New Steering Committee clerk is devoting her life to Earthcare

Hollister Knowlton, a member of Chestnut Hill (Pa.) Friends Meeting and a long-time member of the Quaker Earthcare Witness Steering Committee, was named clerk at the October 2007 Annual Meeting.

She has also served for many years with Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Earthcare Working Group, visiting Meetings and Quaker gatherings to speak and give workshops on such issues as climate change, ecological footprints, sustainability and the UN World Summit. She is a trained facilitator in the "Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream" symposium developed by the Pachamama Alliance .

Since retiring from work with the William Penn Foundation in 2003, she has been devoting herself full time to working among Quakers on Earthcare/ecological sustainabil-ity and transforming the human-Earth relationship.

In 2002 Hollister was one of four Quaker delegates to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2004-05 she participated in a two-week workcamp at Finca La Bella, Costa Rica, a 122-acre Quaker-funded project for landless farmers and experiment in social justice and sustainability. In 2005 she traveled to the sustainable community of Gaviotas, Colombia, in conjunction with the work of ZERI (Zero Emissions Research Initiative), a program that is creating practices of sustainability based on principles of nature.

Returning from Annual Meeting, Hollister reflects on becoming clerk

As I begin these reflections, I am aboard Amtrak's "Vermonter" train, returning home from the QEW Annual Meetings in Vermont. It will take more than 12 hours to reach Philadelphia's 30^th Street Station, where I will catch the commuter train to Chestnut Hill and walk across the street to my little row house.

The scenery outside my window is a breathtaking array of orange, red, yellow, and green foliage; rushing brooks; farms with rustic barns, cows, horses, sheep; small villages with white churches and graceful, modest homes with clapboard siding.

It has been a rich weekend, filled with the people and memories of our 20 years of living out a deep concern for God's creation and for mending our human-Earth relationship. One speaker lifted up the urgent need to "organize, organize, organize" in response to the human-induced climate change that is putting life as we know it at peril. Others offered options for alternative life styles that enable us to live more gently on the planet. We saw a modular system for urban green building and heard about someone's "handmade life" that lifts up the power of making things by hand. Another speaker showed how he is able to live richly on $5,000 per year (the average per-capita world income). We learned that we would need to shrink our ecological footprints to 1 acre each in order for the world's current population of 6.6 billion to live within the earth's carrying capacity while preserving enough habitat that wild species can regenerate. We glimpsed through all this what "an Earth-restored" might look like.

We have been nurtured by Ruah Swennerfelt's extraordinary gift for event organization (including three and a half days of speakers and meetings, a bike trip out onto the causeway in Lake Champlain, a morning canoeing the Winooski River, as well as meals and overnight stays for Friends whose transport schedules brought them early and/or required staying over an extra day).

We held several Friends in the Light this weekend—those who were not able to be with us for reasons of age or illness. I especially want to mention our outgoing presiding clerk, Barbara Williamson, who was hospitalized just days before the meeting and is recovering as I write. Barbara had prepared, in-advance, readings for each of our business sessions. As alternate clerk, stepping into the role of clerk in her absence, I was deeply grateful to read aloud Barbara's warm and sometimes folksy words at the opening of each session.

Ruah and Louis will leave soon for their six-month, 1400-mile, Peace for Earth Walk [See page 9]. I have been reading a copy of their study guide, which lifts up "John Woolman's Witness for Living in Right Relationship with All of Creation" They are distributing this little gem of a booklet to Meetings and churches along their route. Let us all hold Louis and Ruah in our hearts as they walk on Earth's (and our) behalf. •

Back by popular demand!

Earthcare for Children updated

Since its first publication in 1995, Earthcare For Children has been a popular resource for children's religious education programs around the country, including many non-Quaker groups.

As QEW's last copies were being shipped earlier this year, the authors, Sandra Farley, Diana Egly, and Tom Farley of the Palo Alto (Calif.) Friends Meeting began updating all the units to address Friends' current concerns on a variety of ecological issues from a spiritual perspective, including harmful climate change. They also provided significant new resources and references.

First Day School teachers and parents will find that in this Second Edition, like the first edition, the units are very child-friendly and filled with engaging activities that they can adapt to a variety of learning situations and time allotments. The 13 units are titled, "Appreciating the Beauty of Creation," "We Have No Home But Earth," "Earth Is Dirty and Alive," "Diversity: The Seeds of Life," "We Circle the Sun," "Water, Water, Everywhere," "Air, Winds, and Climate," "Interrelatedness: The Web of Life," "Carrying Capaicyt: Is Earth Full?" "How to Care," "Taking Responsibility," "Working with Others," and "Field Trips." There is also an appendix full of resources.

Those who have been using the first edition of Earthcare for Children will find many advantages to buying this upgrade. For example, many activities and readings have been improved in response to feedback from users.

Copies can be ordered for $15.00 + $3.50 S & H from the QEW office or from the QEW on-line order form.

New edition of Healing Ourselves and the Earth

This updated booklet is based on a talk, "Mistaken Beliefs that are Helping to Destroy the Earth," that the late Elizabeth G. Watson presented at the FGC Gathering in 1990.

Her challenging insights about the spiritual roots of humans' ecologically destructive behavior are as relevant—and urgent—today as they were then.

After surveying the many fronts on which the earth's ecological integrity is seriously threatened, Elizabeth outlined five common beliefs that need rethinking if we are to live sustainably as part of the family of life on this planet. In the process, she demonstrated that Earthcare requires not only a new manner of living on the earth but a transformed consciousness about our place in Creation.

Copies may be ordered for $4.00 + $1.00 S & H from the QEW office.

An Inconvenient Truth now part of the QEW video lending library

The new film of Al Gore's presentation on global climate change, "An Inconvenient Truth," is helping to inform the public about this urgent issue, and to stimulate conversations. Eco-Justice Ministries has prepared a free discussion guide to help church groups talk about the film. Go to <www.eco-justice.org/TruthGuide.asp>.

A DVD of Gore's film was released in the fall of 2006, and the Regeneration Project, working with state Interfaith Power & Light groups, included free copies in the "Spotlight on Global Warming" kits they distributed to thousands of religious groups in the fall of 2006, including Quaker Earthcare Witness. For more information, go to: <www.theregenerationproject.org/inconvenient.htm> or call 415/561-4891