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Why Should We Care for Creation?
105 Plays5 days ago
Stephanie Ann Vander Lugt is joined by Amy Kuhl to discuss ecological discipleship and creation care. They share how they are caring for the environment with their communities, how creation care integrates with Christian Community Development, and practical ways for people to engage in caring for their environments.
Learn more about the Ecological Discipleship Network at ccda.org/ecological and don’t miss the CCDA Conference in Richmond, Virginia, to connect with other like-minded people.
Stephanie Ann is deeply committed to the intersection of justice, faith, healing, ecology, and personal and communal transformation. With a background in community development and violence prevention—including a decade of working with incarcerated women—she brings compassion and expertise to her work as a licensed clinician specializing in trauma recovery and holistic well-being. Stephanie is the cofounder and executive director of Kinship Plot, a community organization that envisions vibrant communities where people experience resonant relationships through stable housing, shared land stewardship, and creative, hospitable life together. She is also an ordained minister in the Presbytery of the Central Carolinas.
Amy moved to Seattle in October 2022 to manage World Relief’s Resiliency Programs, following her passion to support refugees and displaced people as they rebuild their lives and communities after crisis. She graduated from the University of Michigan with an M.A. in Liberal Studies focusing on gender and globalization, environmental studies, documentary film, and creative advocacy. Prior to her current role, Amy worked overseas in humanitarian aid for nearly a decade supporting displaced people across the world as they moved forward after war and disaster. Over her career she has lived, worked, and studied in 12 countries across five continents. A native of Michigan, Amy loves playing piano and soccer and enjoys being outside any chance she gets—especially if it involves windsurfing, skiing, paddleboarding, rock-climbing or gardening!
Learn more about CCDA and how you can get involved at ccda.org. Connect with CCDA on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Follow CCDA on YouTube.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the CCDA podcast. My name is Stephanie Ann Vanderlucht, and I am one of the leaders of the Ecological Discipleship Network with CCDA, and I'm your host for this episode.
00:00:24
Speaker
And I am joined today bye my friend and collaborator and co-leader of the network, Amy Kuhl. So Amy,
00:00:36
Speaker
Maybe you can start us off by just introducing yourself, telling us a little bit about you and your connection to CCDA and how you got connected to the Ecological Discipleship Network.
00:00:50
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Like Stephanie said, I'm Amy Kuhl. grew up in Michigan, lived overseas, and a few years ago found myself back in the U.S. in the PNW. I work for World Relief Western Washington, serving refugees and immigrants as the resiliency programs manager. And that really is just a fun department. It's a prototype department where we're in short-term working with refugees and immigrants to strengthen the capacity of our community to manage, walk through, recover from stress and challenge and grow and even thrive together. So my day-to-day work, I get to oversee two-acre community garden and restoration area, environmental education programming, some internships. We also have a commercial kitchen.
Discovering Community in Ecological Faith
00:01:41
Speaker
It's a lot of fun spaces where we can come together as community.
00:01:46
Speaker
My first CCDA conference was in 2024 in Portland. And I'll be honest, I was really terrified to go. i was like, I don't know anyone. This feels like intimidating space. I'm new to work in the U.S. And what I found was a group of people who just deeply cared about what does it look like to carry your faith into places where Christ is needed, where restoration is needed.
00:02:15
Speaker
Of course, since i I love gardening and everything ecological, and I found my way to some of the sessions that Stephanie was leading and others as part of the Newly Forming Ecological Discipleship Network.
00:02:31
Speaker
And I've heard this said many times about CCDA, but it's like finding your people. So recently i was asked if I wanted to join the leadership of the Ecological Discipleship Network, and I agreed. And it's just been a fun journey of diving a little deeper into what does it look like to integrate care for the environment with our faith with caring for people.
00:02:55
Speaker
Thank you. And I'll just answer the same question and tell you a little bit about myself and my connection. Again, I'm Stephanie, and I'm located in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Kinship Plot and Affordable Housing
00:03:07
Speaker
So we are on opposite sides of whenever we're getting together to try to find a meeting. We're always trying to remember what is the time difference. Yeah. But i lead a an organization called Kinship Plot with others. And we are we're really a grassroots organization that exists to create beautiful places, stories, and schemes of rooted belonging. is That's how we talk about our mission. Yeah.
00:03:38
Speaker
But to kind of put flesh on that, we're in partnership with a church in Charlotte that sits on 10 acres, and they're leasing five acres to Kinship Plot, where we are building affordable housing community. Like most growing cities in the U.S., we have an affordable housing crisis.
00:03:57
Speaker
And so we are engaged in that. And we are also... seeking to integrate the housing and the community life with gardens, with an orchard, with a permaculture food forest, which we're also establishing on the land, really with a a vision for what does it look like to fully integrate like the fullness of life, shalom, and full wellbeing, not just for people, but also for the created world.
00:04:29
Speaker
And so we're trying to practice that, actually, which is a really interesting integration to, you know, it's one thing to kind of theorize and think about it.
00:04:40
Speaker
It's another thing to really to really practice it, especially in an environment, i
Integrating Faith with Environmental Care
00:04:46
Speaker
think, where those sometimes have been siloed from each other in terms of what does it look like to really care about people? the well-being of people and communities and the the human the human well-being, and then the well-being of creation, nature, earth.
00:05:06
Speaker
And it's it's been difficult sometimes to find where those things come together, which I think brings us to the Ecological Discipleship Network and Portland, so that was 2024, right? That conference. that was our first That was our first convening as a network. And we were literally just like, is anybody else asking these questions? and And what we found, and you know maybe you can speak to this for a minute, Amy, in terms of where you're coming from, is if you look, you will find a lot of people engaged in creation care, environmental justice, earth keeping, right?
