Connecting our Conversations
Connecting our Conversations is hosted by the Presbytery of Southern New England, a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This is our space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us deepen discipleship.
Connecting our Conversations
Connecting our Conversations: Creation Care and Faith's Response to the Environmental Crisis
In this episode of Connecting our Conversations, Rev. Dr. Shannan Vance-Ocampo is joined by Rev. Kathryn Beilke for a discussion on how our faith calls us to care for God's creation, and address the growing plastic pollution crisis.
Together, they explore:
- The accelerating production of plastics and its impact on the current climate and public health crises
- How practices like fasting from plastics can raise consciousness and catalyze permanent lifestyle changes
- The PC (USA)'s overture calling congregations to move from disposable to sustainable practices
Rev. Kathryn Beilke is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and served for a decade as Pastor of a progressive congregation, but the moral and spiritual urgency of our current ecological crises prompted her to leave the pulpit and dedicate herself to effective environmental solutions. Believing that state and local action can spark meaningful change, Rev. Beilke worked with municipalities navigating New York State’s Climate Smart Communities initiative before joining Beyond Plastics as the Development Manager. While she is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she believes in centering a diversity of traditions and indigenous perspectives in her work. She enjoys gardening, camping, hiking, biking, and paddle boarding with her family.
About Beyond Plastics:
Launched in January 2019, Beyond Plastics is a nationwide project based at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, that pairs the wisdom and experience of environmental policy experts with the energy and creativity of grassroots advocates to build a vibrant and effective movement to end plastic pollution.
Additional Resources:
Plastic Jesus
https://www.creationjustice.org/plasticjesus.html
Overture from the 226th General Assembly
https://www.pc-biz.org/search/3001145
Connecting our Conversations is hosted by the Presbytery of Southern New England, a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This is our space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us deepen discipleship.Connecting our Conversations is hosted by the Presbytery of Southern New England, a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This is our space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us deepen discipleship.
Well, hello everyone. This is Shannon Van Socampo and my pronouns are she and her, and I serve as the general presbyter of the Presbytery of Southern New England and this is Connecting Our Conversations, our podcast space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us to deepen discipleship. The Presbytery of Southern New England is a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church, USA. For today's episode, we're going to be talking about creation care and some resources for your ministry related to that, and I'm really excited to welcome my friend and colleague here in the northeastern part of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, the Reverend Catherine Belke, who serves as the Development Manager for Beyond Plastics, and I know she also does liaison work with faith communities. So, Catherine, we're so glad to have you and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Shannon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's start with some introductions. I love to start off with just giving whoever's on the podcast an opportunity to introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about who you are, in whatever way best makes sense for you. So go ahead and tell us who you are, catherine.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I am Reverend Catherine Bilkey and I'm a Presbyterian lifer, born and raised in St Louis, missouri, and grew up in the Webster Groves Presbyterian Church where I was baptized and confirmed and wanted to continue studying theology when I went off to college at Baylor University, which is a Baptist university. But I found an amazing Presbyterian church there where I began exploring a call to the ministry as I was studying religion in college and was both attending that Presbyterian church but also an incredible ministry called Church Under the Bridge with the Reverend Jimmy Dorrell who also runs a mission there in Waco, texas, called Mission Waco, and I participated in a lot of projects that were oriented towards those who were in vulnerable communities people affected by poverty, drug addiction, not having access to nutritional food, homelessness, all sorts of vexing social issues and sort of. Having been a part of both of those communities at the same time really helped shape my call to the ministry and having a focus on social justice and my studies, which I pursued at Princeton Theological Seminary and then, after graduating, worked for about a decade in Hudson, new York, as the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Hudson and really brought that social justice focus to my ministry, which was an urban ministry, while in a small community, and so it really was exactly where God intended it for me to be at the time.
Speaker 2:But I found in my work with that church that we were all really compelled by this stunning landscape of the Hudson Valley, that that was our reason for, you know, living in this context and wanting, you know, more connection, more sense of connection with creation, with nature, and so we pursued a number of projects in which we could really dig our hands into the dirt quite literally including, you know, building a community garden that was utilized by a lot of partners in the community to have access to fresh produce into several projects that where we were fishing in the Hudson River and we were calling them parable field trips, where we went off and we went to a winery and stomped grapes to reflect on these images that Jesus has given us from creation.
