A few years ago I attended an Eco-spirituality event called Earth Honoring Faith at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. One of the activities was writing and sharing of our Eco-stories as a means of introduction. We were invited to tell our personal stories from the perspective our interaction with the Earth. What were the things that awoke us to our connection to the cosmos and need for action in light of the environmental degradation and the climate crisis? I loved this idea. It was interesting to me to remember the experiences that led me to be committed to Thomas Berry’s “Great Work” of environmental regeneration. I’ve told my life journey from various perspectives in the past. Usually, I think, our stories get told in a way that highlights the jobs or career we have pursued, the places we have lived, our family and friends, our hobbies and such. I’ve also been part of groups that told our spiritual histories, focusing on our spiritual lives, which may or may not involve a church or particular religion. An Eco-story is interesting as it refocuses the view of our personal histories on our relationship to the Earth, our species, other species, the natural order or cosmos and it’s importance in our individual lives.
I share here my eco-story as a means of example, and invite you to consider writing down your own story. I’d love to hear others’ stories, or perhaps you’ll choose to share it with family and friends, or simply consider it for your own benefit.
I was fortunate as a child to live in the far eastern suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, at a time when children were allowed a lot of freedom to run. There was a group of boys around my age with whom I explored the fields, streams, lakes, cornfields and woods that stretched to the east of our homes. We fished in Plum Creek, built rafts on a small lake, built tree forts, climbed many trees, chased Farmer Well’s cows, jumping electric fences to escape them, wandered on what seemed endless summer days, were chased by wild dogs, had apple wars (involving the fairly dangerous conflict with crab apples) with the kids at the other end of the neighborhood, played kick the can on long summer evenings, and sledded on local hills in the winter. I had a favorite tree (a large Tulip Tree with perfect handholds), and became a lifelong fisherman after catching bluegills on crayfish tails caught in the same stream. This definitely established my love of the outdoors. I still can’t listen to the Dream Academy’s song, “A Northern Town” and the line, “The morning lasted all day”, without tears coming my eyes. I was a boy scout briefly and learned the knots and camping skills, but my comfort with the outdoors came from wandering in the woods in the Western Reserve east of Cleveland.
My grandmother and mother were gardeners and a far back as I can remember I was drafted to help dig, weed and harvest. Mom especially loved roses and I learned a lot of skills helping her with her rose testing, soil preparation and winter protection. Somewhere around freshman year in High School I asked if I could have portion of the yard for my own garden and I grew potatoes, corn and green beans. This only lasted a couple years, actually but it connected me to the earth and gave me confidence with digging in the dirt.
Then came the years when I focussed on making a way for myself in the human world, with sports, girls, experimentation with drugs and alcohol, college, grad school. I mention this time because I think it actually took me away from the Earth and it was only later, with marriage, gardening and the environmental movement that I continued my eco-story.
In the first year of my marriage with Laura we lived in graduate student housing on the South Side of Chicago surrounded by abandoned lots. In one of those lots we dug a garden. I don’t remember that it did all that well, except for the cucumbers. We had cucumbers coming out our ears and learned to make pickles. After that, there has not been a year without a garden. We are on our ninth garden. In fact, privately we refer to our present home as #9. We gardened in vacant lots, in community gardens, our backyards and a small farm we lived on briefly in Michigan.
Around this time I began to burn out in my work in the church and decided I needed some hobbies. I remembered fishing. I got a book, the basic equipment and became a fly fisherman. I have mixed feelings about fishing now. I love it, but I hate hurting the fish.
But there is no doubt that standing in the cold water woke up my connection to the Earth. I am a member of Trout Unlimited, and I do believe that hunting and fishing is one way people connect to the Earth and it’s preservation. I agree with the Senegalese environmentalist, Forestry engineer Baba Dioum, who said, “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” We conserve what we love. That is the best defense for sport fishing I know. But I still struggle, and I now practice catch and release and use barbless hooks.
Around this same time I also started the hobby of growing bonsai trees. It was a natural outgrowth of my love of trees and interest in Asian culture. (I majored in East Asian Studies in college.) I have been working to keep some of my trees alive for 30 years now. I have killed many, but overall, the practice has connected me to the life of these trees and the natural form of trees in nature. One of the basic goals of bonsai art is to recreate the shape of trees in miniature. To do this one must be observant of nature and in tune with the need of trees for water, nutrition, soil and winter dormancy.
Mentioning my study of East Asian Studies reminds me of what I learned from Chinese landscape paintings. From my first exposure in college I have been drawn to these paintings. Containing the basic elements of the natural world: mountains, valleys, water, trees, animals and evidence of human presence, these paintings capture the unity and harmony of nature. I now see this pattern as illustrating a non-dualist world view, but would not have been able to articulate that when I first loved them. But they have been another influence, symbolic of my awakening to eastern, spiritual thought in college.
More recently, on sabbaticals from my pastoral work I did some study of Celtic and Native American Spiritualities. It is important to use the plural form here, for there are many forms of spirituality and religion in both early European and early Native American groups. There is not one brand of religion among Native American’s, for example, but many different tribal traditions. In both Celtic and other Indigenous traditions the pantheist and panthentheist beliefs resonated with me. Most attribute to all life (animal, vegetable and mineral) souls and connection to the whole. Humans are usually considered equal parts of the natural world with other elements. My personal evolution of thought toward locating the Divine in the natural order (to paraphrase Teilhard de Chardin) has been through the discovery and study of these traditions and my attempts to find in Christianity an Earth honoring faith.
The final chapter of my eco-story is my retirement from the church and my current activities trying to do my part in the environmental, climate movement. Gardening is my main work, studying permaculture and growing food for my family and for donation to local food pantries. Digging in the dirt has been healing for me in body, mind and spirit and has reconnected me to my childhood spent outside and in my mother’s garden.
Looking back on my life through the lens of an eco-story is enlightening to me. Perhaps all humans feel the innate connection to the natural world that I feel, I do not know. Perhaps my story was uniquely an eco-story and that has shaped my dedication to preserving this Earth and seeking a new ( or very old) understanding of God as located in the natural process. It makes sense to me, however, that if humans are part of that order, essential to the harmony of all, as human presence is essential in a Chinese landscape painting, then everyone must experience this deep connection to the Earth, but perhaps in different degrees and certainly with different stories. What is your story?