00:05:44
Speaker
But where's the where's the landing spot? And at CCDA, we'd often found that that was a gap or kind of like, where are they? So we were thinking, let's try to, i guess let's try to create it. But there are many. And I think also the piece that has been kind of interesting is,
00:06:01
Speaker
where Where's the place where we're really integrating CCD and earth care and it not
Exploring Ecological Discipleship
00:06:10
Speaker
being siloed? I think, you know, sometimes we can find ourselves siloed in very important issues, but actual full integration of of, you know, care for the natural world of, of relationship with the natural world along with our, with our, our community development work. So yeah, I'd be curious, Amy, the words ecological discipleship are kind of wordy, but you know, what does that mean to you in terms of, and maybe even as we've talked about it, but yeah, what what do you think of when you think of those words and of that, like what we're trying to do together?
00:06:46
Speaker
That's a great question. I resonate with what you said, Stephanie, about integrating the fullness of life. And so and in simplest form, I think ecological discipleship really is this caring for all of creation, this recognition that we are a piece of this large ecosystem, like a special piece. But still, what does it look like to engage with nature, with the world around us?
00:07:15
Speaker
to learn and grow in a specific place. Like when God created us, God created people, he put us in a very specific place that was equipped for our thriving.
00:07:29
Speaker
And I think that's something that we can lose in our very mobile way of life. Something that's interesting in my work, working for refugees and immigrants, World Relief ascribes to the CCD principles. We listened to the community and a few years back, we gathered refugees and immigrants in our community and posed this question, which you've referenced too, Stephanie, of like, what does it look like to thrive?
00:07:55
Speaker
What will help you thrive in this space? Yeah. And there were varying answers, but one that came up very strong was a desire to connect to the land for their own healing.
00:08:11
Speaker
So people from all over the world had found their so themselves relocated in Western Washington saying, a piece of our thriving is being connected to the environment around us, being connected to the soil. And I think that's something that's really beautiful.
00:08:28
Speaker
And I've been learning more, like, what does that look like as a piece of human thriving? And I'd be curious to hear from you, Stephanie, like, what are some ways, maybe the same question of what is ecological discipleship to you?
Healing and Community Development through Ecology
00:08:42
Speaker
And then what are some ways that you see that engaging in this space is leading to thriving for you or your community? It really strikes me when we're talking about this, that this is nothing new. And I think that's like, this is as ancient as our origin stories.
00:09:00
Speaker
This is, i mean, and even like our scriptures,
00:09:06
Speaker
it's, it's really, it's really amazing that i think like even modern, i will say just kind of modern Western evangelical Christians, um,
00:09:17
Speaker
how we've been conditioned to read scriptures, our scriptures, and not see the ecological, not see the agrarian. It is everywhere. it is everywhere. and in And instead to kind of see it as a metaphor rather than rather than like take it at face value that God has God.
00:09:38
Speaker
from has always been in relationship with more than humans. I mean, God created animals, trees, waters, rocks before humans. And like you said, placed humans in in those places to be in right relationship, just as God is in relationship, just as they're in relationship. So like flourishing well-being has always been connected to land, to trees, to place. And
00:10:10
Speaker
plays a huge theme in our story of redemption and the wounds of of being displaced, the wounds of whether that you know that comes from the wounds of a colonial kind of dominator, viewing land as something to be owned, as something to be seized, as something to be, this is mine, as property to be to be owned and to be claimed. like These are deep wounds, right? And they have been they've been woven into And they still I think we still see the signs of it, of doctrine of discovery and and those things all throughout our our modern ways of of thinking about all kinds of things of and practicing church and practicing our Christianity.
00:10:55
Speaker
So I think there's just like a regular a ah regular and ongoing repentance that is going to look different based on you know positionality and kind of where how we've been conditioned to be in relationship with land.
Challenges and Joys of Ecological Work
00:11:10
Speaker
um But I think that's why the word discipleship, like, I mean, that, you know, any any word can be a little bit problematized at any point, but if discipleship is just, is following Jesus, is, you know, living life with God, ah think ecological discipleship is saying there is— So relationship with land, relationship with with trees, rocks, plants, animals is fully integrated into that following of Jesus. And our scriptures resource us really well for that. Jesus' own life does.
00:11:48
Speaker
I get really excited about this definitely as a CCD practitioner with Kinship Plot, but also I'm a a clinical social worker and i I practice ecotherapy. So I literally bring that in to to my clinical practice with people who are who are recovering from trauma and healing from a whole variety of mental, emotional, spiritual wounds. And doesn't really surprise me anymore, but it delights me that the natural world, whether we're out in the forest or we're on the land or we're with the trees, it it facilitates, literally makes easier healing.
00:12:28
Speaker
and It makes easier connection with other people and a healed relationship. It makes easier, i will say, it makes easier community development principles. It makes easier crossing crossing regular barriers. It makes gathering easier. it makes all kinds of things easier.
00:12:49
Speaker
It really delights me to to see it happen regularly. At Kinship Plot, we are building what we call food forest. That's a permaculture term, but essentially it's working with the ecosystem of this small urban piece of land.
00:13:05
Speaker
We watch what already happens. There's a lot of CCD principles at play with permaculture where before you act, before you do anything, you observe. You observe what's happening. You observe who's already there.
00:13:17
Speaker
Which birds live here? Which native plants are coming up here? Which invasives are here choking out the life? What is the light doing? What is the water doing? And so before we ever intervene, we look, we listen, we are curious. We're kind of curious, like, what does this land want to be? It's very different from a kind of relationship with land that's that's like, oh, look, we have this land.
