning bush, may we turn towards the unsightly and unknown of this day. Let us become aware of our desire to look away. May we go towards the uncomfortable with protected eyes. May we know that your gift of free will burns in us when we make our choices, though we are sometimes pressured. Your being is as present as creation, shining as a beacon and a call. Let us become aware of how you are with us now. Remind us of the life you call us to, the witness you require of us. Let us know your presence is enough—even as our eyes water and our wills harden. You are a God who calls. BE NOT AFRAID she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Good Shepherd who provided for his people, may we turn towards the grieving and lost of this day. May we go towards the aching with open arms. Let us become aware of our desire to fix and remove the anxiety. May we know that your eyes weep for us when we weep with them, though we are slow to be still. Your heart is as present as Mordecai, who would not be consoled until he was heard. Let us become aware of our unworthiness-yet-worthiness in you. Remind us of the life you call us to, the witness you require of us. Let us know your sacrifice on the cross was enough—even as we mourn, and people still die. You are a God who sees.

Free Marke Sarah Quint In the most unlikely of places food appeared. They were starving and away from home, so in grumbles and prayers, they cried out to God for help. The next morning a flake-like substance, softened by dew, appeared on the ground and the Israelites were saved. Manna had come from heaven to curb the pains of hunger as they found their way home. And every morning, the barren desert floor became a feast of satisfaction. Israel’s God was once again proven trustworthy at providing more than enough. Years later, the world lay in waste again, and people prayed for deliverance. Creator came down from heaven, saying, “I am the bread of life.”1 Instead of grumbling, He taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” to trust God to give us what we need when we need it.2 The Anishinaabe carried a prophecy that led to their migration from the eastern seashore to their current home of the Great Lakes. In this prophecy, they were warned of coming destruction from the east, colonization. The path of the megis shell would lead them to refuge in a new land. The Anishinaabe would know that their travels had ended and that they had finally found rest once they arrived at the place where the “food grew on the water,” wild rice. Wild rice meant bread forever. Wild rice meant home. After a long and weary journey, they would find a dwelling with the door wide open, the table already set, and food prepared. All it would take was faith to believe that Creator would give them everything they needed if they just follow the way. The cupboards of our home, Mother Earth, were never intended to be bare. But environmental destruction has led to food insecurities across the globe. In clearing our forests and polluting our waters, we cleared our own tables and spilled our own cups. Thinking somehow, someway we 1. John 6:35 2. Matt. 6:11

et Ecology

could manufacture our own bread and wine, as if we could speak it into existence and call it good. Environmental injustice is a rejection of the gifts of God and a belief in finding life apart from the way of God. As we build our towers of Babel, we deforest our trees of life, trading them in for thorns, thistles, and floods. There is no shame in dependency on God. We can only live so long with an “anything you can do I can do better” attitude before our own mortality proves us wrong. Just a few days without water or a few weeks without food will quickly remind us of our fragility and true place within the circle of life. The Lakota have a phrase, “mni wiconi,” meaning “water is life.” Each time we drink from this cup we remember we are saved. Clean drinking water is salvific every time. Free and fresh water serpentines across the earth in rivers, streams, springs, and lakes. Our dependency on God is only matched by his faithful care. The Lord has always provided food and the waters of life for humans and non-human relatives alike. Every seed, stream, wild rice bed, and fruiting tree are incarnations of mercy. Each time I find a wild strawberry or morel mushroom I know that, yet again, I have been saved by grace, trusting in divine providence. None of these things are possible by works of my own hands, so I cannot brag or boast. I cannot produce the crimson flow of this sweet berry or the resurrection found in mushrooms popping up beside fallen trees. This glory belongs to the Creator alone, but they share it freely with all. No, I cannot produce the things that bring life and life in abundance but I can lay down my tools of striving and enter into their rest. I cannot fabricate life but I can receive it as a gift by faith. How much did you pay for your salvation? Mine was free. It came not by might, not by financial or military power, but by the Great Spirit. The only cost for life is relationship, living as stewards Caroline Burton, “The Close Companion Wairua Tapu” 31.5” diameter, New Zealand Merino Wool, Silk Fibres, 2018

