Growing justice and faith, update thread 2

For previous entries in this series, click here

Update, July 12 2010
Our book study continued as we reflected upon and dialogued about children and youth developing eco-justice attitudes and behaviors as the important adults in their lives express the sacredness of all creation in prayer and worship, and model, advocate for and engage in positive actions for creation care and social justice. Likewise, where children live in neighborhoods striving to implement more sustainable practices, they gain first-hand experience in these practices, e.g. recycling, composting, reusing items, planting an organic vegetable garden; buying/eating organic, fresh foods, and foods lower on the food-chain, etc.

We also discussed how “voluntary simplicity” and being able to take the time to experience the sacredness of creation out in the natural world are privileges to participate in. That is, for individuals and families living at or below poverty level and those in oppressed violent situations, basic survival, multiple low-wage jobs, and single parent realities, challenge many youth’s optimum development. Youth who thrive through these challenges demonstrate inner and outer resiliency. These many factors are explored at Search Institute’s Center for Spiritual Development

In the spirit of Ubuntu, our discussion continues during our final session on Tuesday, June 13 about collaborating for the common good to transform daily lives toward justice, voluntary simplicity and environmental sustainability. We will connect the diverse book themes the group has been reading into Jubilee and Distributive Justice and explore our interdependence with nature and our neighbors, helping to heal God’s creation and assure ample and more equitable resource use for future generations.

Here are some local resources that promote social equity, justice and sustainability:
If you would like a copy of the book list we’ve been using to read to explore these themes on your own; and if you would like to assist the Simpler Living Ministry’s Growing Justice and Faith project, please contact gracea@earthlink.net

Our Closing Prayer is:

“When we live in hope, we commit ourselves to those great causes, those holy causes, because that is what is required of us. It is required in our calling to embody God's shalom in the world. It is required in living out our personal discipleship. We may never see the results that we hope for, but we will live our lives in ways that are true to God's reality. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord” Rev. Peter Sawtell, Executive Director, Eco-Justice Ministries

Grace van Thillo


Reverend Woody Bartlett, Episcopal Priest (retired) from Atlanta, in "Love God, Heal Earth", a compilation of religious voices on the sacred duty to protect the environment, discusses his awareness of the vast environmental threats we face. He became aware after a visit to the San Diego Zoo, made during a conference trip here in 1989. He was shocked to discover how many species were tagged "endangered". And later to realize that the human race is responsible for 99% of that! He notes that during the period 65 million years ago when dinosaurs became extinct, 90% of the existing species became extinct. Now, 1000 species are becoming extinct each year. He asks when humanity will become extinct. These realizations brought tears to his eyes.

I am thinking about the recent global conference on the environment and the failure to accomplish much of anything. Even though some islands are already being lost to global warming and rising sea levels!

What will it take? More disasters, I fear, will be needed. I realize I don't even have an "earthquake readiness" kit in my apt. Maybe I'll get one when the next earthquake comes to San Diego. If it threatens me, of course! I'm hoping at least one person can start taking this more seriously.......ME

Stewardship can't just be writing a check to St. Paul's every month....as important as that is, it's not anywhere near enough to honor God's gift of divine earth to us, and to me.
Terry Kelly

Growing Justice and Faith: Ongoing discussion with updates

To support children’s growth as God’s beloved our small group covered various topics and checked out a variety of book titles to explore children’s spiritual development and Christian faith formation through creation care and eco-justice.

We viewed a delightful video of Rt. Rev. Mark Beckwith, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, and his youth sermon on the role and vestments of the Bishop. When he showed the children the cross he wears, he stated that whether or not one wears a cross, “Jesus is always close to your heart, leading you, guiding you, and loving you. When you look at the face of people who love you, you are seeing the face of Jesus; that’s God’s promise.” Enjoy the children’s responses here.