00:13:45
Speaker
What can we do here, right? What can we make here? And that making might really be in service to the community and maybe in service to helping alleviate suffering.
00:13:59
Speaker
But I mean, especially in in Charlotte and like a rapidly growing city, the words community development actually mostly mean acquiring land, clear cutting it and building things on it.
00:14:13
Speaker
that's what people mean by community development. So it's kind of an interesting to bring like an ecological view or open, you know, a relationship with more than just what's going to develop the community for, you know, humans. So here's what we know, trees and the the life of the more than human world is really important to humans and human flourishing.
00:14:38
Speaker
So Anyway, it's a, yeah, there's there's so many there's so many examples I could give. But yeah, curious what's coming up for you, Amy. So many things.
00:14:49
Speaker
I was taking some notes as you were talking. I think it's it's so to kind of step back about... ecology in scripture, it's from the very start. As you said, i think something that's been really helpful for me to keep in mind is that when God created everything, it was very good. And that has not changed. Like God's creation is good.
00:15:15
Speaker
And as you're saying, just in these snippets of examples, it's not just some neutral, oh, this is nice that we have trees and like a good setting, but it's actually for our good, for our healing and built into the very fabric of creation as the capacity for restoration and healing and thriving.
00:15:38
Speaker
And I find that very hopeful because Even when it feels like the goodness of life is being destroyed, it has the cast capacity for restoration. And I've seen that. And I think, especially in seasons that do feel harder, that do feel like more of a battle, I can go back to a garden and watch things growing out of the most unlikely places and the life that can grow even from things that have been destroyed.
00:16:11
Speaker
So something that I've just been pondering, the garden where I work here in Western Washington is two acres. It was a church parking lot until recently when we actually depaved.
00:16:26
Speaker
So back in the 70s, this church was growing. They had lots of programs. It's exactly what you said of community development being like, let's buy land, let's develop it. Let's create all these programs and bring the people in.
00:16:38
Speaker
Very good intentions. And they clear cut the side of a hill, two acres. And it actually caused a lot of problems in the neighborhood with a lot of flooding.
00:16:49
Speaker
and There's a middle school at the bottom of the hill that would frequently
Transforming Spaces for Community Use
00:16:53
Speaker
flood. They'd have to close school. It's an area of the community that's just a little bit more vulnerable.
00:17:02
Speaker
And we know that that's common, that climate change does not impact people equally. yeah And these issues of flooding and all that often do hit people of low income minorities harder.
00:17:18
Speaker
So a few years back when you were looking for a place to build a garden, this church said, here's two acres that is covered over in asphalt, but it could become a garden. And we actually depaved a lot of area, which is really hard work. Yeah. We've been doing more depaving this spring and it just hit me like, this is exhausting. Right. Because it's just like this hard, faithful work of saying, we know there's goodness here. It's been covered over, but we are wanting to reclaim the space. Right.
00:17:50
Speaker
And the satisfaction that comes from that and the life that grows out of that is so rewarding, but it's not like some easy, easy thing to do. And just again, seeing the beauty of as we learn and grow, realizing like we can use this space for human thriving. Like, we are not exploiters of nature, but we are part of nature. And how do we restore something that we are connected to that has been exploited?
00:18:20
Speaker
i think, too, this idea that we really are trying our best to move forward well, and we are not God. We can't see everything perfectly. yeah And in some ways I do find nature to be forgiving. I find that to be really hopeful of saying in this space,
00:18:45
Speaker
I am creating in the image of God, but also i am not God. And creation around us holds space for that that realization, the awe of I am but a small part of something big and beautiful. And that is really important and recognizing like The true God of the universe is the God who created us and created everything around us and has asked us to care for it.
00:19:13
Speaker
um And that's like an honor then to be able to step into that space and say, how do we care for all of creation towards the ends that God has called us to?
00:19:24
Speaker
The one thing that's really hitting me again is how really the wound of creation of the human some somehow imagined at the top of some sort of hierarchy.
00:19:37
Speaker
And rather than part of nature, like really reimagining ourselves, not as the master. You know, and this is this is tough because the word that is often used in the Genesis account is dominion, which is a very...
00:19:55
Speaker
dominating word. And so I think how are how our translations have have have wounded us in our understanding of the place and really the gift of being of being creatures. and And let's talk about the hard work, Amy. like Let's talk about it because it is not easy work.
00:20:16
Speaker
It is not easy work to be with the land. Like what you've just described is de-paving. Wow, it's hard. We also tend wounded land. In our case, the area that we're turning into gardens and and an orchard and food forest was an old lake, a spring-fed lake.
00:20:36
Speaker
It's actually a really important part of the watershed. and But when the big highway that is right by us was expanded, w t Harris Boulevard, they backfilled it. with construction debris.
00:20:47
Speaker
m So it's wounded land. We regularly, as we're digging, hit asphalt, hit concrete, and we're needing to amend. We're needing to bring in, even though there's plenty of dirt, we actually need to create soil. We need to bring in soil. We need to kind of bring it back to life because it has, it's like a big, like a big wound.
00:21:08
Speaker
But what you said about about how forgiving, like it's it is such a beautiful place that has been dumped on but it's, you know, the the grasses came back. There's a ah number of of varieties that actually thrive in agitated, disturbed areas that are doing well. And I want to say more about the work because it's hard, but also in these times, like, let's talk about how hard these times are right now, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, in so many ways. Something we've really noticed because we have dozens and dozens of people that come out to do hard labor with us.
