Fields notes are spaces to collect observations from the natural world. They often include artistic sketches or written descriptions of particular phenomena, along with reflective questions or ideas about the meaning of what's been observed, possible implications, and directions for further inquiry.

Garrett’s Center for Ecological Regeneration (CER) publishes quarterly notes from the field to support our mission to spread ecological theologies and earth-based religious practices aligned with Spirit for the just healing of the land and the flourishing of all.  

In this late fall issue, we’re excited to share our new logo, provide updates on the first cohort of the Midwest Bioregional Hub’s Hope for Creation curriculum, welcome new folk joining the CER, and offer additional stories and updates since our last edition — including a word from our Associate Director. 

We’re excited to share the Center for Ecological Regeneration’s (CER) new logo, which symbolizes a diversity of elements central to our mission, vision, and values related to geography, seasonal and liturgical cycles, spiritual meaning, relationality, and more. The following descriptions are not meant to be exhaustive or final but serve as core interpretations of elements integral to the center that we’ll continue to orient around, learn from, and adapt to in creative ways in partnership with others.  

The circle represents for us, as in many wisdom traditions, balance, harmony, interconnectedness, holism, the cyclical nature of living systems, and the co-equality of all members of a community. The CER is guided by each of these in how we relate to one another and with partners, what we seek to foster through our many initiatives, and why we go about our work the way we do. 

The grasses are representative for us of Land, as well as of the autumn season, the direction of West, Midwestern prairie ecosystems, and the liturgical seasons of Creation and Kindomtide. The center is committed to the just healing of the land, in partnership with the land, and in alignment with the sacred energies alive and active within the land.

The coniferous trees are representative for us of Justice, as well as of the winter season, the direction of North, Midwestern boreal forest ecosystems, and the liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. The CER seeks justice amidst the cries of the earth and the cries of the oppressed through reparative actions for the sake of justice and in solidarity with environmental and social struggles for justice. 

The waters are representative for us of Healing, as well as of the spring season, the direction of East, Midwestern lake, river, pond, and wetland ecosystems, and the liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter. The center aims to nurture the interconnected healing of land, people, and culture by tending to socio-ecological wounds and in healing harmful beliefs and practices.

The branch, leaf, & acorns are representative for us of Culture, as well as of the summer season, the direction of South, Midwestern oak savannah ecosystems, and the liturgical season of Pentecost. The CER’s unique niche is focused on the spread of ecological theologies and religious practices, informed by earth’s regenerative cycles, inspired by Spirit in collaboration with others, and aimed at the just healing of creation through cultural repair. 

The bird represents for us the Spirit flowing through circles of reciprocity, animating each creature and system within the land, groaning in pain and laboring for justice, fostering healing and repair, and inspiring cultures aligned with the just flourishing of all. The center aspires to be grounded in, guided by, and conducive to the life-giving, life-renewing energies of Spirit.

The CER’s mission is to spread ecological theologies and earth-based religious practices aligned with Spirit for the just healing of the land in the Midwest bioregion and beyond. Our vision is a life-sustaining and just future for all places and peoples, including healthy soils, water, and air, a stable climate, and bio-diverse habitats, as well as reciprocal human cultures aligned with earth’s regenerative cycles. And our values reflect a core commitment to fostering reciprocal relationships of mutual flourishing. We hope you see all of these elements - and more! – symbolized in the center’s logo. 

We’re grateful to welcome Kristina Sinks and Dr. Daniel Cobb into the Center’s expanding circle of work.

Dr. Daniel Cobb joins us as a CER Scholar, bringing decades of work in Indigenous history, community relationships, and storytelling. His career has carried him through public-facing scholarship, collaborative work in Indigenous studies, and deep commitments to memory, land, and relational repair—including leadership at the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies, professorships devoted to American Indian history and activism, and international appointments that expanded his community-grounded work. In 2025, Daniel stepped into ministry full time, enrolling at Garrett to pursue his M.Div. and ordination in the United Methodist Church as the sixth consecutive generation in his family to serve. Rooted in a call to minister through radical theological imagination, he seeks to cultivate communities of care, advance justice, and practice reconciliation and repair. You can get a sense of his journey in his recent piece, “Shouldering the Family Stole.”

We’re excited for the wisdom, care, and imagination both bring — and for the ways their leadership will enrich the Center’s work in the months ahead.

Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary has established the Indigenous Collaborative Council (ICC) as a next step in the work of the Indigenous Study Committee (ISC). Building on years of listening, dialogue, and learning, the ICC will help guide the Seminary in living into the recommendations of the Indigenous Study Report and advancing commitments to truth-telling, repair, and right relationship with Indigenous communities. The Council will support Garrett’s ongoing journey toward reparative action and ecological regeneration, deepening the Seminary’s partnerships with Indigenous leaders and communities.



We celebrate the release of Building a Moral Economy: Climate Justice, Climate Hope, co-authored by Abby mohaupt, Director of the Garrett Collective and Michael Malcom is Executive Director of Alabama Interfaith Power and Light.



They invite us to consider what can it mean to acknowledge the stark horrors of climate change while building hope and moral-spiritual agency for a brighter future? Bringing decades of leadership experience in interfaith efforts toward environmental and climate justice, Malcom and mohaupt guide readers along pathways toward a clear-eyed but energizing vision of different ways of being. With engaging stories of companions across the globe, they lead readers in a spiritually rooted and hope-filled journey, while also staring unblinkingly into the realities of extractive capitalism and white supremacy that have undergirded climate injustice.