NPR/American Public Media broadcasts the Spirituality of Parenting; and Rabbi Sandy Sasso states, “We sense that there is a spiritual aspect to our children's natures and wonder how to support and nurture that. The spiritual life begins not in abstractions, but in concrete everyday experiences. . . provide language for this spirituality and encourage conversation so the soul’s ‘muscles’ don’t atrophy as a child develops.” . This parent guide is also worthy of a study (PDF).

For 50 years, Search Institute in Minneapolis, its more recent Center for Spiritual Development and their framework of 40 Developmental Assets help families, schools, and communities to support children’s healthy development. The assets are displayed and practiced in St. Paul’s Godly Play room; and on line here (PDF)

Please join us Tuesday, June 29 at 7:00 PM in the Fireside Room as we continue our exploration, and tie these themes together in: Session TWO: We’re All Members of God’s Household – helping children connect to the natural world to experience the sacredness of all creation; using natural surroundings, and cultural, spiritual and religious roots to help children build a sense of place within God’s creation.

-Grace van Thillo



Update 1, 28 June 2010Tuesday, June 22, was the inaugural meeting of the Growing Justice and Faith summer reading study. Inpreparation for and in conjunction with this I have been reading in several books. From one, Living Simply with Children, I picked up the importance of sharing my valuing of creation care, or of living simply, or whatever this issue. This would be different from teaching or moralizing on what I believe. Rather it is telling my own story, if you will; how I have come to decide to act in a way that I believe is in harmony with my call to be a steward of God's creation.

In Joining Children on the Spiritual Journey, the author outlines several developmental theories - Erikson, Piaget, and includes the stages of moral development outlined by Lawrence Kohlberg. Human attachment is a requirement for moral development. "Moral development is enhanced when children are active participants in a setting where the discussion of viewpoints, values, and attitudes is encouraged, where the child's viewpoint is taken seriously." Communication of our "selves" is vital.

Frances Moore Lappe, writing in Liberation Ecology, describes six disempowering ideas that keep us from aligning with nature and six human traits we can rely on. Of the latter, one she calls "efficacy", the importance for us of taking action. It is possible for even the very young to enjoy taking an action, seeing the result, and feeling competent and useful. As in gathering leaves (and in the process "feeling" nature) and picking up some trash, helping to beautify and heal the environment. Being with their families in these activities strengthens relationships with others and with God as they are able to name and experience God at whatever stage of development they find themselves.

You can join us in reading these books even if you're not in the book study!
Carolyn Lief



Update 2: 1 July
It’s stimulating to hear excerpts from the diverse books and themes the book group is sharing. Session Two activities included an exploration of Genesis 2:4-25 linking God’s love for us and creation stewardship. Extending the theme to support children knowing they’re God’s beloved, we discussed opportunities and challenges for families and children to enjoy local natural landscapes to gain a sense of place, and to also strengthen cultural and spiritual roots.

We expressed the balance all of us need between using technology and taking time to enjoy the outdoors with family and friends; and how this helps to optimize children’s growth and their emerging identities. Local author, Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods) vibrantly expressed, Everything Must Change on Youtube.

We are very fortunate to have Camp Stevens nearby in Julian. Check out their hands-on bio-diversity activities in agriculture/gardening that you and your family can enjoy - and Episcopal Summer Camps come alive in Coming to our Senses by Bill Slocumb (pdf).

For environmental and natural resource conservation organizations in San Diego explore here.

Exploring nature together enables creation to speak to our hearts with wonder and comfort. The book study continues with readings and discussion of Ubuntu - Self identity formed interdependently through community (Battle, p.1); and how collaborating for the common good helps to transform lives toward justice. Come join us – 7PM, Fireside Room, July 6 and 13.




Update 3 , 7/7/10
Comments on A Wing and a Prayer by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

On p.112, she asks, "What stories can you tell about your experience of new life, abundance, and the overwhelming love of God"?

