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Resources for Earthcare Action

A bi-monthly newsletter from Quaker Earthcare Witness
 June 2013

Greetings , from Quaker Earthcare Witness!

Early summer is upon us in North America with lush greens, vibrant colors, and energetic growth unchecked as yet by seasonal challenges of heat and drought. We hope whatever landscape you may be part of just now both provides you with joy and inspires, in its own unique way, care and reflection, drawing you deeper into relationship with all life.

Welcome to the third issue of our enewsletter, Resources for Earthcare Action. We hope you will share this newsletter freely and forward any helpful ideas along to Friends and caring others in your meeting and your contact list.

This enewsletter is designed to provide ideas, inspiration, and resources to help you learn more about Earthcare efforts, participate in workshops of interest, and take advantage of opportunities (like QEW Mini-Grants) that enable you and your Meeting to enhance your awareness of Earthcare needs and expand your efforts in your local area.

Soon (June 27-30, 2013) we’ll be gathering at Boulder Monthly Meeting in Boulder, Colorado, for the QEW Spring Steering Committee meeting. If you live close by or are planning to go to the FGC Gathering this year, we hope you’ll join us!

 


 

An Opening Reflection

Wendell Berry poemsWe invite you to reflect along with us on “Enriching the Earth,” a poem by Wendell Berry from his book The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982.

Please share your reflection as you are so led by posting it in the Reflecting Together forum on our website:

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. Against the shadow
of veiled possibility my workdays stand
in a most asking light. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song

 


News & Updates

  • Holding Young Adult Friends in the Light. Beginning this weekend and extending into next week, Young Adult Friends will be gathering at Pendle Hill for a conference entitled, “Continuing Rev_l_ation: Be Brought Low and Back to the Root,” which will focus on the Simplicity testimony. Quaker Earthcare Witness is one of the sponsors and we invite you to join us in holding in the Light those gathering and serving in this event. Find out more at http://www.pendlehill.org/yald.
  • Join Us in the Earthcare Center at FGC, afternoons July 1 through 4! The schedule for presentations in the QEW Earthcare Center is now posted (http://www.quakerearthcare.org/story/qew-earthcare-center-schedule-presentations) and we’ve found the films we’ll be showing on Wednesday (the Gathering’s “day of rest”), so please plan to come, learn, share, and be inspired in your care for Earth!
  • Let’s Gather for a Deeper Relationship with Earth. An inspiration for a very special project arose this year and will reach its first blossom at the 2013 Gathering, “At the Growing Edges of Our Faith,” in Colorado, July 1 through 5, from 9:00 am to 11:45 am. We welcome Friends and caring others who have a deep, active concern for Earth to come together for this special opportunity. We will meet, in the manner of Friends, to examine and apply Friends faith and practice, perhaps as never before, to explore deeper relationship with self, other, nature, Earth, universe, with all life spirit. We hope you’ll join us! Find out more and get links to additional information at http://www.quakerearthcare.org/event/gathering-deeper-relationship-earth-fgc-gathering.

 


Opportunities: Engage & Connect

  • July 2 at the QEW Earthcare Center: Seeking Right Relationship with Native Peoples. How is the 500-year-old “Doctrine of Discovery” still denying the rights of Indigenous Peoples in the US and around the world, and what can Friends do about it? Through a 90-minute workshop, the Indigenous Peoples Concerns Committee of the Boulder Meeting is engaging Friends in asking these questions and in taking steps toward answers.  The workshop, called, “This Land Was Your Land: Seeking Right Relationship with America’s Native Peoples,” will be offered at Inter-Mountain Yearly Meeting, the QEW steering committee meeting in Boulder, and the FGC GaEarth literacy flyerthering in Greeley, CO.  Be sure to participate if you’re at any of these gatherings, or invite Boulder’s IPC committee to bring the workshop to your monthly or yearly meetings.  To learn more, visit http://www.quakerearthcare.org/article/workshop-seeks-right-relationship-america-s-native-peoples.
  • July 14-18 at Pendle Hill: Befriending Earth: An Invitation to Earth Literacy. QEW Friend Brad Stocker will be leading Befriending Earth: An Invitation to Earth Literacy at Pendle Hill Sunday, July 14 through Thursday, July 18. This playful, reflective, and relational workshop grows out of an Earth Literacy and Sustainability course Brad and his colleague offered at the University of Georgia’s Ecolodge, next to Monteverde, Costa Rica. Based on the work of Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, and David Suzuki, Befriending Earth helps participants explore the sacredness of relationship with Earth and their place in the unfolding universe story. You’ll find more information about Brad’s workshop—including a workshop registration link—at http://www.quakerearthcare.org/event/befriending-earth-invitation-earth-literacy.

