Creation Care Network E-news |
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Dear friends,
• A New Year has dawned – thanks be to God! To meet today’s challenges, collaboration is essential. I am happy to say that, as of today, I serve as Creation Care Advisor for the Diocese of Mass., in addition to serving as Missioner for Creation Care for the Diocese of Western Mass. and the Southern New England Conference, United Church of Christ. I am glad to re-connect with the diocese where I grew up and was baptized, confirmed, and ordained, and where I devoted the first 16 years of ordained ministry. I hope that my new role will make it easier for Episcopalians across Massachusetts to share in the struggle to protect the Earth entrusted to our care.
• It is fitting to begin this newsletter with an invitation from the Diocese of MA. Everyone is invited to its 3rd annual Creation Care Justice Network Retreat for refreshment, relationship building, and reflection. COVID-19 is a painful “dress rehearsal” for the deeper challenges and changes that we face from a climate emergency* and systemic injustice. Our faith gives us the grounding, community, and spiritual tools to join in this work. Please join me at this meeting. Let’s see what we can learn and what the Spirit will stir up within us!
* The Diocese of MA passed a resolution in 2019 declaring a global climate emergency.
When? Saturday, January 9, 9:30 a.m. - Noon, with breaks
Where? Virtual, join from anywhere!
What? The heart of the time will be a “World Café” model of wrestling with the question, “How is God calling us to respond to the climate emergency?”
- small group interactions
- art
- embodied spiritual practice
- conversation that delves deeply
Who? Anyone in your parish or community who feels called to the work of addressing climate injustice and global heating from a lens of faith may attend.
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• Hear ye! Hear ye! The Diocese of Western Massachusetts will convene its 2nd Annual “Bending Toward Justice” conference on Saturday morning, January 23. This online conference will feature acclaimed keynote speaker, Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers (Canon to the Presiding Bishop for Evangelism, Reconciliation and Stewardship of Creation). The keynote address will be preceded by breakout groups, one of which will focus on Creation care. Please join me for a conversation about the exciting initiatives we plan to take up this year. This annual gathering is a precious opportunity for our diocesan network to connect. Please bring your ideas and let me – and all of us – know what’s on your mind. Members of “green teams” are especially encouraged to come. Registration information will be posted soon on the website of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts.
• I will be a panelist on January 8, 6:00-7:00 p.m., in the second of a four-part webinar series on Greening the Parish, sponsored by the Department of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. The webinars are designed to equip the faithful to become good stewards of Creation. Below I highlight just two of the four webinars, which begin on January 7. For complete information and to register, click here. (Registration allows you to attend all four webinars.)
January 8 – “Ecumenical Practices: Insight into best practices in ecumenical partner churches”
- Shantha Ready Alonso – Executive Director of Creation Justice Ministries
- Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas – Missioner for Creation Care, Episcopal Diocese of Western Mass. & Southern New England Conference, UCC
- Rev. Dr. Jim Antal – Special Advisor on Climate Justice to the General Minister & President of the United Church of Christ
- Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade – Assistant Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary
January 14 – “Communities at Work: Ways and practices to put creation care into action in our communities”
- Karenna Gore – Founder and Director of the Center for Earth Ethics, Union Theological Seminary
- Rev. Fletcher Harper – Executive Director of GreenFaith
- Patrick Carolan – Former Executive Director of the Franciscan Action Network and co-founder of Global Catholic Climate Movement
- Martin Palmer – FaithInvest Interim Chief Executive
• Public Meeting Series: “What Is the Climate Emergency?”
Twelve Cape Cod towns declared climate emergencies in 2020. Saint Barnabas Memorial Episcopal Church, Falmouth, will host a public series aimed at building consensus and common understanding about the state of the planet. Although most people want climate action, there are vast differences in how we view the problem. Even little differences matter a great deal when crafting a community’s emergency response. For example, is a reasonable response declaring that a new building should be net zero? Net zero by 2030? Or is a reasonable response declaring no new building?
When?
Wednesday, January 13, 7:00-8:30 p.m. – “Where are we now?”
Wednesday, January 20, 7:00-8:30 p.m. – “How did we get here?”
Wednesday, January 27, 7:00-8:30 p.m. – “What is possible now?”
Wednesday, February 3, 7:00-8:30 p.m. – “Where do we go from here?”
Where?
These meetings will be held via Zoom and are free and open to all. Register here or email [email protected] for the registration link. Please join me!
