March 28, 2024

Dear friends,

This Holy Week began here in Southern Maine with a devastating ice storm. We awoke on Palm Sunday morning to majestic trees brought down, limbs strewn across streets and yards and cars, and widespread power outages. There was an eerie beauty, too, in the way in which the ice captured and illuminated so many small details that often go unnoticed — and we were forced to slow down as our "normal" way of functioning was disrupted. Once again, we can see the ways in which climate change is impacting the particularities of our watershed and the effects, large and small, on the human and other-than-human inhabitants. The disruptions may look different in your area, but we know no being is left untouched.

As those of us who claim a Christian identities enter today into the Easter Triduum ("three days" — Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday, during which we recall Jesus' suffering, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection), we are reminded of the destruction that Empire can bring and of all the ways in which that is manifesting in our world today. As we honor the journey through life and death — and back into life — that Jesus undertook, we embrace the complicated hope that blooms in the crevices of destruction. We root into this earth so that we may rise in community with one another to meet the challenges of living and loving in a climate-changed world.

This spring, we at The BTS Center would love to welcome you into one or more of the programs we're offering. We're looking forward to a book study on the thoughtful work of T. Wilson Dickinson — Singing the Psalms with My Son: Praying and Parenting for a Healed Planet, starting in May. And also in May, we'll be hosting our first Green Teams Gathering, in person in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. If you're within reach of Southern Maine and are involved (or would like to be) in congregational climate work, this in-person offering might be for you!

Summer brings an opportunity for congregations to join us for our Claiming Your Call for a Climate-Changed World retreat at the beautiful Schoodic Institute in Winter Harbor, Maine. We hope your congregational team will consider applying — the deadline of April 10 is coming up soon! (Decisions will be announced on May 1.) For the young people in your life, we're thrilled to offer our first Climate Justice Camp for teens in partnership with Pilgrim Lodge in West Gardiner, Maine in July.

We wish you gentleness and companionship as you ride your own waves this season.

With best wishes,

Join us for these Upcoming Programs:

Group Spiritual Direction Circles

• 8-month cohorts starting in March and April
• Several circles to choose from — various days, times, and facilitators
• Gathering monthly in groups of six over Zoom, each two-hour session is centered on a prompt related to climate change, liminality, or uncertainty

Preaching in a Climate-Changed World: Engaging Climate Science, the Bible, and Theology

• Tuesday, April 23 • 6.00 - 8.00pm (Eastern) • Online
• An Earth Day webinar from our friends at Lexington Theological Seminary in partnership with The BTS Center and Creation Justice Ministries

Singing the Psalms with My Son: A Book Study

• May - June • 5 weekly sessions • Online
• Two options for days and times each week
• Offered in collaboration with Lutherans Restoring Creation and Moms Clean Air Force

Green Teams Gathering

• Sunday, May 19 • 2.00 - 5.00pm (Eastern)
• In person at Cape Elizabeth United Methodist Church in Cape Elizabeth, Maine
• An opportunity for those engaged in congregational climate work to gather, connect, and learn

Claiming Your Call for a Climate-Changed World

• A three-day retreat and community of practice for New England congregations
• Thursday, June 20 – Saturday, June 22 • Schoodic Institute, Winter Harbor, ME
• Participation by application; retreat expenses covered by The BTS Center
• Application deadline is approaching: April 10. Participating teams will be announced on May 1
• In collaboration with Creation Justice Ministries and the Anabaptist Climate Collaborative

Climate Justice Camp at Pilgrim Lodge

• Sunday to Saturday • July 21 - 27, 2024
• At Pilgrim Lodge, a ministry of the Maine Conference, United Church of Christ, on beautiful Lake Cobbosseecontee in West Gardiner, Maine
• For campers entering grades 9-12 and new high school graduates

All episodes of Season Two of Climate Changed, The BTS Center's podcast, are now available for listening! Head over to our Podbean page to listen to all of the episodes from both Season One and Season Two! On our webpage, you'll find links to all the episodes as well as descriptions, full transcriptions, and specially developed discussion guides which you can use in your congregation or community setting.

And we're hard at work on Season Three, coming your way this fall!

What We're Reading, Listening To, and Wondering:

• We're reading Eye of the Storm: Facing Climate and Social Chaos with Calm and Courage by Terry LePage

• We're listening to "Climate Chaplaincy with Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner" on Spotlights, the podcast of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology

• We're wondering: what is being illuminated for you this Holy Week? What ways of being are you being called into in these times?

A final word for your reflection:

"The story that we have to illuminate is that we don’t have to be complicit with destruction. That’s the assumption: that there are these powerful forces around us that we can’t possibly counteract. The refusal to be complicit can be a kind of resistance to dominant paradigms, but it’s also an opportunity to be creative and joyful... So much of what we think about in environmentalism is finger-wagging and gloom-and-doom, but when you look at a lot of those examples where people are taking things into their hands, they’re joyful. That’s healing not only for land but for our culture as well — it feels good."

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, from an interview in The New York Times Magazine, 1/30/2023

The BTS Center | 207.774.5212 | info@thebtscenter.org | www.thebtscenter.org

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