Creation In Crisis: Meditations on Earth, Water, Air, and Fire
The season of Advent marks something momentous: God’s coming into our midst. That coming is not just something that happened more than two millennia ago; it offers an ongoing opportunity for rebirth in the here and now. And it compels us to consider a second, future Advent—the promised coming of God’s kingdom on earth. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, God’s coming is not only a matter of glad tidings, but “frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.”
If the essence of Advent is expectancy, it is also readiness for action. By meditating on the theology of “Creation Care,” and by connecting ourselves to the elements of nature, we can learn, advocate, and bring about spiritual awakenings. Only then will we be telling the real story of how “the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains” (Romans 8: 22) as a human-induced climate crisis envelopes and consumes our planet home.
FIRE, November 29—The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton
The Rev. Dr. Kaeton is an Episcopal priest who lives on Rehoboth Bay in Delaware. She has served in various capacities in the church – university chaplain, parish priest, executive director, and pastoral counselor; she currently works as a hospice chaplain. She recently completed the Coastal Camino Portuguese having also completed Camino El Norte in 2018 and considers herself a committed, lifelong pilgrim who practices gratitude, generosity, kindness, and joy.
WATER, December 6—Dr. Melanie L. Harris
Professor Harris is Director of Food, Health and Ecological Well Being and Professor of Black Feminist and Womanist Theologies jointly appointed with African American Studies and the School of Wake Forest Divinity at Wake Forest University. Formerly Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with AddRan College at Texas Christian University, her leadership, teaching, research, and scholarship focuses on the areas of Religious Social Ethics, Environmental Justice, Womanist Ethics, and African American Religion.
EARTH, December 13—Dr. Norman Wirzba
Professor Wirzba is the Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Theology and Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute at Duke University. He is the author of several award-winning books, including Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land and This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World.
AIR, December 20—The Rev. Dr. Sofia Betancourt
Dr. Betancourt serves as Resident Scholar and Special Advisor on Justice and Equity at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. She served as interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Womanist Theology and Ethics at Drew University Theological School, on the core faculty of Starr King School for the Ministry, as the Director of Racial and Ethnic Concerns of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Her scholarship focuses on environmental ethics of liberation through a womanist and Latina feminist frame. Her book Ecowomanism at the Panamá Canal: Black Women, Labor, and Environmental Ethics is available from Lexington Books (published February 2022).
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