and friends, and co-creation with the earth and her Creator. As my tenth great-grandfather, Chief Powhatan Wahunsenacah asked, “Why should you take by force that from us which you can have by love?” Overpowering force is a funny way to break down a door that has been left unlocked and cracked open for us. We are meant to walk into supper as friends not as thieves. There is plenty for all. In the economy of God, there are never supply chain issues or shortages. Like manna on the ground, like forgiveness 70 x 7, there are mercies new every morning. Water and food were never meant to be commodified and controlled by the few. They are free gifts of God. How subversive it was for Jesus to teach his followers, living under Rome’s control, to pray not for bread from Caesar but from the hand of God. That is why it was so unnatural for Natives across present-day North America to take rations from commodity food boxes, shipped in by the government. Why work hard and beg for food that God had naturally provided in abundance? Why put a price on that which is free?

Caroline Burton, Restoration, 24” x 31.5” New Zealand Merino Wool, Silk Fibres, 2021

They sold Jesus too. Some tried to take an infinite God and reduce him to 30 pieces of silver, to commodify Christ. Like fresh rain, he offered himself freely for all, saying, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”3 The few

“Like manna on the ground, like forgiveness 70 x 7, there are mercies new every morning. Water and food were never meant to be commodified and controlled by the few. They are free gifts of God.”

who wanted salvation in a different way decided that he could be valued down with a discounted price and cheap human trafficking. In doing so, they sold away their chance at rest. We must never put a cost on gifts of mercy. Enjoying our lands is enjoying sabbath rest, an abundance not worked for. We play Judas every time we kiss our gifts goodbye by selling them off for a profit. Why do we find it so hard to accept free gifts from God? Jesus was hungry in the desert, away from home, and he prayed to God for help. Satan came and could offer only an inedible stone, though it would cost him everything. Jesus would have to move his reliance on the Father to seeking what he needed from Satan, though the serpent had no power to satisfy. The Son of Man would still have to work to change this stone into bread. Yet God makes bread out of nothing and offers it for free. Creator rains down manna and the Son of Man from heaven, both to gather with in the cool of the day. Sinners and saints have birthrights, earth rights, to the richest of fare. Many ignore this gift and attempt to gain the whole world for the price of our souls. We fight to earn what is already freely given and instead lose our own lives.

of Indian Affairs disclosed the calculated attempt by the US government and religious institutions to systematically remove Natives from our lands and cut us off from our original food systems. Those of us who couldn’t be eradicated would be assimilated into western ways of “owning” and “developing” lands and dramatically shifting towards commercial agriculture. Speaking of one objective in this federal policy, the report says “…changing the Indian’s economy so that he would be content with less land.”4 When we take away the fullness of the feast, starving people get comfortable, even grateful, relying on morsels and scraps. We beg like dogs for crumbs while sitting beside the table of the Lord. We grow “content with less.” We find ourselves sitting at the tables of unjust money changers who attempt to deny us a seat at God’s feast. Jesus showed us what tables to flip. Grace was never meant to be bought. Every gift of the earth was freely given and must freely be received. The earliest settlers of Jamestown had a law enforced requiring them to grow enough food for self-subsistence and to not solely grow the cash

In the recently publicized Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, the Bureau

3. Matthew 11:38 4. Indian Education: A National Tragedy—A National Challenge (“Kennedy Report”), Senate Sub-Committee Indian Education, 1969, 143, quoted in Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report (May 2022), 21.

