Earth Day 2021
Earth Day 2021
Creation care and environmental stewardship run deep in my life, identity and vocation. My parents and many extended family members “showed me the ropes” of daily earth-keeping actions from a young age, and those roots deepened and expanded as I began participating in climate marches (I still possess my “Exxpose Exxon” t-shirt from my first-ever protest in downtown Dallas when I was in high school), taking on leadership opportunities around earth stewardship (I was that girl who wore a “stop global warming” t-shirt in 9th grade), and then later in learning about food justice movements and developing a love of urban farming, and the intersections between climate, race, and many other social justice issues. At the same time, my call to ministry began to unfold, and I often enjoyed (and struggled with, at times) being among the only Environmental Studies majors in my Religious Studies classes, and being among the only persons of faith in my Environmental Studies classes. It's been fun to build those bridges and learn from all sorts of organizers, farmers, sociologists, pastors, rabbis, and other leaders doing this work. I suppose you could say my call to the church and my call to care for earth grew up alongside and all wrapped up in one another.
This is starting to read like “Eva’s environmental resume,” and I don’t mean it to. I just share it to say that environmental stewardship can show up in every facet and season of life, and until we make it more accessible (physically, financially, structurally, etc.) for all of us to participate in environmental stewardship we will continue to silo or fracture it from other aspects of our lives and work.
I think when most folks think about Earth Day, they think about individual choices we make to recycle, or bring a reusable bag to the grocery store.
And it is those things. It is reducing our plastic and food waste, it is bringing our reusable bags. It is delighting in local strawberries and home-grown food. It is having your breath taken away on a hike or a swim or a bike ride. It is donating your time, money, resources to organizations. It is grieving the loss of species and habitat.
I’m so grateful for so many teachers of all sorts who have helped me find increasing clarity that environmental stewardship is also about holding accountable the powerful lobbies and institutions that design our cities, produce and sell our fuel, and shape our political institutions.
-It is remembering that not all folks have access to reusable bags or local food—especially folks who aren’t white and who don’t have much money. It is remembering that the very land on which much of our local food is grown was also stolen, and that the same people who are killed by police are also the most impacted by natural disasters and climate change. It is working not only to increase access to healthy foods in food deserts, but to ask what racial histories and realities caused those food deserts to be there in the first place. It’s asking, “what good things are already being cultivated here?” before jumping in to fix a perceived deficit.
And… we all have gifts to bring to change these realities and to be in right relationship with earth and her creatures (including we humans! We're not separate from nature!)
What a gift THAT is!
Happy Earth Day, beloveds. Let’s keep doing our part to make every day Earth Day—and to respect the dignity and work to improve of all of Earth’s inhabitants. Here are four (among soooo many that I love) of my favorite resources for thinking critically about some of this stuff:
1) If you’re a church person: https://blackchurchfoodsecurity.net/
2) If you like farming and want to support Black farmers: Leah Penniman and SoulFire Farm https://www.soulfirefarm.org/ (especially check out the reparations map on this site, and Leah’s book “Farming While Black”)
3) Sunrise movement: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/?ms=SunriseMovement-WeAreTheClimateRevolution
Creation care and environmental stewardship run deep in my life, identity and vocation. My parents and many extended family members “showed me the ropes” of daily earth-keeping actions from a young age, and those roots deepened and expanded as I began participating in climate marches (I still possess my “Exxpose Exxon” t-shirt from my first-ever protest in downtown Dallas when I was in high school), taking on leadership opportunities around earth stewardship (I was that girl who wore a “stop global warming” t-shirt in 9th grade), and then later in learning about food justice movements and developing a love of urban farming, and the intersections between climate, race, and many other social justice issues. At the same time, my call to ministry began to unfold, and I often enjoyed (and struggled with, at times) being among the only Environmental Studies majors in my Religious Studies classes, and being among the only persons of faith in my Environmental Studies classes. It's been fun to build those bridges and learn from all sorts of organizers, farmers, sociologists, pastors, rabbis, and other leaders doing this work. I suppose you could say my call to the church and my call to care for earth grew up alongside and all wrapped up in one another.
This is starting to read like “Eva’s environmental resume,” and I don’t mean it to. I just share it to say that environmental stewardship can show up in every facet and season of life, and until we make it more accessible (physically, financially, structurally, etc.) for all of us to participate in environmental stewardship we will continue to silo or fracture it from other aspects of our lives and work.
I think when most folks think about Earth Day, they think about individual choices we make to recycle, or bring a reusable bag to the grocery store.
And it is those things. It is reducing our plastic and food waste, it is bringing our reusable bags. It is delighting in local strawberries and home-grown food. It is having your breath taken away on a hike or a swim or a bike ride. It is donating your time, money, resources to organizations. It is grieving the loss of species and habitat.
I’m so grateful for so many teachers of all sorts who have helped me find increasing clarity that environmental stewardship is also about holding accountable the powerful lobbies and institutions that design our cities, produce and sell our fuel, and shape our political institutions.
-It is remembering that not all folks have access to reusable bags or local food—especially folks who aren’t white and who don’t have much money. It is remembering that the very land on which much of our local food is grown was also stolen, and that the same people who are killed by police are also the most impacted by natural disasters and climate change. It is working not only to increase access to healthy foods in food deserts, but to ask what racial histories and realities caused those food deserts to be there in the first place. It’s asking, “what good things are already being cultivated here?” before jumping in to fix a perceived deficit.
And… we all have gifts to bring to change these realities and to be in right relationship with earth and her creatures (including we humans! We're not separate from nature!)
What a gift THAT is!
Happy Earth Day, beloveds. Let’s keep doing our part to make every day Earth Day—and to respect the dignity and work to improve of all of Earth’s inhabitants. Here are four (among soooo many that I love) of my favorite resources for thinking critically about some of this stuff:
1) If you’re a church person: https://blackchurchfoodsecurity.net/
2) If you like farming and want to support Black farmers: Leah Penniman and SoulFire Farm https://www.soulfirefarm.org/ (especially check out the reparations map on this site, and Leah’s book “Farming While Black”)
3) Sunrise movement: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/?ms=SunriseMovement-WeAreTheClimateRevolution
4) https://redblackgreennewdeal.org/?link_id=0&can_id=ed5743f4449b8e43063a43f7508e4432&source=email-m4bls-climate-initiative-the-red-black-green-new-deal&email_referrer=email_1151668&email_subject=m4bls-climate-initiative-the-red-black-green-new-deal&fbclid=IwAR0LoRQGpwWVoW5GKwDz0mJBjU1YogUvoG2dxsNjFVOL83gqIzLkmvsmMx8
And if you want to get involved in Conway/Central AR, let's connect! <3
And if you want to get involved in Conway/Central AR, let's connect! <3
Comments
Post a Comment