Sister Grove Collective
My partner, Alyssa, and I had the privilege of being part of a song writing retreat for Creation Justice Ministries, a national organization that is helping churches make climate change and ecology central to our faith. The retreat was at Sister Grove Farm an hour north of Dallas, TX. Alyssa and I call each other “partners” because we truly do partner on so much of our lives. For almost thirty years, since we were kids, we’ve partnered together to make music. For the past twenty or so years our band has been called This Side of Eve. On Monday we gathered with another singer-songwriter, a composer, a lyricist, a jazz pianist a classically trained vocalist and a long-time staple of Christian music, Ken Medema. Needless to say, the pure talent and experience in the room when we gathered was overwhelming. I felt under-qualified for sure! But I held to the idea that I brought important connections to the song writing by my work in agriculture, permaculture and sustainability.
The beauty of Sister Grove Farm abounds.
Our task…. we would write new songs that help churches centralize earth-care, climate justice and ecology. These new songs would be used by Creation Justice Ministries in their work, especially in April when they release new tools for congregations for Earth Day, 2025.
Ken Medema, an amazing pianist, singer, song-writer and an even greater human being led the group with wisdom and a humble heart. We were tasked with writing five new songs for congregations to sing all over the country… songs that would inspire action on climate and action to restore God’s creation. But would the group gel? Would certain personalities get in the way? Would there be conflict? Could we bring such divergent styles of music together in our writing? Would we even be able to write one song together, let alone 5? What if we failed to accomplish anything? For two days we would work nearly twelve hours each day. Would we end the retreat burnt out and frustrated?
Important aside! On day one we also met with Brian McLaren to discuss his new book, Life After Doom. This was perfect, since Wild Indigo Guild is leading a book group on Life After Doom starting this Monday, September 23rd! Email John to get the Zoom log in for the book group. All are welcome.
Get your book and Join us on Monday!
I soon realized that Alyssa and I were not looked down on for not being full time musicians, for not living in Nashville or for not having degrees in musical composition. Instead the team of musicians were curious about each other, without judgment. We heard each other’s stories and realized each one of us had something to bring to the group and the creative process that would ensue.
The group working on a song by Mark.
After two and a half days of persistent work we were done. We had bonded together. We had all sung our hearts out. We had put ourselves out there in vulnerability through our music and our stories. We had seven songs! Not five, but seven! From here we’ll work to record all seven songs. They’ll all be scored and charted. By early 2025 they’ll be ready for listening and learning. They’ll be available for churches to use as they see fit, and along with new curriculum and liturgy developed by Creation Justice Ministries.
Ranger is a five month old herding dog who Alyssa and I kind of fell in love with. Here's he surprised me while I was resting with a wet nose to the face!
My gratitude is overflowing for the time we had, a very short time, but a very powerful time of creativity, work, bonding, sharing and so much more. Stay posted in the coming months as this music is released and look out for Sister Grove Collective! We’ll even be able to use these songs as resources for Wild Indigo Guilds for use in church and worship services.
Sit Spot in the Graveyard
Weeping Willow by Evan Clendenin
Along with younger folks at Beulah Presbyterian church we stepped closer toward the underside of life and green growth this summer. We tried to more fully appreciate the place that death and decay, disturbing as these can be, in the created ecologies God brings forth.
John brought materials for making worm-composting bins one Wednesday. The bins house red worms (Eisenia fetida), which eat, and thereby transform, kitchen scraps and other organic materials into rich soil-makings. The worms help recycle and transform waste and waste-making habits. The ‘worm castings’ contribute nutrients, humus compounds, hormones and enzymes, bacteria, and other mysterious stuff that can aid soil and plant life.
These younger folks stepped right in. They did not complain ‘gross!’ They dirtied their hands making bins. A few of them talked with their parents about bringing home a bin for their household composting. Some of them already had worm-bins at home. They were curious and at ease with looking at these processes of decomposition and decay, and assisting the worms, who do much of the decay work in the creaturely economy.
Youth at Beulah moving worms from our bin to their new one.
We also invited them this summer, like we invite all Wild Indigo Guilds, to find a sit spot. The sit spot furnishes a foundational practice for both our 8 week formation series, and stepping into ongoing contemplative engagement with earth-tending and Spirit.
We invite you to find a place relatively near you, where you pause, and dwell with the place, paying attention to God with the place and with you there. A sit spot can be a place you return to over and over. A sit spot finds you.
What in a place calls out to your spirit to stay a while?
What called out to them was the cemetery. They stayed a while in that hallowed patch of the first presbyterian congregation in what we now call western pennsylvania. They said they felt peaceful as they sat, writing, drawing, looking around.
Later, John showed them how to take charcoal rubbings off of the old stones. They spoke with startlingly mature insight, appreciation and clarity about death and decay as part of the created order, wondering about the people’s lives, and the meaning of that place among the church grounds.
These younger folks stepped right into that place. They aid us and others to pay attention to such places on the church grounds and elsewhere where land is tended for the deposition of the bodies of the dead and their remembrance among us.