justice. I was not the only one. Many people across “When we take away the fullness of the Native America were in feast, starving people get comfortable, even deep grief and fear at the destruction playing out grateful, relying on morsels and scraps.” before our eyes. The envicrop of tobacco. They had spent the entirety of the ronmental and cultural growing seasons clearcutting land and procuring devastation was heavy. At this same time, the US tobacco in hopes of profit that they never considwas trying to take the resource-rich land of the ered the fact that you can’t eat tobacco. In failing sacred Black Hills. Knowing the harm it would to grow food, many starved to death. So intent on cause, the Sioux refused the purchase and presworking for profit, they forgot what was needed sures mounted. I was pastoring at the time and to live. It seems shockingly idiotic as we judge in a fellow minister struggled to understand what historical hindsight but this deadly habit has been everyone was so upset about. In utter disbelief, he continually passed down through the founder’s said, “They offered to pay them for it! Why won’t descendants. To this day we experience food short- they just take the money?” It’s true. Roughly forty ages as we set our sights on profits. As western years ago, over $100 million was offered to the tribe expansion continued, colonizers took more and in exchange for land access. Interests accrued now more land from our Indigenous, the leaders burned bring this account to over one billion dollars. This our gardens, killed off the buffalo, and placed us in pastor believed that if the tribe knew what was food deserts so that we would starve off. Did they best for them, they would take the money. What forget they would need to eat too? he had forgotten is that you can’t drink dollars, you can’t eat money, and you can’t sell the sacred! The Protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline escalated tribe denied the offer. in 2016 as the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe fought for the safety of our waters and for the future of The pastor and the US government believed in all water drinkers. Many tribes and “free market changing our economy so we would “be content ecology” people from around the globe came to with less.” God’s free economy of plenty cannot be peacefully protest as militarized police pushed back traded for coins. Each time we refuse to play this against the resistance. From my home in Michigan, game of monopoly we ask, “Who’s face is on this it was hard to watch. I prayed daily, supported coin?” and demand, “Give to the empire what is the activists, and begged God for environmental empire’s and to God what is God’s.” The earth is the

5. Isaiah 55:1-3

Lord’s and everything in it. In every ecosystem around the globe, creation says, “Your money is no good here.” We are all invited to delight ourselves in the richest of fare, to sit at the table, to buy without money! Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. You will hunger no more or thirst anymore.5 A final warning of the Anishinaabe 7 prophesies is that there would come a time, said to be the present age, when a choice would be given to those who came by way of colonization and conquest. As the waters become too

polluted to drink, and the wild rice and fish disappear, a final fork in the road is offered. The choice will be between two paths. Return to right relations with the land and people, and a new generation will emerge that is marked by brotherhood and sisterhood between all. This is the path of life. If they choose the second path, to remain on the course in which they arrived, then the destruction they came with will return back to them and they will self-destroy. This is the path of death. This choice is not unlike the most ancient choice depicted in the Eden narrative. Eat from the tree of life and live forever or eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and experience death. Go our own way or trust in Creator and what they provide. When we stop striving to bring about salvation within our own means, we will see that God is capable of satisfying our every need. Whether we thrive in the abundance

“Return to right relations with the land and people, and a new generation will emerge that is marked by brotherhood and sisterhood between all.”

of earthly Edens, starve under greedy empires, or grumble and wander through self-desertified places of scarcity, the Lord’s grace-filled provision is our constant. Creator has provided means to life and longevity all around us. In the middle of deserts, at the tops of the tallest trees, floating above and within the waters, and in every place in between, free gifts of grace remind us that God is life for us all. Grace freely given, now freely receive. Come and rest! Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Jessica Hetherington O God, The world is burning and I am awake. God, we are living in a crisis of our own making, a disaster of our own doing. The ecological crisis, of which the climate crisis is just one part, one loud, angry, screaming part, is our fault, God. It is my fault. That is hard to say, hard to pray. Confession feels easy when the restitution is simple. Confession, when the ways to make it right are complicated, and big, and so hard to do, feels a lot harder. But God, I confess. I confess my complicity in the system that has led to a world on fire. I confess my role in the system that has led to species extinction, loss of habitats, environmental refugees, and massive suffering for humans and nature alike. God, I repent. I turn away from the systems of greed and complicity that make the world burn. I turn away from my own habits, the very ordinary habits of high consumption, easy convenience, wilful ignorance. I repent, and I turn toward you, back to you and your lifegiving love.