When I became an Episcopalian, I received "new life".......It made it possible to "come out”, acquire a sense of spirituality for the first time in my life, acquire a whole new group of healthy friends, and address various unhealthy behaviors. I had scoffed at Jimmy Carter's "born again" sensibilities, but I experienced it one Sunday at St. James Epis, Capitol Hill in 1984. When Fr. Downing said, "Come all ye who are heavy-laden............and I will refresh you" (Timothy).......I said "help", possibly the first sincere prayer of my life, and I felt the Holy Spirit wash over me! I'm convinced my life changed from that moment on. It was "overwhelming"! I hadn't been in a church in 10 years, and would have said I had no use for organized religion or spirituality. But after that day, I believed! I'm still not quite sure exactly what it is I believe, nor can I fully explain the unquestionably mystical nature of it all, but I know it's there!

p. 100, "Most of us spend our lives learning what the reality of resurrection looks like, feels like, sounds like and tastes like--because it keeps happening in new ways every day of our lives"

I think I've been metaphorically "resurrected" hundreds of times. Every Sunday at St. Paul’s (renewed and reinvigorated), through "Listening Hearts" when I witness that clarity of thought and the communication of the Holy Spirit that a discerner invariably displays at the end of a session (I just know that "something happens" in that room!), when my partner used to hug me and whatever anguish or non-spiritual discord I was experiencing simply flowed out of my body and left me utterly refreshed............the music at St Paul's "sounds like" it to me, as it carries me to other places and sometimes literally brings tears to my eyes....

From "An American Childhood" by Annie Dillard: p. 150, paragraph 3, as to what it feels like to be alive, "Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation's short time falling away as fast as rivers drop thorough air, and feeling it hit."

To me, this is "stay awake" or you'll miss it! Live in the moment, or miss the opportunity which may never come again. As with a river, we see this in nature everywhere, as it constantly changes.

Terry Kelly

Radical Acceptance: Growing Justice and Faith Group

We have this faith that supposedly says there is abundance, and we have this culture that at every turn says there is not enough and that you are not OK as you are. – Michael Schut

The Growing Justice and Faith Book Study begins Tuesday, June 22, 7:00PM, Fireside Room

Please respond to our first blog topic: Who We Really Are – How can we support children to know themselves and thrive as one of God’s beloved in Christ, being accepted, revered and nurtured for who they are?

Here’s a little background about how this topic came to light. At last summer’s General Convention I listened to Michael Schut, Episcopal Church Economic and Environmental Affairs Officer, express a profound insight from his book Money and Faith – the search for enough. It was an “aha” moment for me. He quoted Henri Nouwen reflecting upon Jesus’ responses to the three temptations and how “an identity based on success, popularity and power is a false identity – an illusion! You are not what the world makes you; but you are children of God.”¹

I also found this expressed in John Philip Newell’s One Foot in Eden looking at the stages of life from the Celtic tradition, “the gospel promise that at our birth we bear deep within ourselves the sacredness of God’s image; ‘the true light that enlightens every person coming into the world"(John 1.9). In this model of spirituality, Newell conveys that redemption is about freeing what he calls an original goodness or sacredness within us from all that harms or inhibits us. (Newell, pp 2, 13)

Wow! After reading Schut’s three books I prepared an outline for him about how supporting children’s attitudes and actions in social justice and creation care could help optimize children’s spiritual and total development; ideas perhaps for the next in his series of anthologies and study guides. He’s very supportive and asked, “Who is going to write this?” Gulp, I’ve never written a book before!

But the tugging at my heart continues. So I bought used books across the themes, and have a computer full of ideas and resources. We’re sharing this process with clergy, our Simpler Living group, Christine D’ Amico and children’s programming. The project is emerging interactively; and so book study participants will borrow the books, and we’ll dialogue and document the themes face-to-face and online. Revs. Scott and Allisyn are very supportive and gratefully Carolyn Lief is assisting; so this action in eco-justice with and for children and families makes the project real.

An excerpt from Thomas Merton’s prayer speaks to the moment: My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Please come join this hopeful endeavor - Grace van Thillo

1. Henri Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit (New York: Crossroads Publishing, 1994), 134-135

Grace van Thillo