Resources to Share: Living Our Testimonies

  • kente clothFollowing that Inner Nudge. QEW Representative to the UN Mary Gilbert shares a true story of a subtle leading that led to good (and timely!) connections and planted the seed of hopeful change for the indigenous people of Ghana. Read Mary’s story here (http://www.quakerearthcare.org/article/following-inner-nudge). If you have a story of your own to share, email it to katherine@quakerearthcare.org!
  • Learn about Line 9. Line 9 is a 38-year-old oil pipeline that runs through some of the most densely populated part of Canada. The pipeline, owned by Enbridge Inc, carries conventional oil and runs across Ontario and Quebec.  As part of a larger plan to export oil from Alberta east through Canada and to the US, Enbridge has applied to reverse Line 9 and asked for permission for the line to carry heavy crude from the Alberta oil sands. The risks of a spill are great and the benefits to the people in Ontario or Quebec are small, if any. For more information on oil sands issues in Canada, go to www.environmentaldefence.ca.
  • Mount Toby Friends Voluntary Carbon Witness. Mount Toby Friends have been led to specific climate witness. Eleven Friends have committed to a voluntary carbon witness and invite others to join them. The key to the witness is a personal commitment to yourself and to the group; the amount pledged is incidental and confidential. Each person decides his or her own level of carbon tax (for example, .01%; 1%; 10%  on one or more carbon uses such as gas, heating, electricity, or travel) and remits a check periodically to the fund steward. The Climate Witness Committee disburses the funds to organizations working to mobilize support to reduce climate change. Mount Toby Friends recently contributed $400 to QEW through this initiative and have invited QEW supporters to be part of this activity. More info about this initiative at http://www.mounttobyfriends.org/action/voluntary-carbon-tax-witness/.
  • Learn about Peaceful Acts of Civil Disobedience. Sandra Steingraber, PhD, author, biologist, and distinguished scholar at Ithaca College, spent time in jail with two other colleagues from the "Seneca Lake 12" for refusing to pay fines levied after they blocked the entrance to the Inergy natural gas facility to protest “the industrialization of the Finger Lakes." Sandra will be a featured speaker at the University of Michigan next March as part of a climate-change series. You can find out more about Sandra and view her interview with Bill Moyers here.
  • QEW in a boxTake QEW to Your Yearly Meeting. Summer is prime time for many Yearly Meetings, and we have a resource you can customize and use to share your Earthcare concerns and ideas with your YM. “QEW in a Box” is really a PDF file of pages you can download and have printed at your local quick print shop—in black and white or color—to affix to a tabletop display board. You can use the information provided (you’ll find instructions in the file as well) or substitute information about Earthcare issues that are at the center of your concerns. Download “QEW in a Box" from this page on our website: http://www.quakerearthcare.org/article/qew-box-meeting-resources.

Until Next Time…

May you find beauty before you, behind you, above and below you, as you travel this bountiful path through summer! See you in August, Friends.

And remember, we’d love to hear and help you share your stories. Please send your submissions to katherine@quakerearthcare.org as you feel so led!

 

In Friendship,

Katherine

Katherine Murray
on behalf of the QEW Publications Committee
Quaker Earthcare Witness

Who we are: Quaker Earthcare Witness is a network of Friends (Quakers) in North America and other like-minded people who are taking spirit-led action to address the ecological and social crises of the world from a spiritual perspective, emphasizing Quaker process and testimonies. For more information, please contact Anne Mitchell at anne@quakerearthcare.org.

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