We might wonder with them at God’s presence and working in this place where the dead rest, and their place in our spiritual practice of life, death and resurrection.
We would follow their example in such a ‘long, loving look at the real’ against forces that keep us from seeing in this way. We’re captive to the ‘american way of death’ (as written about by Jessica Mitford) and the burial grounds it fabricates. Broad expanses of mown, irrigated turfgrass kept greenish by an embalming fluid of insecticide, herbicide and synthetic nitrogren fertilizer incarnate a kind of undead ecology. Concrete boxes keep the thought far away that a children’s rhyme so humorously brings near,
The worms crawl in,
the worms crawl out
The worms play pinochle
on your snout!
That undead landscape wants to keep trees out. Messy apples attract ‘bees’. And leaves fall. What would happen if someone visiting a grave were struck by a falling leaf! They might be suddenly graced with a moment of contemplation… a grave intrusion.
My wife and I like to stop by and walk a little pioneer graveyard near home, settled down beyond view of the expanding olympia suburbs. The old stones, with weathered names, bits of scripture, and chipped symbols, stand amidst massive firs and aged fruit trees. In the autumn we find pink blush crab apples, and tiny sweet pears. American chestnuts grow where squirrels plant nuts from two large specimens planted nearby 150 years ago.
And garry oaks, the native white oak of western washington, still grace this hallowed ground. The Nisqually, Squaxin, Cowlitz and Chehalis peoples of the south salish sea region continue to collect garry oak acorns, and tend camas lilly patches, that once were part of an extensive agro-ecological landscape based on this cascadian oak savannah. And in little patches, even a fading pioneer cemetery, such fragments and refugia hang on.
A tree planted in the cemetery of Beulah Church
What do you notice in the cemeteries and other burial grounds near you?
In what ways might you, your community, your church, see and tend these places?
What steps might you take to incarnate a more humane, humble and interconnected earthly habitat in such places and beyond?
Summer of Action
We’ve been busy this summer putting our plans into action!
We’ve been quiet on the website and blog for a few months, not because we haven’t had anything to write, but because we’ve been so busy actually doing the work we’ve planned for so long! Here are a few snippets of our work in May, June and July.
Our Second Guild: Westminster Presbyterian Church
Back in April we began a “guild” at Westminster Presbyterian Church of Greensburg. Guilds are small groups within larger congregations who learn, pray and work together to come to a greater appreciation of God in nature and our call from God to care for the earth . Together we worked through the eight weeks of the first phase of the Wild Indigo Guild program. It was so wonderful to get to know a group of people and learn with them about God’s call to care for the earth and care for our communities. Together the group of about 10 people began to discern some specific ideas for their multi acre site as we realized the potential for food production and ecological restoration. On our last day of the first phase we planted a swamp white oak at the church, a tree that I grew from seed. It was a powerful experience to get this little tree into the soil of its new landscape. Evan and I are excited to continue to work with Westminster to develop more concrete plans for action in Phase 2 of our guild program.
Our Guild from Westminster Pres and their new Swamp White Oak.
Summer Institute of Pittsburgh Seminary
Also in June we began a six week program with Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Summer Institute for college students. The focus of the program was on eco-theology and social justice, specifically climate and environmental justice. Together we worked at Garfield Community Farm, dove into permaculture design and even built a portion of a cordwood and cob wall! These students were amazing and gave me hope that the young generation of adults are not giving up but leading the way toward a sustainable future. We’re so grateful for this opportunity to hone our teaching skills with young adults and to work with amazing workshop leaders from around the country.
Working with clay, sand and straw to make cob, an ancient and effective natural building material.
East End Youth Ministry
Also in June, Evan and I began work with East End Youth Ministry and our friend Alex Ruzanic. This opportunity has already been a lot of fun and a great learning experience for us both. We’re learning how to make our curriculum adapt for students in sixth through twelfth grade - not always an easy task! We were delighted when we showed up at Beulah Presbyterian Church, the home of EEYM, and found a turkey hanging out by the entrance! We quickly learned that the turkey had already been named by the campers and had become a beloved mascot! Jeffery the turkey has turned into a great learning tool for us as we’ve worked to understand how the myriad of living creatures in any ecosystem support one another and provide for each other’s needs. This drawing was our “niche analysis” for Jeffery and his many neighbors.
Jeffery the turkey! Drawn by a student of EEYM. Together we figured out the ecological and farm niche for Jeffery.
Yesterday Evan and I met to discuss the future and our plans to expand our work. We so believe that now is the time for people of faith to connect with God through nature and develop realistic plan for ecological restoration and climate action. We’re ever grateful to The Open Door Church for helping us launch this important work. We’re also grateful to those who have already donated to make this work happen. Our world is heating rapidly now and its our job, as followers of Jesus, to do what we can to show our communities what it can look like to care for land, people and our more-than-human neighbors. This fall we’ll be hosting a few fundraising opportunities, at least one book group and at least two more guilds. We hope you can join us soon!
And, please consider a donation to help us make this work as affordable as possible for any group and church.