The BTS Center
97 India Street • Portland, ME 04101
July 9, 2021
Dear Friends,
I grew up going to church and climbing trees. There were other places I went, and there were other things I did, but the church down the road and the sycamore tree in my backyard occupied a good amount of my time.
In late adolescence—after spending a heart-opening week canoeing from lake to lake in Algonquin Provincial Park—my sense of distinction between natural things and sacred things started to deteriorate. It began to dawn on me that my explorations of faith were not out of place when I wandered among wildness. It began to dawn on me that my compulsion to climb trees was every bit as spiritual as my desire to study sacred text.
The euphoria that I felt among the sycamore’s limbs, and the sense of belonging that I felt within my tradition’s sacred stories, were each notes in the same song.
It is a song that mystics have long-hummed, prophets have long-sung, and poets have whistled since long before their poems had parchment to call home.
My friend and fellow wilderness wanderer, Victoria Loorz, strums a beautiful rendition of this ancient song. And she will be sharing her insights and invitations with us during a day-long online eco-spiritual retreat this Summer on Friday, August 6th.
During our eco-spiritual retreat on August 6th, Victoria will guide us as we reflect on the role that wilderness played in the ancient stories of our religious traditions. She will invite us to wonder about the role of wild beings in our own spiritual development as we wander in wildish places near our homes. Wherever you are, whoever you are—whether at home among wild things or a city-dweller with a desire for some inspiration and fresh air—join us for this day of Wild Spirituality!
Peace and thanks,
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Aram Mitchell
Director of Partnerships and Formation • The BTS Center
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PS - We have unlimited scholarships available for this retreat. If you would like to participate but cannot afford the fee, we invite you to select the $0 option when you register. See below for registration and more information. |
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Wild Spirituality:
Restoring the Great Conversation
Online retreat with author and Spiritual Director Victoria Loorz
Friday, August 6, 2021
10:00am - 3:00pm (Eastern)
Program Fee: $35
We have unlimited scholarships available for this retreat. If you would like to participate but cannot afford the fee, we invite you to select the “$0 - I’m participating with a scholarship” option on the online registration form.
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Once upon a time, our ancestors knew they were intimately connected to the land. Some of our contemporaries still know this. And some of us have forgotten... that the hawks and soil and thunder and oak trees are kindred spirits with whom we live together in sacred relationship.
Earth groans for our full re-engagement as participants in what Thich Nhat Hanh called the web of interbeing. As the systems of our culture and planet are unraveling, this moment in time is a call to remember that we belong to an inter-connecting web of life, a love story of relationship with an animate and alive world.
In this one day eco-spiritual retreat, you will reflect on the role that wilderness played in the ancient stories of our religious traditions. You'll be invited to wonder about the role of wild beings in your own spiritual development as you wander in wildish places near your home. And as you develop spiritual practices to reconnect with the Sacred through the natural world, you may discover your own deeper, more connected role in the Great Turning.
Listen for the alluring call of the sacred wild beckoning you to participate more fully in the holy conversation between all things.
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About your guide
Victoria Loorz, MDiv, is a spiritual director and the founding pastor of the first Church of the Wild, in Ojai, California and Echoes Wild Church in Bellingham, Washington. She co-founded and leads the ecumenical Wild Church Network, a North American cohort of wild church leaders. Victoria is co-founder, guide and director of Seminary of the Wild, which offers a yearlong Eco-Ministry Certificate program that supports spiritual leaders to say YES to their own ‘wild calling’ to serve all Creation. She also guides the Eco-Spiritual Direction program in collaboration with Stillpoint, which trains spiritual directors to include the natural world as co-companions on the spiritual journey. She is mother to two young adult children, Alec and Olivia, who are wise, creative, tender souls, dedicated to creating a more inclusive, compassionate, and just world.
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“A cascade of stories beautifully written, deeply personal and refreshingly human. They invite us to create a narrative together for a transformed people fitted to a changed Earth. Many of us have been waiting for this book. While it crisscrosses most everything, it’s concretely about transformed churches, seminaries and interfaith communities gathering to practice the future. Pass it on!”
— Larry Rasmussen, ethicist, author, and Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary
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“This book is a luminous love song to the Body of the Earth, a sober celebration of interconnection, an elegant entreaty and a bold proposal for a new way, the renewal of the ancient way, a way of healing and holiness and prophetic enkindling. This book is a prayer. Intelligently shaped and beautifully written. Highly recommended.”
— Mirabai Starr, author of God of Love and Wild Mercy
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“Victoria Loorz has written a breathtaking book, both bold and intimate, both erudite and immensely loving. She does for Christian belief what Robin Wall Kimmerer did for scientific Botany: invite it back into the ecstasy of a life lived together with all beings, into the poetry of sharing breath. Loorz has the gift of conveying profound messages in a light-hearted and light-footed –and outright beautiful –way, that makes it literally impossible to put down the book. “Church of the Wild” is a groundbreaking account of postdualistic religious experience, and an intoxicating temptation to allow yourself to love.”
— Dr. Andreas Weber, biologist and author of Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology
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“Victoria Loorz has brought us her truth-telling real "Kitchen Table" talk in this book. It is both deeply personal, inspirational and spiritually nourishing. As you turn each page you can feel yourself being called to get outside and connect with creation. Our natural altars—the trees, waters, the sun and the moon—are waiting to heal us! My ancestors, who were forced in captivity, would "steal away" in the woods to spend time praying, singing and dancing in order to withstand the brutality of the systemic racist caste system. Reading this book makes you question how did we end up boxing in our spiritual practice between the confines of four walls?”
— Veronica Kyle, Co-founder of the EcoWomanist Institute
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“Church of the Wild is about a very different church. It is an ekklesia/assembly of friends we don’t quite pay attention or listen to: birds, trees, flowers, air, waters, rocks, raccoons frogs, and so many other living beings. It is not a church in the wild, but an assembly of the wild. There we learn something about botanic sacramental relations, animal hymnodies, earth spiritualities, and through these learnings, encounter a wilderness that might be closer to us than our church buildings. Victoria Loorz’s story-telling of the wilderness offers a Christ-tradition language much needed for new dialogues, a path back to the parts of the Christian faith we have forgotten for centuries. Take and read, and let your body be-wild-ered!"
— Cláudio Carvalhaes, theologian, liturgist, artist, and author of Liturgies from Below: Praying with People at the End of the World
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And check out the upcoming events in our
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Allen Ewing-Merrill
Executive Director
Kay Ahmed
Operations Manager
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Nicole Diroff
Program Director
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Aram Mitchell
Director of Partnerships & Formation
Ben Yosua-Davis
Director of Applied Research
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Our mission is to catalyze spiritual imagination with enduring wisdom for transformative faith leadership.
We equip and support faith leaders for theologically grounded and effective 21st-century ministries.
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