Speaker 2:And then that evolved into a project called Earth Church, which was affiliated with 1001 New Worshiping Communities, and it was just really about recontextualizing worship on a biodynamic farm that was in this community and understanding our role as co-creators with God, and that sort of led me on this journey about caring for creation, but more deeply, in terms of climate change and policy work, and so eventually, when I decided it was time for me to transition out of the congregation, I started working with communities that were navigating New York State's climate law and our Climate Smart Communities Initiative, which is essentially like a a la carte menu of actions that communities can take to both mitigate and adapt to climate change, and so I felt very compelled at the time that, in order to make a real impact, I had to get out of the pulpit and stop talking about our ecological crises and actually focus on actions that were impactful, and so, eventually, that work led me to Beyond Plastics.
Speaker 1:That's great, and it's been fun to be alongside you over the years watching all of these things unfold in ministry. And we could do a whole other podcast right on biodynamic farms and what they have to teach us as faith communities, which I think is a whole other conversation for a whole other day, but it's been really fun learning on these biodynamic farms that are near to where you and I, where we live, so it's really really fun. So I wanted to you know, this is a this sort of podcast series we're starting in the spring of 2025 for the Presbytery we're trying to do some ministry resources, and so I'm really excited to have you on to talk about some ministry resources related to creation care, and so why don't we start with just talking about you know, how you see creation care, the theological pieces of it, what's essential for us as people of faith?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the number one thing for me is that Psalm that says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and we are not the owners of this place that we call home. We are not the arbiters of how it should be treated. We are part of God's creation, not separate from it. God, in fact, created us, the Adam, from the Adamah, from the soil of the earth, and we are inherently in relationship with everything in our ecosystem, and God created all of those things in a way such that there is an intended harmony, and we have disrupted that harmony. It's, you know, no secret. Science has shown us that humans are causing climate change, we are causing ecological destruction, we are bringing death to the planet that God entrusted to our care, and so, for me, it's about recovering that relationship of being a part of creation and being called by God to care for it and to be a co-creator rather than a destroyer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. I love that part in Genesis that I think we often overlook, at the beginning in the creation narratives, where, you know, god invited Adam to give names to the animals, right, god didn't. You know we were part of that naming process and I think if you name something, you have a deeper relationship to it. You know we name our children, we name our pets deeper relationship to it. You know we name our children, we name our pets. You know things like this, and these are close familial love relationships and so if we, you know, in an ancestral sort of way, we're part of the naming of these creatures, what's our relationship right to them?
Speaker 1:And we think about the climate crisis and the mass extinction events that are happening with our animal siblings and you know, flora and fauna siblings, ecosystem siblings what does that say to us as people of faith? You know, what should we be about? These are super deep questions for me and, I think, really primal questions as people of faith. So, um, I appreciate you starting there. Uh, both in in Genesis, but also in the Psalms, um, you know, which are just such beautiful pieces of poetry in the scripture.
Speaker 2:And I appreciate you, you framing it as a start, because none of us know how to untangle ourselves from the, you know, from the systems that we are a part of, from capitalism and from systems that inherently hurt and harm our fellow siblings in creation, in creation.
Speaker 1:So you know, I certainly only have questions rather than answers, but it's you know, led me to this point in my journey, yeah, yeah, well, one of the things I know you work on specifically right now is you work with an organization called Beyond Plastics, and there's so many, so many pieces to the harm that's happening to God's gorgeous and beautiful creation and that we are called upon, as people of faith, to be repairing and getting in the way of, and one of those pieces that's just so excuse me endemic and also just ubiquitous, right, like it's everywhere, is this question of plastics, right? I mean, they're all over our lives. I'm sitting here at my desk right now and, like I just see plastic, plastic, plastic, plastic, plastic, right. I'm looking at my computer and there's plastics like sitting right in front of me on my computer screen.
Speaker 1:And you know, there's some pens sitting here and I see plastics in them, and I have a little collection of rubber duckies that I have. It's probably really terrible, but you know, I think they're kind of funny and those are plastic. So I'm just looking like I just see plastic around me, right, and I think that's for everybody. And so can you say a little bit about some of the specifics of that work and about plastics and the role that they have in the climate crisis and you know how that's impacting the climate crisis and I think we're all swimming right in a sea of plastic these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean certainly any one of us through observation. As you have noticed, the incursion of plastics into nearly every facet of our lives is exacerbating the climate crisis and it's impacting environmental justice communities and it's a public health crisis. Micro and nanoplastics, which we cannot well, microplastics are any plastic smaller than a pencil tip, but nanoplastics are plastic polymers we cannot even see with the naked eye. They have been found on the highest mountaintop. They've been found on the top of Mount Everest. They have been found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. They are in snow, they are in rain, they are in the air we breathe, in snow, they are in rain, they are in the air we breathe.
