Earthcare is focus at Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting

"Seeking an Earth Restored: The Spiritual Path of Stewardship" was the theme of this year's Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. One-hundred-eighty plus Friends were present for some or all of the five days in late July.

Worship-sharing sessions were held on four mornings, including an outdoor group that I led. The Thursday morning query invited us to share stories of inspiration or transformation in the natural world, and many in my group seemed enlivened by the personal stories offered and received.

On Saturday morning we were queried to tell about actions taken on behalf of right relationship with Earth. Although many told of meaningful lifestyle changes, most seemed frustrated with the knowledge that these are not enough to address the depth of our looming global ecological crisis. There were some ideas for corporate action and systemic change, but few seemed satisfied with their own or Friends' collective efforts.

My workshop, "Embracing Earthcare as a Religious Calling," drew 24 people, most of whom seemed enthusiastic in their questioning and dialoging. The workshop on forming Monthly Meeting Earthcare committees drew some actively involved teenagers, and several people from one Monthly Meeting said they were ready to form a new committee. Workshops on sacred gardening, music and nature, sustainability, creative responses to peak oil, and Earthcare in the Bible all reportedly were stimulating to a number of folks.

Doris Ferm of Bellingham (Wash.) Friends Meeting gave a plenary address on Thursday evening titled, "Stewardship and Beyond" (see <www.quaker.org/ovym> for the text). She shied away from the term stewardship, with its connotations of standing outside of or above the natural world, saying "We are part of the natural world, just like squirrels, trees, streams and rocks…. We all came from the same source; we are all made of star stuff."

Doris turned extensively to the New Universe Story derived from the sciences, saying,

"As my mind grapples with the concepts of quantum physics…. I feel the excitement of it, and I feel at home in it… Out of that emptiness called the plenum, that realm of power, particles of matter and waves of energy are continually appearing and disappearing every second, everywhere. Creation is ongoing, not static, not finished… This mysterious creative energy that is the nature of all things is a form of love… the attraction of one thing for another. It is what keeps the galaxies in their paths, the planets rotating around the sun, is in the homing in of a hummingbird to a tubular red flower, and in the devotion of parents to their offspring… "

She said we need to commit ourselves to radically changed lives, "spirit-filled lives that see every form of life as an expression of universal love."

Carl Magruder of Grass Valley (Calif.) Friends Meeting gave a Saturday night plenary talk titled, "The Gospel of the Earth." Carl had met previously with the middle youth and with the teens, who turned out in numbers and seemed to resonate with him. He had attended several of our Yearly Meeting workshops and worship-sharings to listen and get a sense of what we were thinking and feeling.

He opened with a song that included the line, "I must be the song I sing about." He spoke of his frustration as he lives within an economic/cultural system that, despite his attempts to live frugally and "off the grid," makes it impossible for him and the rest of us to live more sustainably.

He emphasized that technology by itself will not save us. We Friends have something better than all the green technologies and better than all the stained glass and great artwork in the cathedrals. What we have is our Meeting communities with our history of radical Quaker democratic process grounded in the Spirit, which has helped bring about some important societal changes. In ending, Carl said that out in the future somewhere "there is a great symphony waiting to be played. How I long to hear that music."

At this annual session I didn't see or hear the kinds of dismissal or grumblings I have sometimes picked up in response to "environmental" themes. A wide range of people seemed to be enthusiastic and even joyful despite topics such as the coming decline in global oil production.

Our new Earthcare subcommittee (under the care, as we start up, of Peace and Social Concerns) has six members, and we left with several ideas for action.

—Bill Cahalan
Community Friends Meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio