The BTS Center
97 India Street • Portland, ME 04101


October 18, 2021

Dear friends,

I recently heard the startling statistic that 1 in 3 Americans was personally impacted by the climate crisis during the summer of 2021. I shouldn't have been surprised, given the extreme heat in the Northwest and so many other parts of the country, the out-of-control wildfires, the severe storms that caused devastating flooding in so many places, and the equally devastating drought in other places. A recent article in The Atlantic called it "The Unbearable Summer," noting "Disastrous environmental events are converging like never before."

And of course, there are many parts of the world — places with much less privilege and power — where our siblings have been feeling the life-altering impacts of the climate crisis for a long time, profoundly so. The truth is, it is usually those who have contributed the least to climate devastation who are most impacted.

It is no surprise, then, that psychologists and mental health practitioners are seeing a surge in what they call "ecological grief" or "climate grief" — "the grief experienced due to endured or anticipated ecological losses, the disruption of environmental knowledge, and the loss of place-based identity due to environmental changes." Ecological grief and related anxiety are real, and though generally unacknowledged, they affect many of us who are paying attention to what is happening to the Earth, our common home.

This fall, we are giving special programmatic attention to this topic of ecological grief. We've got a bunch of programs coming up, and all of them are going to be meaningful, but today, in particular, I want to invite you to participate in one of two online groups that we're offering in November:

  • Stillpoint: weekly, facilitated online groups designed to "tune in and touch in" to ecological and climate loss, meeting for 6 sessions on Wednesday afternoons

  • Words for a Dying World: a book study group for spiritual leaders, during which participants will read selected essays from this collection and engage with stories of grief and courage from the global church, meeting mid-day on Mondays

Registration is open for both of these groups — scroll down and you'll find all the details right here. Please register for the one that you feel drawn to, and share this invitation with a friend, colleague, or family member who may be interested.

The losses of the climate crisis are mounting, both the losses we feel and the losses we anticipate, and one thing is decidedly true: We need each other — we need community — as we navigate the losses and struggles confronting us.

Wishing you God's peace,
Rev. Allen Ewing-Merrill
Executive Director • The BTS Center
Stillpoint
Weekly facilitated online groups
exploring ecological grief

Our work
Immerse in mourning
Inhale distilled sorrow
Become an alchemist
Convert loss into love.
― Rebecca del Rio

Six sessions on Wednesdays
November 3 – December 8, 2021 
4:30-5:15 pm (Eastern) • via Zoom

$30 Cohort participant fee
* In order to make this program accessible to all, we have scholarships available. If this would be helpful to you, please select the $0 payment option.
We know from experience the power of gathering in small groups, and so we are offering Stillpoint — weekly, facilitated online groups designed to “tune in, and touch in” to the ecological and climate losses we are all experiencing, but not necessarily expressing. What are the losses you need to mourn? What are the tears you need to shed?

We do this so we may have company in our grief, share rituals and practices that help us to move through these feelings — and so rededicate ourselves to the work of planetary healing and health.  

Whether these are familiar feelings for you which you have held inside for lack of a place to express them, or are just becoming aware of these often-unfamiliar emotions, we invite you to join us. We'll be offering these in cohorts of 6 weekly sessions, following on, or leading up, to one of the Lament for Earth events.

Dates
  • Wednesday, November 3, 2021
  • Wednesday, November 10, 2021
  • Wednesday, November 17, 2021
  • Wednesday, November 24, 2021
  • Wednesday, December 1, 2021
  • Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Note: We are planning three other Stillpoint cohorts for Jan.-Feb., March-April and May-June, days and times TBD.


Co-Facilitators
Rev. Alison Cornish is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, who is pursuing new avenues of work related to care of Creation. Alison graduated from Wellesley College and from Andover Newton Theological School where she was also ordained. Read more ...
Rev. Ash Temin is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who offers spiritual direction and contemplative grief accompaniment through her independent practice in Portland, Maine. She also works as a call chaplain at a local hospital. 
Words for a Dying World:
Book Study Group

Four Mondays in November
12:45-2:00 pm (Eastern) • Online via Zoom

$30/person covers all four sessions 
* In order to make this program accessible to all, we have scholarships available. If this would be helpful to you, please select the $0 payment option.
“...if grief is an expression of love, our grief takes on the shape of the places and creatures to whom we intimately belong. We mourn the death of the world because it is where we come from.” – Hannah Malcolm

This November, we invite you to join a reading group using the collection of essays Words for a Dying World: Stories of Grief and Courage from the Global Church, edited by Hannah Malcolm. As part of The BTS Center’s season of programming around ecological grief, we will gather to share responses and conversation around the text as well as ritual and grounding for our grief. 

Over the course of four weekly sessions, we will read and discuss select essays from the book as a way of understanding ecological grief as both local and global, particular and universal. The program is oriented toward spiritual leaders* who are experiencing their own grief and may be seeking resources for their communities. 

We hope to offer a theologically grounded space in which to deeply engage with the spiritual impact of the climate crisis as well as a place in which to begin to name our losses and understand the ways in which we are carrying our grief.
 

* We define “spiritual leaders” broadly to include not only clergy and other faith leaders, but also laypersons serving in leadership roles, nonprofit leaders, chaplains, spiritual directors, students, university and seminary faculty, denominational executives, and others with a committed and world-engaging spiritual practice.

Dates
All sessions are at 12:45-2:00 pm (Eastern) • hosted on Zoom

  • Monday, November 1, 2021
  • Monday, November 8, 2021
  • Monday, November 15, 202
  • Monday, November 22, 2021


Book purchasing

Order from Print: A Bookstore here.
Order for your Kindle (or other e-reader) here.
Order from the publisher here.

Book scholarships are available as needed. 
Contact Aram Mitchell at aram@thebtscenter.org to request a book.
About the book


How do we talk about climate grief in the church? And when we have found the words, what do we do with that grief?

There is a sudden and dramatic rise in people experiencing a profound sense of anxiety in the face of our dying planet, and a consequent need for churches to be better resourced pastorally and theologically to deal with this threat.

Words for a Dying World brings together voices from across the world — from the Pacific islands to the pipelines of Canada, from farming communities in Namibia to activism in the UK.

Co-Facilitators
Aram Mitchell is the Director of Partnerships and Formation at The BTS Center. He is a Registered Maine Guide with a Master of Arts degree in Religious Studies from Chicago Theological Seminary. He lives on a little plot of land in Maine with his spouse, two dogs, a cat, and several chickens. Read more ...
Rev. Ash Temin is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who offers spiritual direction and contemplative grief accompaniment through her independent practice in Portland, Maine. She also works as a call chaplain at a local hospital. 
The BTS Center | 207.774.5212 | info@thebtscenter.org | www.thebtscenter.org
 Our mission is to catalyze spiritual imagination with enduring wisdom for transformative faith leadership. We offer theologically grounded programs of continuing education and spiritual formation, including workshops and retreats, learning cohorts, public conversations, and projects of applied research.