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KAIROS CALL TO ACTION NEWSLETTER
Volume 2, Issue 5
October 2021
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I share a boyhood home with pioneer ecologist Aldo Leopold. We both grew up in Burlington, Iowa, left for school in other states at a young age and wound up in Wisconsin. We missed each other by three generations, but Cindy and I nevertheless put a Leopold line on the cemetery headstone we bought last year: “When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect” (A Sand County Almanac).
Robin Wall Kimmerer recently reminded me how important this idea has been in the wisdom of her Potowatomi nation and other indigenous peoples of our Great Lakes home. Her Braiding Sweetgrass makes a strong case for the idea that the land does not belong to us. We belong to the land. It is a part of a larger community with other living things, including non-human animals, water, sky, trees and all plant life. None of these beings belong to us. We belong to all of them, and through our creation care work, we are seeking ways to better treat them with love and respect.
Recently, the advocacy working group of our Conference Creation Care Team has been talking about the community that includes the nearby Great Lakes states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, and the sacred waters that we share. These waters include Lakes Superior and Michigan, the Mississippi River and its feeders, and all the watersheds of our region. We have begun to collaborate with like-minded UCC partners in the Minnesota and Michigan conferences, and we have begun to listen to our tribal neighbors through the Alliance for Justice and the members of Ho Chunk UCC in Black River Falls.
What we are hearing is that our common waters are threatened by various violations of treaty rights that include mining and tar sands pipelines. We are beginning to educate ourselves about the infamous and threatening Enbridge pipelines numbers 3 and 5, and what organizations like Honor the Earth and people like the Water Protectors are doing to try to stop them. On behalf of the Creation Care Team, I recently signed a letter to President Biden about Line 3. We have been reading a report of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission that discusses all the ways that the water community that supports Ojibwe tribal life is threatened in the northern parts of our three states. We hope to offer a webinar with a representative of the commission early in January.
In the meantime, what can we all do to listen to Native wisdom and take action to protect the sacred waters that connect us all in this Great Lakes community?
Third, write a letter for your church newsletter, local newspaper or to your local representative, making clear that pipelines carrying dirty tar sands oil across our states are not acceptable. The Sierra Club offers good guidance for writing Letters to the Editor, talking points on the issues, and names and addresses of Wisconsin media that will print your LTE. I recently submitted this one:
Like me, conservationist Aldo Leopold was a Wisconsinite, transplanted from Iowa roots. He wrote that the land does not belong to us. We belong to the land. Those of us who live in Wisconsin belong to a land blessed with shorelines on two Great Lakes to the east and north, and the Mississippi River on the west. Of course, there are many other lakes and rivers that further bless this home to which we belong. The Enbridge pipeline 5 threatens our home. The Wisconsin DNR should deny Enbridge permits to build this pipeline. Michigan Gov. Whitmer has ordered the pipeline to be shut down and Enbridge is ignoring the order. The Bad River Tribe here in Wisconsin has called for the removal of Line 5, but Enbridge plans to skirt their land, threatening even more natural resources. Line 5 has spilled 33 times and over 1.1 million gallons since 1968. The Enbridge proposal threatens our climate, water, wild rice and treaty rights. You and I belong to this land. None of this land belongs to us. Nor does it belong to the fossil fuel or any other industry. Enbridge Line 5 certainly does not belong here.
Thank you for being partners in the Kairos Call to Action here in the Wisconsin Conference. Just as Jesus announced that the right time (Kairos) for the Kingdom of God was now in Mark 1:15, so we now announce the urgency of this moment to take action on behalf of God’s threatened creation.
John Helt
Co-chair, Creation Care Team
Wisconsin Conference UCC
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Creation Care Grant Deadline is Oct. 31 |
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The Creation Care Team will award grants of $1,000 to Wisconsin Conference congregations to support initiatives designed to positively affect the environment and demonstrate love of creation. Initiatives could include new models for community-based cooperation and ministry, environmental and economic justice projects, or theological grounding for your congregation’s response to the climate crisis. And because the Creation Care Team has connected with Wisconsin’s Native American communities, consideration will be given to projects that tackle cultural literacy and multicultural cooperation. Click to apply by Oct. 31.
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Advocacy Opportunities With Honor the Earth |
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In the months ahead, the Creation Care Team will be sharing opportunities for advocacy with congregations of the Conference, including recommendations to support the efforts of particular advocacy organizations whose efforts closely align with our priorities.
One organization that we will be featuring is Honor the Earth – particularly because of its strong Native American voice, attention to the sanctity of the Great Lakes and all our water sources and its overall creation care advocacy. Honor the Earth uses indigenous wisdom, music, art, and the media to raise awareness and support for Indigenous environmental Issues.
Honor the Earth is one of the organizations that has been identified for support by the UCC national setting’s Council for Climate Justice.
We are currently developing a series of webinars for 2022 – one each in January, February and March – to deepen our relationship with Honor the Earth and get our year of advocacy off to a strong start. Full details will be provided in the December Kairos newsletter and on the Creation Care Team website.
In the meantime, you can familiarize yourself with Honor the Earth and the advocacy opportunities it offers by reading this article on the UCC website.