Ecolo 1. Psalm 86:5, NRSV

God, I ask for your forgiveness. Forgive my complicity in the systems of greed and ecological destruction that have led to so much harm. Forgive my actions of self-interest and convenience, of throwing things away or buying too much, of avoiding the hard conversations and civic engagement needed on behalf of the Earth. Forgive me, and strengthen my resolve as I leave this time of prayer and turn to the work of Earth healing. Help me to feel your presence, your encouragement, your challenge and your strength as I seek to change my ways and work for change in the world. AMEN Words of Assurance and Pardon I know that when I come before you God in humble confession and repentance, that you forgive. I recall the words of David: For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.1 Thanks be to God. AMEN

A Prayer of ogical Confession 47

Beneath the Surface: The Abundant Table The Abundant Table was first established as an Episcopal and Lutheran campus ministry community serving California State University Channel Islands and has since evolved into a local farm and radical Christian ecumenical “Farm Church” worshipping community working at the intersections of community-based agriculture, radical spirituality, and justice. This interview was conducted in Spanish at their farm with translation help from Shanti Sandosham.

An interview with Reyna Ortega How would you describe the ministry of The Abundant Table? I think our ministry is like a path planting seeds. If we make an analogy in how we think about [this] ministry as focused on taking care of the land, it’s also being more connected to the land and educating people about how their food comes to be. I think we’re planting seeds in the people who know us and in time it germinates with spiritual life and life in relationship to God.

How did you first get involved? Well, I had worked in conventional farming since I was 14, so for about ten years. I ran into [the poeple at Abundant Table] because I needed a job but when I got there, it was weird! It was unusual to run into a farm with so few people. But the weirdest thing was that they were talking to me about God, about the importance of connecting with the earth. That seemed really crazy to me, because, well, that doesn’t happen in Ventura County.

When you’re working in conventional agriculture, it’s all about production, money, time. To me [Abundant Table] seemed like a very hippie concept. But at the same time this made it very attractive—to know that they are thinking this way because the ideas and concepts I had of God were very separate [from the land]—in a sanctuary or in a church on Sundays, but not in the day-to-day. I like to tell this part of my story because I think that’s how I met God. I had a difficult childhood, leaving Mexico when I was 14 years old and then coming to this country far away from my land and my family. And I felt very lonely for a long time. Lost. I couldn’t find myself. Having this job with The Abundant Table gave me the opportunity to see how with God things are perfect—there are no bad things or good things, but perfect. For me, [working here] was as if I was just beginning. I didn’t know anything because I had been just packing celery or packing strawberries or packing broccoli. I didn’t know anything about the soil or the process and

time it takes to grow the plant, transplanting and everything. So it was like learning everything. I felt like I was a plant and God was taking away the bad weeds. I began to understand my heartache and as I gave God my heart, he began to change me.

How do you include the community in your work? I think that’s part of what we’ve had in the past, with fields that are open to the public. It’s part of being open and welcoming to everybody with education and our CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture shares), and with different locations. Each location has given us different opportunities, some less and some more. Before COVID, for the last few years we had “u-pick” strawberries. And, we have farm church, which is free from any institution and is held in different places—houses or the beach or the fields.

each other. ... All are welcome and can honor and adore the God they believe in their heart without arguing about who he is. These are times of reconciliation. The other thing that I love is that while Abundant Table honors men, it also honors the spirituality of the women a lot. It opens up spaces for women to be leaders in what the patriarchy has tried to erase women from.

What else do you think is critical to understanding about The Abundant Table? I would like to say that we are a different farm because we want everyone to have the opportunity to build their relationship with the land. I believe that the land is the best teacher we can have for our spiritual, emotional, and practical life. To the extent that we understand that the land is to be cared for and valued, we will be better people.

Tell me more about Farm Church. What are your services like? There’s a lot [of people who] are culturally religious but have no spirituality... I think that part of Abundant Table is having a spiritual platform that doesn’t need to impose a version of God or a specific name of God, because these concepts make people move away from God. So when we are gathered to worship and to recognize and honor God, we can do it independently—with heart and with

Reyna Ortega at The Abundant Table farm in Fillmore, California.

When I think about environment, I consider the indoor and outdoor spaces that surround and have an impact on me. Home and summer cottages have provided a foundation of family love, support, and Christian faith. While I am inside, however, I am often looking outdoors which is where I feel most connected to God. On the sleeping porch of the cabin, one cannot help but hear and feel the power of the Chesapeake Bay waves. The brilliant morning light streams in through the screen windows with the promise of a new day.