Their humor and straight talk entertain readers while providing access to complex thought and difficult topics of environmental racism and climate injustice. Their accessible language and personal approach draw one into a story of climate hope that is emerging worldwide. Readers meet faith-forebearers speaking in Scripture and unsung heroes spanning generations, creeds, and continents who are boldly and bravely organizing and acting for our shared planet and our human community.

Building a Moral Economy is an invitation to join the song of all creation in the quest to build economies of life for Earth’s fragile climate and Earth’s creatures.

Learn more about the book →

This summer, Simbarashe (Simba) Ndowa completed his Field Education placement with Rev. Callie Walker and the Central Virginia Agrarian Commons, a community-rooted initiative committed to food sovereignty, ecological restoration, and land access for Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities.

Simba’s reflection and accompanying litany emerge from that work—where ministry, land, memory, and justice met in gardens, congregations, community gatherings, and the wider landscapes of Central Virginia. His writing offers a deep, prayerful witness to what it means to learn ministry through relationship with land and people, and to hear the land’s cry for justice as part of one’s theological formation.

We offer both here as resources for congregations, classrooms, and communities seeking to reflect on ecological ministry, land-based justice, and the sacred work entrusted to our field education students.

When the Land Cries for Justice

By Simba Ndowa

There are moments when the soil beneath our feet quakes and trembles—not from tectonic shifts, but from the weight of forgotten stories, silenced groanings, and sacred blood crying out from the ground. (Cain and Abel - The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to Me from the ground. Gen 4:10). I am grateful to God that at such a time as this, I undertook my theological journey, and at an institution such as Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and to the guidance to pursue the Ecological Regeneration Concentration. It has not been merely an academic pursuit but pilgrimage into the corridors of memory, into the sacred womb where echoes of lament and hope reverberate unendingly.

In this space—among student and staff community, in offices, classroom exchange, and in whispered prayers—I became more conscious of a reality that refuses to be ignored: that my Christological formation is not abstract, but incarnate. It is shaped by the dust that nursed me, the dreams that caried me, the places I come from, the people whose names history forgets, by symbols both vivid and obscured, by encounters trivial and yet transformative. Each thread in this tapestry pulls me toward a question that pierces through time and comfort: “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15).

This question is not rhetorical. It is a summons. A reckoning. A daily confrontation with the Christ who walks among the wounded, who weeps with the land, who demands justice not as an ideal but as a lived reality. And so, I ask myself—and invite you to ask with me—Who is this Christ? And how am I serving him when the land upon which I stand and tread itself cries out? I am very suspicious of this, when empire highjacked the organic evolution of the gospel, which was at odds with itself, that is the faithful witness of a Jewish Galilean peasant and carpenter who traversed the breath and length of Capernaum, Nazareth, and Bethany. That of a liminal witness oscillating between Jewish and Gentile worlds, elite education and tent making, Roman citizenship and persecution from the same with a radical reimagination of serving god premised on justice and mercy. When empire takes over, something gets compromised, something gets lost, but the land does not forget, it harbors the memories of all times and season! It stands as a sure witness still.

When the Land Cries for Justice: A Litany

By Simba Ndowa

Leader: When the soil beneath our feet quakes, may we remember the weight of forgotten stories and sacred blood crying out from the ground.

People: Christ, who walks among the wounded, calls us to justice not as an ideal, but as a lived reality.

Leader: We ask: Who is this Christ, and how are we serving him when the land itself cries out?

People: The land does not forget what empire has compromised, nor the dreams that carried us in hope.

Leader: In sacred ministry spaces—congregations, gardens, and the wild—we bear not just our own stories, but those of our ancestors and those born from Spirit-led awakenings.

People: Let our acts of awakening like the act of land return be as a liturgy of repair, a sermon in soil, a sacrament of hope for the dispossessed.

Leader: Ministry is not about fame but about embracing human frailty and the cries for liberation that echo like the sound of mighty rivers.

People: We are called to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly on land that bears witness to both sin and redemption.

Leader: In community, let us find family, encouragement, and growth through shared meals, companionship and devotion.

People: The land is sacred—a living witness to history, identity, and hope for communal healing.

Leader: Liberation is ongoing, prophetic, and disruptive, calling us to acts of restoration rooted in grace.

People: Christ is present in creation, transformation, and healing—calling us to answer the land’s cry for justice with faith, hope, and love.

As fall gives way to winter on this Land, the season names the conditions our work must answer to, offering its quiet while reminding us that regeneration continues beneath the surface. It asks us to see what has been planted, what is beginning to root, and what must rest so that something freer can take shape. Here in the Great Lakes basin, water keeps memory while the soil holds loss and the refusal to let that be the end of the story. With the Land and with our partners, we learn that this work is collective and circular and alive.



Our new logo seeks to hold that truth before us. The Land is our first teacher. The seasons here do not offer metaphor. They offer instruction. They teach how justice forms through water cycles, how healing gathers in prairie roots, and how right relationship grows from the patient intelligence of the more-than-human world. Across the Midwest Bioregional Hub, the Indigenous Collaborative Council, our classrooms, and our widening circles of collaboration, we return to reciprocity and repair as the ways of living that sustain both Land and community.

As we enter this next season, may we listen with care to the Land’s teachings and to the communities who have tended and protected this knowledge across generations. May our work in congregations and classrooms and movements and the everyday spaces where culture is formed ground us in justice, in healing, and in ways of living that refuse domination in all its forms and choose relation instead.

With gratitude and care,

geran lorraine