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August 31, 2023
Dear friends,
As we approach the end of summer here in Maine, the nights are becoming cooler and the days shorter. This is a time of year that inspires wonder: both in the sense of awe, as with the changing seasons and the harvesting of what has been planted and grown over the past months, as well as wondering — what does the future hold in this climate-changed world? Who are we and who will we become in these days of challenge and opportunity?
At The BTS Center, we are not seeking simple answers to such questions, but we are committed to living the questions with you. As such, we have a number of upcoming programs to offer you community and connection as you delve into your own wonderings.
During Convocation 2023 this September — in person in Hallowell, Maine — we'll explore the theme of "Kinship: Re-Weaving the Great Web of Belonging." We hope you'll join us for two days of talks, meals, contemplative practice, music, and spiritual exploration as we seek to understand together what weaving this great web of connection and intention means in our lives and our work. For those of you who won't be present in person, we're pleased to offer an Online Companions Track for Convocation. Registration for the Online Companions Track is now live!
We are also thrilled to be releasing the second season of Climate Changed — The BTS Center's podcast — in September. This season features a roster of profound and insightful guests joining our hosts, Nicole Diroff and Ben Yosua-Davis, exploring collective honesty and complicated hope. We hope you will listen and share when the season premieres on September 26. In the meantime, Season One is always available for listening on your favorite podcast platform!
In October, we'll begin a book study centered on Margaret Wheatley's powerful text Who Do We Choose To Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity. We'll also be hosting a very special evening with Margaret Wheatley on October 24 — details coming soon!
Finally, we'll Wonder and Wander at Tir na nOg Farm once more in late October. We hope you'll join us for a day of outdoor exploration, learning, and contemplative practice in Pownal, Maine.
We look forward to accompanying you in your wonderings over the coming season!
With best wishes,
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Join Us for these Upcoming Events:
Convocation 2023
- Thursday & Friday, September 28 & 29
- In person at Maple Hill Inn and Conference Center (Hallowell, Maine)
- Speakers include Victoria Loorz, author of Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us Into the Sacred; and John Bear Mitchell, citizen of the Penobscot Nation from Indian Island in Maine, musician, storyteller, and lecturer in Wabanaki Studies and Multicultural Studies at the University of Maine.
- Our Convocation musician is Rev. Liz Fulmer, a queer pastor, recording artist, and musical storyteller serving Grandview Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
- A Convocation schedule, presenter bios, and other details are available at Convocation2023.org. Check back regularly for more!
Who Do We Choose To Be? Book Study Group
Wonder and Wander at Tir na nOg Farm
- Friday, October 27 • 9.00am - 4pm
- In person at Tir na nOg Farm in Pownal, ME
- Hosted by Rev. Holly Morrison and Madeline Bugeau-Heartt
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Join us for Convocation 2023, coming up in just over a month! Inspired by a group of thoughtful presenters, artists, and spiritual leaders, with a posture of reverence and humility, we’ll explore possibilities for nurturing a sense of wonder, gratitude, and hope as we celebrate our profound interconnectedness with all who share our common home.
Over the course of two days — Thursday and Friday, September 28 and 29 — we will gather to learn and explore, to nurture a sense of community, and to seek respite and renewal. Victoria Loorz, author and co-founder of the Wild Church Network, and John Bear Mitchell, musician, storyteller, and Lecturer of Wabanaki Studies and Multicultural Studies at the University of Maine, will inspire us with wisdom and guide us to experience how nature invites us into the sacred. Rev. Liz Fulmer, queer pastor, musical storyteller, and recording artist, will lead us in song. Convocation 2023 will include music, poetry, and ritual; plenary sessions and small-group conversation; opportunities to engage with nature; and both embodied and contemplative practice. We hope you will join us!
For those of you who can't make it in person, we are also offering an Online Companions Track. Click here to learn more and register!
Held annually, continuously since 1905, Convocation is a legacy program of Bangor Theological Seminary, predecessor to The BTS Center. We are delighted to carry on this tradition, 118 years in the making, drawing upon the enduring wisdom of the generations of leaders who have come before us while exploring today’s most urgent and compelling issues.
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Season 2 of Climate Changed is coming on September 26!
We are thrilled to be bringing you another season of our podcast, co-hosted by Nicole Diroff and Ben Yosua-Davis and produced by Peterson Toscano. Each episode features thoughtful and thought-provoking interviews and reflections, this season centering on the theme of collective honesty and complicated hope.
Featuring conversations with Rob Shetterly, Susi Moser, Eileen Flanagan, Keisha McKenzie, Rob Buckley, Margaret Wheatley, Debra Rienstra, and Shanon Shah, Season 2 is sure to spark your imagination and curiosity.
Why not listen to Season 1 again (or for the first time!) while you wait for Season 2? All episodes are available on your favorite podcast platform. Find more information and listen here!
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Check out our YouTube page through the link below to learn more about Season Two! | |
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During the Jewish month of Elul, The BTS Center is pleased to bring you a selection of the "Earth Etudes of Elul," compiled and curated by Rabbi Katy Allen.
On Green Burials
by Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin
For seventy years this earth has cared for me. It has sustained my body with gifts from its own; given me firm places to take a stand and soft places to lay my head; it has thrilled me and comforted me, delighted me and frightened me. It has cradled my children and helped them grow. And it has done all this asking only one thing in return: “Tend well to me so that I may tend well to others after you.”
For the last fifteen years I have tried to live up to this request. I have worked in the environmental arena to strengthen places, people and laws that protect the earth. I have done what I could to plant fruit trees, champion environmental rights, promote environmental justice, cheer community gardens and celebrate urban forest patches. And I compost.
But I know I have also fallen short. I came late to the game; my house consumes more energy than it should; my diet can be more earth-friendly than it is. The balance sheet between me and earth does not even out. I will try fix that in the years left to me. And when my time is done, I hope to offer a final gesture of teshuvah, an expression of return and gratitude –- and be placed in the earth plain and simple.
I am one of several folks here in Baltimore working to create a natural, green cemetery for the Jewish community where our bodies can be returned to the earth without liners, concrete vaults or other obstacle delaying what will eventually be reclaimed anyway.
It seems the least we can do for all the good the earth has done for us, a humble way to offer thanks. And a way to offer a gesture of hope — and teshuvah — to future generations, that their journey on earth be healthier, wiser and more balanced than ours.
Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin is an environmental activist whose latest initiative is working to create a green cemetery for the Jewish community of Baltimore.
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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.
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