“The Pines,” 18” x 24”, Acrylic on Canvas, 2022

Betsy McCray

“Beach Cabin” 18” x 24”, Acrylic on Canvas, 2021

The Sacred Why

Joann White Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a crimp in our Earth Day festivities, even as it has given us a glimpse of a natural world benefitting from human absence. Whales have frolicked in the Mediterranean, the Himalayas have had unparalleled visibility, and global greenhouse gas emissions have fallen. As we emerge from the pandemic, I’d like to invite readers to ponder the spirituality of earth care by sharing three stories. The first story is about my childhood. I grew up in a small town. In those days before Amber Alerts and helicopter parenting, I spent a lot of unsupervised time outdoors. There was a creek out back. From a big rock, I could watch tadpoles transform into frogs and bugs skim across the surface of the water. When I got older, I moved on to the woods. There, I became well-acquainted with the smell of decaying leaves, the soft feel of moss on the trunks of trees, and the windblown dance of sun and light on the forest floor. I grew up feeling I was very much a part of the wild world around me. It was precious and lifegiving and deserving of my love and care.

Caroline Burton, Breaking Forth, 15.7” x 35” New Zealand Merino Wool, Silk Fibres, 2022

God’s very self hurtling across the multiverse in an epic wave of creation that continued to unfold even as I studied theology twenty-some years ago, a wave that continues to unfold even as you read.

The second story comes from my first year in graduate school at McCormick Seminary in Chicago. One of my core courses, Introduction to Theology, required a weekly paper, tackling the thornier questions of faith by integrating and reflecting upon a lot My mind was blown and so was my understandof reading. I suspect the weekly papers were a bit ing of the earth. Suddenly, that wild world I loved like bootcamp for those of us who would one day wasn’t just deserving of my love and care because write weekly sermons to sustain the faith of local it was precious and lifegiving. Suddenly, earth care churches. Each week was an odyssey of existential had become a sacred trust, a service to the Creator questions, but at the close God, who had chosen to of each paper, we could share and reveal Godself “If God created the world ex pose our own three quesin the creation. Suddenly, tions for the professors to nihilo—from nothing—then our abuse of the planet engage with. was a crime against God, what was the raw material a desolating sacrilege that God worked with?” My first paper responded against all that is holy. to the unanswerable question: Who is God? I read. I reflected. I wrote my My third story is about my church in Saranac Lake, little heart out. Then, I got to ask my three quesNew York, located in the heart of the Adirondack tions. The first question I posed would change how Park. I had been at the First Presbyterian Church I saw the earth forever, If God created the world ex about five years when we began a time of selfnihilo—from nothing—then what was the raw matestudy called Natural Church Development. We rial that God worked with? completed a congregation-wide survey to learn more about how we experience God and consider One of my favorite professors, the very wise Hearn what programs and initiatives might make us more Chun, answered my question with ease, “God crepassionate about our spirituality. We learned that ated the world from Godself, of course.” As I read 99% of us experience God in creation, whether we Professor Chun’s spidery handwriting in the margin are walking or paddling, climbing a mountain or of my paper, my mind began to spin. I imagined watching a beautiful sunset. 99%! That was even God launching creation with a big bang, sending higher than the 96% of us who experienced God in

worship—which, I’m sure, had nothing to do with my preaching.

God, God’s good creation, one another—and maybe even our neighbors.

About the same time, our denomination was launching a new initiative called Earth Care Congregations. To become an Earth Care Congregation, churches pledge to honor both Creator and creation through worship, education, facilities, and outreach. We formed an Earth Care Team. We devised and implemented a series of programs and efforts that blessed us, even as they served God and honored creation. We had an energy audit and began an extensive series of building repairs and renovations that cut our carbon footprint. We added hikes, paddles, sermons on the trail, and picnics to our summer program. We reached out to neighbors with community gardening, growing organic vegetables to bless our friends at the Food Pantry. We launched the Earth Care Coffee House with its annual tribute to Pete Seeger to raise funds for his schooner and floating Hudson River classroom “Clearwater.” We took on Adopt-a-Highway roadside clean-up. We blessed our animals. Over the past decade, we have grown greener, even as we have grown closer to