Speaker 2:So pollution over the last 50 years, or 75 years, since plastics really were, you know, produced initially in the 1950s, um, has resulted in this crisis of, you know, basically every molecule of plastics that's ever been produced. It exists somewhere on this planet and, unfortunately, what really gets in the way of our conversation is so many people believe that recycling is the answer to the plastic pollution crisis, when in fact, only 9% of the material ever produced has been effectively recycled. I'm talking globally, and in the United States, the plastics recycling rate is less than 6%. So the industry has done an incredible job of convincing us that this is an us problem, we're not recycling correctly enough. They've really shifted the public narrative onto personal and individual responsibility, when in fact, they are the ones to blame for this crisis. So, in terms of its climate impacts, you know plastics are responsible over the course of their life cycle, from extraction, production, use, transportation, use and disposal. They are responsible for the equivalent the greenhouse gas emissions equivalent of 116 coal-fired power plants and are projected to exceed the entire coal sector by the year 2030. So production is just really accelerating and even as it stands right now, if plastics were a country, it would be the fifth largest source of emissions globally, behind only the United States, russia, india and China. So plastics are certainly responsible for accelerating the global climate crisis. They're made out of fossil fuels. The main feedstocks of plastics are oil, coal and gas, and we tend to focus on other sectors of emissions when we're talking about the climate crisis. But aviation being an example, you know people are always talking about your, you know, in considering your own individual carbon footprint footprint not to fly right, but plastics are responsible for four times more emissions than the entire global aviation industry combined. So plastics have a huge climate impact.
Speaker 2:But they also have a huge impact on environmental justice communities. The places where petrochemical facilities are located and plastic production plants or ethane crackers and garbage incinerators, they're not located in well-off communities. They're located in majority low-income and black and brown communities. So that's a huge environmental justice issue because these facilities are polluting people. And take the area that's 85 miles long along the Mississippi River in Louisiana which is called Cancer Alley, because rates of pollution-related illnesses and cancer are disproportionately higher there than in the general population. So this is an environmental justice issue.
Speaker 2:It's also a public health issue because we have microplastics in our brains, in our hearts, in our blood. It has even crossed over the placenta, it is in human breast milk and now our babies are being born pre-polluted with microplastics. And so, you know, I think that that in particular is really a new avenue to pursue for theological reflection. Like what does it mean that what we toss out with such carelessness from single you know, 44% of all plastics are single use plastics what we so carelessly, you know, use for a matter of minutes, ends up. It comes back to us in the form of microplastics. You know. It reminds me of the quote from Chief Seattle. Like what we do to our planet, we do to ourselves, and I think this illustrates that so tangibly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this idea that we are to be stewards of the created order and stewards of each other and stewards of our, you know, other siblings in creation, when we are polluting or participating in pollution or we have these big things that are very hard to wrap our minds around and even affect you know, that's a theological issue because it's creating harm. It's creating harm just in like individual people with illness and sickness, and then it's creating community harm and injustice in that harm. When you think about you know where these factories are located, regulations, or you know we, you know we basically put our trash and our plastic somewhere else and make, you know, our use, someone else's harm. And we have to ask questions of ourselves, I think, as people of faith, like who are we, what are we doing, who are we being? And also the question also of like grace, of it's not up to us necessarily as individuals, but what are we part of as larger groups. And so you know, these feel like really big theological questions to be considering for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and definitely. I mean, this issue has such depth and breadth and it can be so overwhelming and activate all those climate anxieties and ecological grief that we have, and it's easy to feel helpless and it's easy to feel despairing when you really come to terms with the reality of the plastic pollution crisis. But I think what you just highlighted about grace, like how to approach this from a perspective of not blaming ourselves and not blaming one another, because while we all participate in this system, we are entrenched in it not by choice, and it has been foisted upon us by the petrochemical, fossil fuel and plastics industries, and there is broad bipartisan public support for banning plastics globally, public support for not permitting new petrochemical facilities and continuing to build out the infrastructure that will create more plastics that we don't need. But the industry is incredibly powerful. They have resources and access that we don't have as the people, and so we cannot lose sight of that when we're, you know, judging one another for our own individual actions and our use of plastics. A lot of people don't have access to alternatives. There's not a lot on the market. You and I are both very fortunate to have the Albany Honest Way Food Co-op as a resource where you can bring refillables and you don't have to use plastic packaging if you shop there. You know that's a pretty rare resource.