How We Care for the Earth

This year for Earth Day, we are sticking close to home. This congregation has a commitment to earth care that goes back long before I became your minister. Our commitment to “the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part” has led us on some wonderful adventures, and we hope some of the stories we share today will give us some grounding and hope, remembering how we have made a difference, and perhaps will inspire us in thoughts of re-commitment and action as we continue to strive to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

I remember the first green sanctuary team meeting back in October of 2010. I remember Katie, and Jack and Diane, and John and carol, Jane was there,  we were crowded around that table. And we were so full of ideas!

The Green Sanctuary program was created by the UUA to help congregations “bringing congregational culture into greater alignment with environmentally aware faith and practices” First, there was an assessment, to see where we were, then the action plan, the congregational vote. Then the UUA would approve the plan and we could get to work, but this little church that could we were already working on our action plan even before we had our application complete,.

We don’t have a lot of pictures of those days, but here’s a photo of me and my friend Andria and Sarah Christianson at a workshop about how to process and preserve fruit, after the kids went to an orchard and picked a massive amount of apples for us to use. This was just one of our Foodshed Education programs which also included workshops in drying and canning.

You can kind of see over my shoulder the “green sanctuary bulletin board” Which had some suggestions from Carol Doscher about recycling,

But we don’t have any pictures of our effots, but I remember Carol and Katie so mobilized about reuse and recycling, making church collections of things that might not normally get recycled [like plastics, grocery bags, building materials, computers and light-bulbs]

I found this picture of me and Katie and Aileen McEvoy. Part of Green Sancuaty plan was a program called “feed a friend” that we invented to try to bring our love of gardening and food into a community outreach program. [this picture is of us going door to door in the neighborhood giving out plants and letting folks know about the program] When Project Grow was being formed in our community, we noticed it had overlapping goals, and decided to fold up Feed a friend and put that energy into becoming a founding partner in Project Grow instead.

Here's a photo of a fun event of creek walking with mike Lovegreen to learn about our watershed, and how climate change might impact us here in the valley in a real way.

Mike Lovegreen Leads our Creek Walk

You’ll have to make your own mental pictures of our citizen science project, where our members took water samples in local creeks to see if toxins form the Fracking process had ended up in our watershed.

One of the biggest projects we did was almost invisible. I want to give a special shout out to Jane Land- the Green Sanctuary program assessment required an audit of our building, and because of Jane’s work experience before she retired, she brought in experts to create a very detailed building audit. See, most congregations when they think of going green they think “solar panels” but actually, you can save a lot of energy just by filling in the holes and helping the building be more energy efficient. Jane prepared a multi page summary with different options, and after the board considered carefully and voted to approve the funds, Jane brought in contractors and oversaw the work of making the building more energy efficient. In my first years int eh church I wore a coat and gloves in the pulpit when I fist got here, but now on Sundays sometimes I have to take my sweater of when I’m preaching. If you are not cold every time you come to church, now you know why!

That garden bed out front started as part of the Earth-centered religious education program our children and youth RE would do each spring.

One of the many CSN Public Forums

Of course our work with the Community Shale Network was a major part of Green Sanctuary.

And Chris Eng, who was worship queen in those days, was in charge of assessing our worship, and helped us bring Earth care into our worship traditions.

What was wonderful about the Green Sanctuary program was it encouraged a holistic look at how we could weave our care for the interdependent web into so many aspects of our lives together. We believe that caring for the earth is not a separate activity, it is a guiding principle in all we do.

I loved the creativity and the passion from our members. I loved how practical we could be. For example, thinking about what dishes we use at coffee hour- we could buy compostable plates, we thought at first, but why not just use the plates in the cabinet? We realized that using up all the bits and bobs of plates salvaged from birthday parties and picnic even if they were plastic or Styrofoam was better than buying new places, better than buying brand new even the most eco-friendly plates made today.

This became part of our “covenant of sustainable purchasing” -which is on the fridge:

“We will encourage members to provide post-consumer or compostable cups, plates and flatware or to use reusable dishes when planning a church event. We will use up existing stock of non-sustainable items (e.g., plastic flatware) before purchasing new items.“

We noticed that earth care lined up well with the natural frugality of our congregation- use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.

Being the little church that could, we completed all our actions as planned, but were daunted by the task of filling out the paperwork to submit our application to the UUA. I want to give a huge hand to Katie, who committed to working on that paperwork and getting our accreditation, which we received in 2017.

The Letter we got from the UUA says:

“Congratulations on work so well done! The review team agreed that your program is commendable…In the environmental justice arena, your multiple projects we think should be shared broadly. Your [education series on Hydraulic Fracturing- also called Fracking] is a commendable and inspiring example of broad collaboration. The team felt your collaboration with Community Shale Network is particularly important. Project Grow, conceived to promote local agriculture Valley-wide in collaboration with churches, school systems, and food pantries seems an excellent contribution to your local economy.”

Yes, Green Sanctuary program inspired us to do some things we might not have done otherwise, but it also showed us how much we were already doing, had already been doing for years -- like composting, or turning the water heater off when we leave the building, like preaching and teaching about the principles of sustainability and earth care. I hope hearing all these stories -- our stories -- reminds us that being a green sanctuary has been part of the fabric of our lives together for a long time. Let these stories remind us of our commitment back in 2017 as we sent in our final application to the UUA “we reaffirm our congregation’s commitment to continue growing in awareness and action to honor and protect the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.”