00:21:51
Speaker
And after a day of sweating, of digging, of planting, of getting dirty, of feeling the endorphins, of being outside, the fresh air, creating something together, everybody reports that they mentally feel better, emotionally, spiritually. Nothing's changed, right? We still have a massive amount of distressing things happening, but the return to being creaturely having bodies that are meant to work and labor with and, you know, under the sun, with the soil, with the plants, it is exceedingly life-giving.
Relational Work with Nature
00:22:28
Speaker
And we are actually, you know, we're planting actual food. We're planting gardens, ways to feed ourselves. And we still might not know how to do that if, you know, everything collapses, but we are at least trying, right? And saying like, here we are together, here we are together. And this is the best we can do. And really blessing,
00:22:49
Speaker
blessing our creatureliness and what those that are non-human, that are our so our siblings, you know, as our indigenous brothers and sisters help to remind us, these are your siblings, not something to dominate, to to control, to listen to, to be curious, to learn from. So, yeah, so much so much rising up as I was hearing you share.
00:23:15
Speaker
the idea you bring up of relationships being the basis of of our work. We know like relational work is so important, our relationship to God, to each other. And I think we do often end there as opposed to viewing what about our relationship to the world around us, to our non-human siblings, we'll say.
00:23:38
Speaker
And So much in our world has taken relationships and twisted them or fractured them or turned what was meant for good into something that can actually cause a lot of great harm. I think we see that in so many examples, even leaders in the world who take their power and manipulate relationships. And and that is leading to the exact opposite of human thriving.
00:24:04
Speaker
And if we're to view nature as a gift, both tangible and intangible, something to be treasured and cared for, it definitely shifts something in our mind of how are we stewarding that relationship.
00:24:21
Speaker
And there's so much, if you just start reading, right, that shows and points to Nature as an image, a picture of who God is.
00:24:33
Speaker
So it only serves to strengthen our relationship with our creator. And I think that is such a gift that God has given us, that all of creation points not just to itself, right, but to the creator who is good and has given us everything we need for thriving.
00:24:54
Speaker
And that, to me, does completely shift then how I come at the hard work of tending and caring for the land. And even when it's hard knowing that it is good, but we do live in a fallen world. Like that is not something that we can just like kind of forget. It's something that's very present of the longing for the new heavens and the new world, but also praying your kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.
Meeting Human Needs through Ecology
00:25:23
Speaker
And what does it look like to create small pieces of like God's kingdom here on earth as pictures of what God has intended
00:25:32
Speaker
And we need those pictures. We need that hope. You mentioned growing food. i think every time we sit down with gardeners and like eat the fruit of their labor, and the fruit that has been a gift of the land, we're reminded of our human need and the ways that God is providing. And it's really genuinely really beautiful. And I think in times like this, so again, I work with refugees and immigrants,
00:25:56
Speaker
And right now, just so many of those basic human services are being stripped back. Food support, resources, i'm even just the fear that has crept in And there's a lot of crying out and saying, look, we have needs.
00:26:14
Speaker
and We don't know where to turn. And being able in a small way to say, we can still help. There's still space to help provide for the our basic human needs.
00:26:26
Speaker
And God has given us as these really basic ways to come back and be reminded that like He will care for us. is he If He's created the birds and He cares for them, like how much more does He care for His precious children?
00:26:43
Speaker
So I think that's just been, again, a theme and a theme of like God's provision in a broken world and how do we create space for God's kingdom to shine through.
00:26:55
Speaker
On that, I'll share a little story about a project right now that we are working on with Kinship Plot.
Lessons from Nature and Community
00:27:02
Speaker
And You might be familiar with it because we've, I think CCDA has been kind of sharing the posts that we've been doing this Lent on reflecting on the relationship between the monarch butterfly and the milkweed host plant.
00:27:15
Speaker
And so this is just like such an amazing, I mean, talk about talk about nature as as teaching us all the time in so many ways and teaching us about relationship and teaching us about about relationship with God. Of course, Jesus said, look at the birds, look at the flowers. They have something to tell you. What's really exciting Kinship Plot is located in East Charlotte, which has one of the largest immigrant community in Charlotte. So this is our home. These are our neighbors. And we're going to have whole festival and we're going to plant milkweed, which is the
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
and what these like what these species have to tell us And have to show us what humans can learn from them. I mean, we're not monarch butterflies and we're not milkweed, but there's just, you know, there's so much that the natural world has to teach us about relationships and relationality, like you said, not just with each, you know, with each other as humans, with nature and with creator.
00:28:30
Speaker
But I'll say this, relationships aren't easy. Relationships with human neighbors are not is not easy. We bless the the work. We bless the covenanting. We bless the you know the the commitment that it takes to stay in community you know with with humans. It's not easy.
00:28:50
Speaker
And I think that there's something to say for what that looks like, you know, translated into the hard work of, I mean, you know, any person who's grown a garden, even the smallest little thing, and has experienced the pain of an early frost or an animal getting all their fruit or, you know, whatever it is, a storm, it's it's it can be gut-wrenching. It'll break your heart to be in relationship with nature. It will be. Or if you've ever loved a tree and then it gets cut down or knocked over.
00:29:24
Speaker
Or if you've ever loved a pet and lost that pet. Like these are these are sacred things. And i remember when we were in COVID times and as gardeners, we'd have a lot of people come to us and say, can you help us can you help us plant a garden?
00:29:39
Speaker
And I love that. And then our first questions to people would be, but Do you have six to eight hours of sun? Are you interested in watering every day?
00:29:51
Speaker
How do you feel about being out in the heat? How do you feel about like just kind of these like questions of it can sound really nice and it is wonderful.