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• Good News Gardens is launching in western Massachusetts! In mid-December we held our inaugural Zoom conversation and were amazed by the enthusiastic turnout. Individuals and congregations in western Mass. and beyond are eager to learn how to plant gardens, address food insecurity, and build community.
Our next informational gathering, called Getting into the Weeds, will be held online on Tuesday, January 26, from 5:00-6:00 p.m. To register, please send an email to: [email protected]. Please join me!
• Good News Gardens Book Group: Invitation to a diocesan book-study group
As we welcome the promises of a new year, please join friends from around Western Massachusetts for a virtual discussion of This is God’s Table – Finding Church Beyond the Walls. In this compelling and readable new book, local writer and pastor Anna Woofenden, a prophetic voice in the faith and food movement, writes about her experience founding and nurturing the Garden Church in San Pedro, California. As author Sara Miles (author, and founder/director of The Food Pantry) says in the book’s Foreword, “Woofenden shares the story of what happened when she gardened, worshiped, and ate with anyone who would join her. As churches across the Western world wither, what would it take to find a raw, honest, gritty way of doing church – one rooted in place, nurtured by grace, and grounded in God’s expansive love? What would it take to carry the liturgy outside the gates? What if we were to discover that in feeding others, we are fed? This is God’s table. Come and eat.”
Our conversations will take place on Zoom over four Thursday evenings from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m., Jan. 14 & 28, Feb. 11 & 25. You are welcome to attend as many sessions as you like. The final meeting will include a Q and A session with the author. For more information or to sign up to receive the Zoom link, please email one of the facilitators: Maggie Sweeney ([email protected]) or Harvey Hill ([email protected]).
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• COVID-19 and Climate Change: Living with and Learning from a Pandemic
COVID-19 has lowered global carbon emissions, but it hasn’t slowed climate change. Our response to COVID-19 has precipitated the discovery of a vaccine, but it has left the world with a staggering number of deaths. The pandemic of COVID-19 has permanently affected our planet and altered our lives. The world has wrestled to survive and learned to live with the coronavirus. But what are the lessons that we have learned? What has been the impact on nature and the environment? What have been the implications for healthcare? And what have we understood about the relevance and importance of science?
This webinar series, Halki Summit IV, sponsored by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, will be held January 26-28 at 8 p.m. It will include presentations by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and by a group of distinguished speakers – theologians, scientists, and environmentalists – who will respond to live questions from our audience. Speakers include Bill McKibben, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and others.
- January 26, 8:00 p.m.: “Impact on Nature”
- January 27, 8:00 p.m.: “Importance of Science”
- January 28, 8:00 p.m.: “Implications for Health”
For complete information, visit here. To register, click here. A flyer is here.
• How does God speak to us in the midst of turmoil and sorrow? When we hear the inner voice of love, how do we respond? I reflect on these questions in my sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, “I put my trust in you,” as I consider the angel’s announcement to Mary:
“God’s message to Mary was surely a surprise: you will conceive by the Holy Spirit; your son will be the savior of the world. Absurd! Yet God’s hope for the future hung on Mary’s willingness to consent. Maybe it hangs on our willingness, too. Who knows how many messages God delivers daily to the countless faithful of every religion, and of none? ‘Trust the good, wherever you find it. Trust the truth. Trust love. Trust yourself. Let my life be born in you.’ Who knows what power will be released in us when we dare to believe those unseen encounters that offer a word of love?”
You can read the whole sermon here or watch a video here. How do you respond when God speaks within you?
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• I am pleased to announce a one-day retreat that I will lead in February for the BTS Center, a place of learning that inspires me. The retreat – an expanded version of the retreat I recently led for clergy in the dioceses of MA and Western MA – is open to everyone.
with Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas
Friday, February 5, 2021
10:00am - 3:00pm (Eastern) • via Zoom
$25 Program Fee
Scholarships are available by request. Contact Program Director, Rev. Nicole Diroff at [email protected].
The long, dark days of winter invite us to reflect deeply on our sources of courage and hope. In the face of converging social and ecological crises, what spiritual practices and perspectives will sustain us? As we struggle to protect the web of life and to create a more just society, where do we turn for meaning and strength?
This one-day retreat, held online, will include a mix of presentations, small group conversations, individual reflection, and free time for contemplative wandering and prayer. Together we will explore a framework for the heart to help us become compassionate, prophetic leaders who can take up the mantle of moral leadership that this decisive moment in history requires.