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For Cleaner Water, Healthy Soil and Help for Our Climate, Watch ‘Kiss the Ground’
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What’s the miracle substance that will trap carbon from our atmosphere and hold it in place, helping correct the climate crisis? As narrator Woody Harrelson says in the documentary “Kiss the Ground,” “the solution ... is right under our feet, and it’s as old as dirt – we call it soil, earth or ground.… People are racing to save our soil, in hopes our soil just might save us.”
Experts from around the world appear in the film to explain the importance of the cycle of carbon in our ecosystem, and how plants move carbon from the atmosphere down to their roots and trap it in the soil. Soil micro-organisms are key to this process. Ray Archuleta, a conservation agronomist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, shares what he has learned through years of watching soil be degraded and lost through erosion resulting from conventional agriculture. He shares his vision for “farming like nature does” for biodiversity and keeping vegetative cover on the soil throughout the year. Archuleta travels the country (including Wisconsin) sharing ideas for regenerating the soil and the atmosphere at the same time. The film shares examples from around the world where depleted soil has been restored to health.
This documentary is available on Netflix. Watch it for a hopeful message about how we can work together to reverse climate change by maintaining healthy soil and diverse vegetative cover everywhere: our yards, fields, community green spaces and forests. Find out what you can do no matter how much or how little you grow. Drawing down carbon into the soil can be as simple as buying healthy locally grown food and composting and as challenging as farming for soil health and carbon capture on hundreds or thousands of acres.
Kathy Bartilson,
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Has Your Church Joined the Big Read? |
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Please complete this survey to let us know whether your congregation will participate in the Big Read of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass.
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We asked members of the Wisconsin Conference Creation Care Team for their takeaways from the Oct. 9 talk by Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of “Braiding Sweetgrass.” Here are their reflections in five areas: celebration, advocacy, action, prayer and study.
Something to CELEBRATE
There’s a celebration going on just outside our doors, if we would pay attention. In this harvest season there are abundant signs outdoors that the whole creation is joined in a massive celebration of abundance. I was struck by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s observation in her recent webinar that the typical American spends seven minutes a day outdoors. If that’s so, many of us are missing out on this grand celebration. She also noted that attention is the gift that keeps on giving – the more attention we pay, the more attention we seek. And paying attention leads to celebration. Before the winter drives us indoors, let’s get out of the house and into the world to join the celebration.
Bob Ullman
Something to ADVOCATE for
RWK made it clear that restoring right relations with Mother Earth begins with me. But it does not end there. Faithful Earth advocacy asks of us an active response of gratitude, reciprocity and respect for Earth’s gifts. We have repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery. Now we must define and embrace a doctrine of Earth advocacy. I was struck by the ideas that children could identify 100 corporate logos but no more than 10 plants, and that if a tree is known only as “it,” it is easy to cut down. The teaching ministry of the church must change minds, not just light bulbs.
John Helt
Something to DO
The question "But what can we (or I) do?" comes up often when faced with climate or other environmental issues. Robin Wall Kimmerer didn't offer us a bullet-point list of superficial tasks, but instead told us, "The earth asks us to change." Here are ways to change: View land differently by considering the Earth a gift (to be cherished), not as natural resources (that we have the right to dominate/use); develop a stronger sense of gratitude (and diminishing sense of want/greed); consume less; ask "What can I give?" versus "What can I take?"; learn the names of the plants around you (when we call something "it", we find cutting/destroying to be much easier); and especially, talk with others about the value you place on the Earth.
David Huber
Something to PRAY about
Robin Wall Kimmerer talked about the gift of attention, and reminded us that attention is "a gift that keeps on giving." I thought a lot about this, and realized I want to work harder at choosing where I give my attention, especially given all the media and devices I've surrounded myself with. I will add it to my daily prayer practice: God, help me today to be intentional about how and where I direct my attention. With your help, I promise not to let my attention be hijacked.
Joe Scarry
Something to STUDY
Few books will manage to capture the essence both of what it means to dive deeply into ways we might restore “right relationship with the earth,” guided by the wisdom of indigenous people, with the eloquence and soul of Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass. But if you are like me, and led to spirit through study and contemplation, by reading and thinking, here are some suggestions for further exploration of the themes, issues, and ideas raised in the book and by her talk to the Wisconsin Conference.
Contemplation
Notice the Earth around you, right where you are. Take pictures. Sketch. Create a journal or scrapbook in which you record information and thoughts about what you see, hear and feel.
Reading:
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Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
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Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer
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Cathedral on Fire by Brooks Berndt
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The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate ― Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
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Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
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A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
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A Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson
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Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams
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The Overstory by Richard Powers
On the Web
Kelley Greene
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Due to the enthusiastic response to so many congregations in the Wisconsin Conference to the Braiding Sweetgrass Big Read, we have been given special permission to extend the availability of the recording of Robin Wall Kimmerer's talk. It is available through the end of November only at this link using the password wn7!!4RQ. When you share this resource with community members, please remind them of our responsibility to preserve the author's rights and assure that no copies are made or posted elsewhere.
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Will You Share YOUR Creation Care Story with Us? |
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We’re here to spread the word! Please take a moment to let us know what your congregation and community are doing to care for God's beautiful, but threatened, creation by taking this short survey.
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View Franz Rigert's video Announcing the Wisconsin Conference UCC Kairos Call To Action and share with your congregation!
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Sign up for the Kairos Call to Action Newsletter to ensure you don't miss future issues!
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This newsletter is made possible by your contributions to Our Church's Wider Mission Basic Support.
Robin Wall Kimmerer image by Dale Kakkak
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