00:30:02
Speaker
And relationship with land, it will bring you to life. And just like any relationship, and especially now in a climate crisis, we're we're watching like our our hearts and our our lives and the livelihoods and entire communities of people experience the the difficulty of what it means that we are entangled with the natural world.
Practical Steps for Ecological Discipleship
00:30:26
Speaker
Lynn White wrote like a really monumental essay, The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis. And he says something that's really stuck with me. Like what people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves.
00:30:41
Speaker
in relationship to the things around them, which is very much what you you're talking about, right? It may be difficult, but is it worth it? Like what what do we believe about God has asked us, how God has asked us to live in the world?
00:30:59
Speaker
And starting small is smart, right? Like if you want to begin caring for for the world or changing habits about even practically how you live with more intentionality,
00:31:11
Speaker
it's often the small changes, like those daily things of saying, I'm going to shift and think about this different. I'm going to be more careful about some of the decisions I make. I'm going start growing a few plants, not just totally a shift all sudden that's often not sustainable. But um the beautiful thing, right, is that both kinship plots and the community garden that World Relief Western Washington has are community gardens.
00:31:37
Speaker
And there's a lot of joy in doing this work, not in isolation, but as community. Yes. um Which is another just plug for rate the network of saying, we're not the only ones who care about this.
00:31:53
Speaker
We don't have to do the hard work alone. It's something that we can joyfully enter into, like planting milkweed. Like that can be such a joyful thing. Yes.
00:32:04
Speaker
And if we believe, right, that we are made for community to like honor God in that space, I think that is a very fulfilling and beautiful way to engage in in the world around us.
00:32:19
Speaker
Totally. And I love that you went there because absolutely. Actually, one of the the big hearts behind what Kinship Plot is doing and any community garden space is not everyone has access to land. Not everyone has access to knowledge knowledge.
00:32:36
Speaker
you know, or even the time it takes or in all those things. So exactly a plug for let's do this together. And even if you want to come once a month, learn about this or glean here, when we do it together, it, as with anything, it lightens the load.
00:32:54
Speaker
And we need each other and we need that kind of that kind of co-laboring and then the joy that it brings. But I also love that you brought us to because I know that this is oftentimes the question that's just burning for people is like, so how? So what do I do? and you know, I love that question.
00:33:10
Speaker
But I think I think what you shared about starting small i want to i I want to emphasize that and also say that nothing is small.
00:33:21
Speaker
It is all right-sized. And I think what we're getting at, and you you alluded to this, Amy, is it's it's a it's almost like a shift of seeing, a shift, ah a way a way of being in relationship, a ah way of of seeing who you are in the world. Right.
00:33:39
Speaker
Mm-hmm. and there are definitely things to do but one of the practices that we encourage people who are just sort of beginning this opening up to this idea of ecological discipleship is learning the names so when you're getting to know your neighbors what's the first thing you do you learn their names maybe a little bit of who they are and where they came from so the the practice is learn the names of the non-human siblings that you are in proximity to.
00:34:14
Speaker
Oftentimes, we walk past the creatures around us, maybe for years, and we've never known who they are. Now, you can think about your home.
00:34:26
Speaker
Even if you're in an urban space, I promise you there is something you walk by. There is a tree, there is a park, there is a bird. If you are part of a church, I promise you there's something green.
00:34:40
Speaker
You've probably walked by a tree many, many times. Do you know its variety? What kind of a tree is that? That bird, do you know its name?
00:34:51
Speaker
i I guarantee it knows you're there. And so this sort of like coming to know your neighbors that are that are not only human and let that expand you. Like let it let it draw you in. and um And if you have access to more more natural spaces where you are and a nature preserve or or a community garden or anything like that. Just go and and learn the names of things.
00:35:24
Speaker
Be curious. What's your name? What is this? Who are you? And you know just and let yourself be expanded
Personal Reflection and Reimagining Thriving
00:35:30
Speaker
by that. so that's Because this is a reorientation often of heart and relationship, it's more about that than what is it that I can do.
00:35:41
Speaker
But having said that, there are plenty of things to do. So I wonder if if there is someone listening to this who is A pastor of a church that maybe has a little bit of underutilized land, or maybe not. Maybe a pastor of a very urban church and you're just concrete in, right?
00:36:00
Speaker
Or an organization or, you know, who whoever whoever's listening to this. I wonder... How you would encourage someone, Amy, who's saying who's thinking like, what do we do? What do we do?
00:36:13
Speaker
i love what you said about learning about the world around us. You can't care about what you don't know about. So like I even just encourage... my staff and the people around me to like just go outside, like just be present in a thoughtful, like meditative way, like listen to the world around you, listen and feel what is your space there.
00:36:38
Speaker
I think So much of what we do happens in these sequestered little areas. Just walk outside and let that be a space of holiness that God has created. Starting there is one thing and taking people with you.
00:36:54
Speaker
It's easy for us to start living in just like these human-created corners, which I think cuts us off from a lot of deep healing and awe. Another way to start doing something right is to think again.
00:37:09
Speaker
what What has God asked us to do? How are we meant to view the world around us? I think for me, I've always cared about the environment, but I think there's so many systems handed down that I have had to look inward and say, in some ways, i am part of the problem.
00:37:30
Speaker
I am living in culture and systems that were handed to me that do cause destruction. And what does it look like to humbly...
00:37:44
Speaker
yeah, confess our sins, right? Because again, i think there comes a point where we feel like we have power and we're doing so much good that we forget that just humbly coming before God, like he is ahead of all creation and saying, cleanse me of the things that I do that hurt the people around me. Like starting with yourself, right?