If there were a fourth story to my reflection upon the spirituality of earth care, perhaps it would be yours. Whether you are a Presbyterian or a Universalist, an agnostic or an atheist, I believe that we all need a “sacred why” to do the work of earth care. We know the science. We know the dire predictions. We know the facts that wake us up in the middle of the night. But what is it that will sustain us when the going gets tough and the EPA is gutted and the Paris Accords are dismissed as “bad for business”? We each need a “sacred why.” Perhaps yours will be the simple conviction that the wild world is precious, life giving, and deserving of your love and care. Perhaps it will be the mind-blowing affirmation that earth care is a sacred trust, a reverencing of the Creator who has shared Godself in the creation. Perhaps it will be the goodness of working with others in the holy purpose of honoring creation while serving neighbors. May we each find our “sacred why” and go forth to care well for God’s good creation.

Caroline Burton, In the Land, 31.5” x 39.5” New Zealand Merino Wool, Silk Fibres, Rayon Thread, 2020

Prayer of Call and Transformation Jessica Hetherington Dear God, I come before you now with trepidation, cautious yet hopeful. I want to ask you a question, but am I ready for the answer? Deep breath. God, what are you calling me to do? In this time of ecological crisis of climate change and species extinction, air pollution and loss of drinking water, and so much more… I know I must act. But what? What is my task?

Deep breath. God, I pray that you soften me; open my heart to hear your answer. I pray that you strengthen me; give me the will to respond. I pray that you transform me; equip me so that no other option than answering your call is possible. In the name of your son Jesus, who showed us the way of discipleship, I pray. AMEN

God, what are you calling me to do? What are you asking of me today, in this moment, in this time and place? What is my task?

Be Not Do

Jessica Miskelly I gird my world with task-lists. When every moment is accounted for, I know I’m being productive, and I’m protected from crippling uncertainty around what comes next, or why it should. I scurry; we scurry, like a lot of ants, ticking tasks off. We launch at aspirations, thinking their little peaks will satisfy. We grow and harvest to feed bodies; patch shelters to hold back decay; medicate, wash, and moisturize. Everything in optimal working order, balanced on the peak of “just right”. But Lord, we can’t keep up. There’s dust on the floor and mould in the sink. Our goals recede. One failed harvest, one voracious bifurcating cell, and we slide down and under. Lord, hold us afloat. Remind us we rely on you for all things. When our bodies fail, hold our souls up, away from despair. For the world is broken. The child cries, torn from its mother. The sick and despondent wither, the abused are crushed and alone. We cannot fix it. But you can, and did. Fill us with love to share, your overflowing love that partakes in the divine nature and reflects the unbroken within the brokenness. Don’t let us be hopeless. For you are not hopeless. You defeated death, and one day will wipe away every tear. Though we cannot understand how, help us believe.

Let us focus on you. Not on our fixing. Or our tasks. From our dead-end busyness, save us. Lord, we don’t know where we’re going. We wanted to be like the ant of Proverbs 6, preparing for winter. But what is winter? Will our journeys ram us into death, illness, or disaster? And when? We cannot know. Lord, chart our course because we can’t see where the treacherous shoals lie. You alone control all contingencies. Help us be patient, as well as prepared. Reveal our fixations. What one fixates on reveals a lot about their ultimate goals. Do our thoughts on stopping tasks immediately turn to what comfort to grasp next, what achievement to reach? Usually. Me, me, me. Do, do, do. Help us realize our error and fixate instead on the ultimate doer—you. You, who sustains us through our doings. Then, though we appear to be still, are gleaning rest and conviction for the coming storms. Let us peel back the girding to make space for just being, in You.

ebb tide

Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made. Romans 1:20a

The Unmooring is an online journal that explores critical issues of faith through women’s voices. We look to both ancient writing and wisdom as well as contemporary commentary as a means to create dialogue. We are navigating everchanging waters in a moment of unmooring from parts of structures that have framed the Church for decades and even centuries. We created the Unmooring Journal because we identified a gap online and in publications, a platform created specifically for women’s voices in matters of theology and Christian faith. We look to provide an ecumenical space for women-identifying individuals around the world to come together and be heard, an affirming and positive place for discussion around theological matters irrespective of Christian tradition. Read more about what we’re doing on our website. Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media for updates.