For complete information, including what to bring to the retreat, visit here. To register, visit here.
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• A brand-new collection of sermons has just been published: A Stranger and You Welcomed Me: Homilies and Reflections for Cycle B, ed. Jim Knipper (Clear Faith Publishing, 2020). I contributed a sermon for the Feast of Christ the King. Other contributors include, among others, Nadia Boltz-Weber, Mark Bozzuti-Jones, Robert Ellsberg, Brian McLaren, and Richard Rohr. All proceeds from book sales go to groups that help immigrants, refugees, and those who are undocumented. Please consider making a gift of this book to yourself or to the preachers in your life.
• People of faith have an opportunity to shape climate justice policy at the outset of the new administration. Join 350.org to push for 10 Executive Actions for Climate that the Biden Administration can take on Day One. Sign on to their letter here or write your own letter to President-elect Biden, urging him to:
- End fossil fuel extraction on public lands.
- End crude oil and gas exports.
- Deny permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure projects and rescind federal permits for Keystone XL.
- Stop fracking through EPA pollution rules.
- Create a Just Transition task force.
- Investigate and prosecute fossil fuel polluters.
- Direct federal agencies to assess and mitigate environmental harms in low-income areas and communities of color.
- End fossil fuel subsidies.
- Use the Clean Air Act to set a science-based national pollution cap.
- Ensure a just and equitable recovery from climate-related disasters
• Sacred People, Sacred Earth
Build the climate justice movement! Diverse religions have come together to launch the world’s first multi-faith climate justice network. Led by GreenFaith, faith groups from around the world have announced a global day of action called Sacred People, Sacred Earth, and released a set of 10 demands. The hope is that this day of action, on March 11, 2021, will be the biggest and boldest the faith community has ever seen on climate justice – and we need you to be a part of it.
Please read and sign the statement – available in 14 languages – and share it with friends and family. By signing this statement and checking the box to attend the day of action, you’ll be the first to get updates, hear about different communities who are participating, and get resources and guides about how to plan an action in your community.
On March 11, religious and spiritual communities around the world will get together to ring their bells, sound their gongs and chimes, blow the shofar or conch, sound a special call to prayer - whatever sacred sound they make, calling out for climate justice and this bold set of demands! As GreenFaith says: “Without powerful moral pressure and action behind a bold, just, audacious vision, the world doesn’t have a prayer of meeting the threats posed by the climate emergency. We want you on our team as we build that pressure, together.”
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Blessings,
(The Rev. Dr.) Margaret Bullitt-Jonas
Missioner for Creation Care
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Photo credit: Robert A. Jonas. |
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Opportunities for engagement |
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Good News Gardens Book Group
This is God's Table - Finding Church Beyond the Walls
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Jan 14, Jan 28, Feb 11, and Feb 25
5:30-6:30pm
Zoom
As we welcome the promises of a new year, please join friends from around Western Massachusetts for a virtual discussion of This is God’s Table – Finding Church Beyond the Walls. In this compelling and readable new book, local writer and pastor Anna Woofenden, a prophetic voice in the faith and food movement, writes about her experience founding and nurturing the Garden Church in San Pedro, California.
As author Sara Miles (author, and founder/director of The Food Pantry) says in the book’s Foreword, “Woofenden shares the story of what happened when she gardened, worshiped, and ate with anyone who would join her. As churches across the western world wither, what would it take to find a raw, honest, gritty way of doing church – one rooted in place, nurtured by grace, and grounded in God’s expansive love? What would it take to carry the liturgy outside the gates? What if we were to discover that in feeding others, we are fed? This is God’s table. Come and eat.”
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Sacred People, Sacred Earth |
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Build the climate justice movement! Diverse religions have come together to launch the world’s first multi-faith climate justice network. Led by GreenFaith, faith groups from around the world have announced a global day of action called Sacred People, Sacred Earth, and released a set of 10 demands on climate change for governments and financial institutions. The hope is that this day of action, on March 11, 2021, will be the biggest and boldest the faith community has ever seen on climate justice – and we need you to be a part of it.
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350.org: A global campaign to confront the climate crisis
We are standing up to the fossil fuel industry to stop all new coal, oil and gas projects and build clean energy future for all.
Read more
350.org
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If you've enjoyed this newsletter, please feel free to forward to one or two friends you think may be interested.
Blessings!
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MBJ photo: Tipper Gore, 2014 |
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