00:38:08
Speaker
um And then just more gently entering into the spaces. I think we've talked about this multiple times, but again, just like honoring place, like we are embodied people.
00:38:20
Speaker
And what does it mean to care for the place where you live? The places where we live should be impacted by us because we are present there. It's the same. We are part of community.
00:38:34
Speaker
And thinking about how we step into those places, how we're creating spaces of beauty and belonging where people can thrive, where nature can thrive. Like, what does it mean to us to have a thriving community? Something that I am often just pondering is What is the world told me thriving looks like?
00:38:58
Speaker
What in that am I just like wholeheartedly accepting without question? And what is it that God has told me is thriving? i think sometimes even in the space of community development and not to say it shouldn't be there, but we talk a lot about economic thriving. like Right. Yeah.
00:39:15
Speaker
kind of consumeristic mindset of like having more things means we're better. And i I challenge that narrative of saying, is that what God said is thriving to amass wealth?
00:39:29
Speaker
And Have access to everything the world says you should have access to. um All the privileges that the world says, this is a mark of success. And even as Christians, we sometimes ascribe to those things it like, here's our marker of success.
00:39:46
Speaker
And as a result, we are not necessarily caring for the world around us and the people around us in a way that is honoring to God and honoring to his creation and honoring to ourselves even.
00:39:59
Speaker
So I think that is something I've really come to God with and said, you are head over all things. You are the firstborn of all creation. I often do not see things perfectly clearly. I live in a fallen world. Help me see your world.
00:40:16
Speaker
in a way that leads to thriving because i I know that some of the things that in my mind are my markers of success have not led to thriving.
00:40:27
Speaker
And so just being reshaped by that. And again, really practically for me, I think being immersed in nature, surrounded by a natural order of things that is fully apart from like what humans have created, has actually really been healing for me in terms of learning how to appreciate something other than...
00:40:52
Speaker
All these human markers of success and just slowing down, living a more unhurried life, being willing to be patient as things grow and change. These are all virtues that do require work and require seeing in a new way. Yeah.
00:41:07
Speaker
This may be a little less practical in terms of like ecological discipleship, but i I think it would come from a place of pride to say that I'm just ready to disciple people in ecological discipleship without being formed by God's creation first.
00:41:22
Speaker
Oh my goodness, absolutely. And i I actually, as you were sharing, I kind of thought back to the time of the pandemic, which was so devastating in so many ways, along with being quite bewildering in terms of what it revealed, right?
00:41:39
Speaker
And one of those things was how the slowing down, The lack of air travel and other travel, the kind of being constrained to one place and not being able to move about, like the earth started to heal. Hmm.
00:42:02
Speaker
In a fairly short amount of time, as consumption went down, and, i mean, overwhelmingly, humans began to reconnect with nature. It was something that we learned as, you know, the world shut down.
00:42:19
Speaker
As we like to call it. Other things came to life, which is very, you know, in some ways it should kind of continue to bother us, I think, or now in agitate us, like keep us keep us in the wake of...
00:42:33
Speaker
of what does this discipleship actually look like? What is costly about it? What what might be costly according to our you know our modern lives that we've that we inhabit?
Future Plans for Ecological Discipleship Network
00:42:44
Speaker
But I do want to say part of the gift of the Ecological Discipleship Network is that it's a network. And It's amazing to be joining with other people to have conversations like this and to be encouraged and to be challenged. In our network, I love hearing people's stories and why they why they came. And it is a a diverse group of people who are, a lot of them looking for community, looking for people to talk to about this.
00:43:14
Speaker
Maybe feeling a little alone in their, you know, maybe their church and they're trying to start a creation care ministry and it's like them and one other person and no one else cares. It seems, you know, that kind of thing. Or just asking good questions, but all the way to folks who are, who are this is what they have been doing for years. They've been engaged in this kind of, I mean, for decades even.
00:43:38
Speaker
As much as we can kind of look at the landscape and feel discouraged or or overwhelmed, actually there is so much. there is There's a lot of wonderful resources, community, people engaging, people leading in this space who are doing so out of their love for creator and for creator.
00:43:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:05
Speaker
and we link arms how can we resource each other how can we encourage each other how can we learn um how can we keep on this path together and help each other stay in the wake and stay joyful and stay well And so, yeah, I think that's just my plug for like joining, join us, join the Ecological Discipleship Network.
00:44:25
Speaker
We are still forming, like we're still kind of gathering our you know, gathering our people. And one of the things that we are hopeful to do, if I could just share a little bit about, where this isn't this is in process, y'all. So I'm speaking that we're doing this, which means now we have to do it, Amy. Yes. We were hoping to to host like a little mini mini conference online panel discussion um during during the liturgical season of creation.
00:44:54
Speaker
And my guess is you might not know what that is, because actually until fairly recently, I had no idea that the global church celebrates liturgically a season of creation.
00:45:06
Speaker
And I love it. And it's it's roughly the month of September. And so it's actually going to happen sometime in there leading up to the CCDA conference in Richmond. So we're actually hopeful that it can kind of encourage some, you know, some ongoing conversation then in Richmond for those who are able to come in person to that conference.
00:45:28
Speaker
Right now when we're recording this, you know, we're we're closing in on Earth Day and that gets a lot of attention. And that's great. I mean, well I love that. How about... earth all the time. How about our feet are always touching the earth? We are always earthly creatures, and that is are part of our daily life with God.
00:45:50
Speaker
So yeah, an invitation to join us for that when it comes will be, i think it'll it'll be coming out through the CCDA channels. We're kind of collaborating together.
00:46:01
Speaker
Anything else, Amy, out of our network conversations? It's been a spirit of curiosity that has been so helpful to me. um Just looking at like a practical approach of community development and ministry work, things that we care about.
00:46:19
Speaker
But reimagined to encompass a holistic, like all of creation perspective is really life-giving. Because as as we seek to help our communities thrive, it's kind of contagious. Like life sprouting up in one place often leads to this interconnected, like collective thriving.
00:46:43
Speaker
And I think the curiosity of what does it look like? Some of this Again, we're humans. We don't always know, like, where will this lead? Stephanie's talked about so much happening that we might not have even been aware of. But as we come together and new ideas are planted and we start seeing just really inspiring work, I think that is hopeful because we do see life coming out of this and this desire to continue to see
00:47:14
Speaker
Our community is thriving in a very holistic way. So just, I guess my ending encouragement would be, what does it look like to reimagine thriving, including all of creation, saying ecological discipleship is good because creation is good because God created it and said it was good. And that that is something I can hold on to, a truth that I know is lasting.
00:47:43
Speaker
And healing in many ways as I curiously approach, like, God, what what is this? What does this say about who you are and who I am in relation to the world around me?
00:47:54
Speaker
Even on the days where it feels like heavy work, where is life springing up? And that truly is a hopeful thing. Absolutely. That's good.
00:48:06
Speaker
As I have approached like this topic with curiosity, I've had to really come to the understanding of so much of my own worldview has been shaped um in a very specific way. So reading books by authors who are very different from me, who have had different life experiences,
00:48:26
Speaker
who ah different relationships with the world, like our Native American brothers and sisters, or people who have just experienced displacement. And what does that look like? Because it's a privilege, honestly, just to have so much access to land that not everyone has. And so that has shaped my understanding of the importance of ecology and ecological discipleship by saying there are other ways to think about this and I want to invite different viewpoints as I shape my understanding of my relationship to the world around me. Hmm.
00:49:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's so good. And I would, yeah, I really echo that and also maybe uplift the global church and like the global community in terms of relationship to land. I i actually told this story in the workshop that we did last year at CCDA, but it's It's a story that is told by, think she was a Mennonite missionary, and she went to a country, her she was sent as a missionary to a country in Southeast Asia to a farming, a little group of farmers.
00:49:39
Speaker
And like a a farming community. And they kind of got to know her and took her in and she learned a lot about, you know, rural agriculture there. And eventually, as they were getting to know her and asking her questions, they ended up sending her back to America.
00:49:56
Speaker
They said as a missionary to her own people to tell them the gospel about kind of how God is in relationship with the land. And she, I mean, that's essentially what she learned. And they were very, very curious about the kind of displaced people.
Reimagining the Great Commission
00:50:16
Speaker
almost you know that and What we talked about in the in in the workshop was a little bit of how the the Great Commission to to go this this this command to go, has sort of been teased out to kind of mean displace yourself, like you know uproot yourself to go share the gospel or do God's work over there.
00:50:43
Speaker
And it's a very like landless, kind of rootless understanding, which I don't think is what the intention of the original command was. But it's sort of how what it it's been kind of married with that a little bit of that you know that doctrine of discovery and, and and in some ways, yeah displacement. And so What she talks about is is reimagining the Great Commission as a great submission to the places that we inhabit and to actually come to re-inhabit the places where we are, which I think are go completely hand-in-hand with what we were sharing before about
00:51:24
Speaker
about getting to know your actual, you know, the actual trees and the land that you inhabit, which then leads to how, you know, what's the health of the water here? What's the health of, you know, and if, as we are kind of repenting in many ways of that sort of go and be rootless and be displaced, you know,
00:51:46
Speaker
what comes in is is this, yeah, this re-inhabiting and submitting to the places and the health, the full flourishing health of the places that we we are. So, yeah, I think there's there is a lot to learn, especially as those of us who are maybe coming from a more mobile, displaced, kind of Western way of thinking.
00:52:10
Speaker
And so, yeah, there's a lot for us in the... ecological discipleship space, I think, personally, collectively. Yeah.
Personal Connection to Land
00:52:20
Speaker
And adding to what you just said, Stephanie, I've just found it so fascinating that the consequence of the very first sin is displacement. Yes. Like a displacement from land. And that severed relationship is something that we all feel deeply. Yeah.
00:52:39
Speaker
And part of restoration work has to account for that. Like, what does it mean to wholeheartedly step back into place and be present, belong in that, be embodied in a place?
00:52:54
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in some of the workshops that we've done, one of the ways that we've had folks introduce themselves when we start is tell us about the landscape that that shaped you.
00:53:07
Speaker
Tell us about about the place. And it actually ends up being a really... moving way for people to introduce themselves to each other. And people say, I've never been asked that question before, but they have so much to say about whatever landscape that is. And it often comes along also with some grief, with some sadness, with something, whether or not they've been, they've left that place or now find themselves sort of, I don't even really connect with landscape I'm in now, or I've been, you know, haven't kind of held onto that, but almost everyone has a story of the, the ah you know, the original lands or the landscape that somehow shaped them. And which think really speaks to, this is what we're made for.
00:53:54
Speaker
This is what we're made for. And then there's a longing and a sadness that comes with a non-belonging. You know, that how how do I belong? is a huge question, right? Loneliness and non-belonging. And I think a lot of people, a lot of us are focused on, I'm trying to find a place to belong in a human community and are you know often come up short.
00:54:15
Speaker
Like, oh, I went to that church and I didn't fit in or I felt like I didn't belong. And and and that is fair. I think expanding our understanding of what it actually means to belong and how much the land and the place is part of that, as well as finding your people, right? Because in some ways, I think we have a little bit of a a practice of belonging that's similar to like the Starbucks of like, if I could just have my, you know, that can happen anywhere, right? I can get my my favorite Starbucks. It doesn't matter where I am. So it's very, it's displaced. It's not this place, these people, okay? Or this, these trees, this eco region, this planting zone, this, you know, like i have to, I have to sort of submit to
00:55:04
Speaker
to that in order to belong. You know, it's going to take time to to feel at home in that if if it has been a rootless life. But when it's when it begins to heal, there's so much available to us, I think, with that kind of belonging.
Conclusion and Invitation to Explore Land Connections
00:55:22
Speaker
When we started this podcast, I asked you, Amy, to introduce yourself and tell us bit about yourself. And then I did the same. Maybe after having now talked as as we have in this episode, maybe we want to reintroduce ourselves based on the relationship between that we have either with the place where you live now or with some landscape that has shaped you.
00:55:49
Speaker
Reimagining our own relationship with the world around us. That's it. Who are you, Amy? Who are you? Tell us again. We're so often we introduce ourselves based on what we've done what we do yeah yeah i have been deeply shaped by lake michigan where i grew up by the rhythms of the seasons of a lot of flurry of activity and growth in the summers and then times to retreat and have darker quieter restful winters and
00:56:29
Speaker
surviving in different ways in both those seasons. And i think most recently been really shaped by choosing to live out on the West Coast between the ocean and the mountains. and I often go to the mountains um just to feel the awe of what God has created, to feel small in a world that can be really overwhelming and just be reminded Like, God created all of this and he remains in control of all things. But like a kind of beautiful thing about going to these wild spaces and spending time in nature is your mind and your body are shaped by this. Like, just the pure exercise of going to a mountain peak, like brings health.
00:57:20
Speaker
And the joy of walking trails and learning the names of wildflowers that are somewhat new to me has just brought like such a curiosity and a wonder and a joy of discovering things.
00:57:33
Speaker
I'm all fresh. And i've I've really been shaped by that lately of just a stepping into something beautiful that God has created as a gift for me.
00:57:45
Speaker
And that's been a truth and a reminder I've needed in a season of just kind of a lot of heavy things where I'm like, is God still in control? Is this world still beautiful? And I have been shown again and again, like God definitely is in control and he's created all things well.
00:58:04
Speaker
And so stepping into those spaces of, yeah, just mountain paths and the seasons of tides, the ebbs and flows of things and the reminder that God holds it all.
00:58:18
Speaker
That's beautiful. Well, I actually was shaped from my earliest times by a tropical landscape. I grew up mostly in the West African country of Cameroon.
00:58:31
Speaker
So it was banana trees, guava trees, mango trees. It was... lizards and yes, snakes and large insects and the sun rising at 6am and setting at 6pm every single day of the year because we were near the equator.
00:58:51
Speaker
And so a lot of beauty in that landscape did shape me. i will say learning and living into Life with the earth as part of life with God and and life as a creature has been a process of coming to re-inhabit a place. So it actually hasn't been until we moved to the southern Piedmont ecoregion of you know what's known as of North Carolina,
00:59:23
Speaker
where I found myself actually, again, practicing. Like, that was sort of a childhood, because we do that as children. We're shaped by landscape. It's just how it is. because And then there's a then there was kind of a forgetting.
00:59:35
Speaker
And then... more recently, like a remembering. So it's been a deep part of my spiritual practice to to come, like in many ways, come back into relationship with place. as And I will say, when we moved into our home in Charlotte,
00:59:55
Speaker
A neighbor who'd been there for many, many years came up and introduced herself to me. And she said, I'd like to introduce you two a very important neighbor. And I said, oh.
01:00:06
Speaker
And she pointed up at the huge pecan tree that was over our house. And she said, this is the best pecan tree, because as she said it. And in in In the city.
01:00:21
Speaker
and And she gives every single year. And this is actually how I nourish myself. And what was interesting about it is she was sharing with me her relationship with this tree.
01:00:36
Speaker
I could also tell she was feeling out how it would be for her to continue to come collect the abundance of the pecans now that we lived here, technically owning the land.
01:00:48
Speaker
didn't ask my permission. She just introduced me to this amazing giver of... And that was a really beautiful way of being invited to start my relationship with the...
01:01:04
Speaker
The land that we are on, which is now i mean deeply shaped by the trees, by the eastern redbud, by the magnolia, by the pecan, the birds, the cardinal, the the Carolina wren.
01:01:17
Speaker
i mean, all of these creatures that are that are are native to the place. So yeah, it's been like a long a long, beautiful, slow love song in creation as I've lived there. And I'm hoping will only continue to be written.
01:01:37
Speaker
So we sort of modeled this way of introducing ourselves just according to the the lands, the landscapes that shaped us and also the ones where we are finding our feet touching the earth now. So maybe you want to practice this with someone else. Maybe you want to bring this to your dinner table or your small group or or your friend and say, answer this question.
01:02:01
Speaker
And let's let's share this with each other just as a way of of knowing ourselves more deeply and each other. So encourage you to do that. It's a beautiful practice.
01:02:13
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the CCDA podcast. And thank you, Amy, for joining me today. What a wonderful conversation. Really enjoyed this. If you want to learn more about CCDA and especially the Ecological Discipleship Network and how you can get involved, we've got everything you need in the show notes of this episode.
01:02:32
Speaker
And don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is produced by Sarah Callan in association with Christina Fore, and we'll be back soon with another episode featuring CCD practitioners who are committed to seeing people and communities experience God's shalom.
01:02:53
Speaker
We'll see then.