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we you know our focus at Beyond Plastics is really on upstream solutions to stop on packaging and the state establishes a reduction target. So we have a bill in New York right now that reduces. It's called the Packaging, reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act and it will reduce plastic packaging by 30% over 12 years and require that the remainder of packaging actually be refillable or recyclable at a rate of 70%, and that's to give the consumer the options that we don't have. And we have to regulate the plastics industry through legislative means. There's really there's no other corporate pressure. Campaigns haven't worked. I mean, we have a chart that we use about corporate voluntary pledges to reduce reliance on virgin plastics and every single corporate commitment. They're all falling way, way behind commitment. They're all falling way, way behind. You know, I think policy really is the answer to the crisis, but there are things that we can do just to feel more aligned in our individual households and the communities that we participate in to reduce our use of plastics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm also reminded, as we're talking, that the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church last summer passed an overture related specifically to plastics. That was in the Environmental Committee and Nicole Aronson-Champaign, who's a member of Southern New England Presbyterian, was one of our commissioners to the General Assembly and got assigned through the computer sorting hat of the General Assembly where people get assigned. She got assigned to the Environmental Committee and came back really interested in this overture. And you know, this overture calls upon for us to commit ourselves as a church, as a people of faith and as a social organization embodying Christian values, to and there's five things here. One, encourage all our settings to commit to changing from a disposable culture to a reusable, sustainable one. Encourage education in our congregations and our communities.
Speaker 1:So hopefully this conversation is part of that response to this overture. Encourage all settings of the church to determine the best pathway for strategies and actions to mitigate plastic pollution and give some examples and then reduce the use what you were just talking about of single-use plastics and packaging. We can talk about some of those strategies for churches in a minute and commend all settings of the church to join in possible opportunities for participation in addressing plastic pollution. And then gives a whole bunch of different ideas, from small scale to medium scale to even big scale and inviting. And it's mandated now that our mission responsibility, through investment committee of the national church, that does do that corporate shareholder engagement to even big scale and inviting.
Speaker 1:And it's mandated now that our mission responsibility, through investment committee of the national church, that does do that corporate shareholder engagement, starts working on this issue of plastics as part of their portfolio of work. And so you know that big picture and and even says and I really appreciate this that we should acknowledge that there needs to be some accommodations in our expectations for some impacted groups, such as those who are disabled and unhoused. And so you know, considering, you know some of those pieces. So I'm glad we're having this conversation because I think oftentimes something happens at the General Assembly and it's like this big thing out there and there's some really specific ways we can get actualized around those things. And then it's also really exciting when we have actual Presbyterian ministers like you who are working in this area and thinking about, you know, something that is this specific but is really something we need to be talking about, and the General Assembly is now, you know, sort of put on everybody's plate as one of the actions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so one of the first things I because I work on faith relationships at Beyond Plastics one of the first things I did was create a resource for houses of worship of any faith tradition, and you can find that if you just Google faith beyond plastics, it'll be the first thing that comes up.
Speaker 1:And we'll add that to the show notes for sure.
Speaker 2:We've got a lot of resources in there.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So, basically, you know, the resource outlines sort of three steps. One is about you know, which I outlined, as I called it, speak the truth. One is just about educating your congregation on the nature of the plastic pollution crisis, and there's a number of resources hyperlinked in there. We have a ton of fact sheets at Beyond Plastics to help resource you in that way. So, you know, for adult education, for liturgy and for preaching, those are great resources. Education for liturgy and for preaching, those are great resources. And then the second is about walking the talk.
Speaker 2:Again, we do have control over the items that we bring into our houses of worship if we're intentional about it. So there are some suggestions in there for you know general operations and you know office and building management, also for worship and the materials that we bring into worship special occasions, meal service, programs. So there's a bunch of resources related to that. And then the last one is about walking the halls. Okay, so learning how to become activists on the issue, because, again, the actions that we can take as individuals will only have so much impact.
Speaker 2:Speaking to legislators, it's going to require lobbying activities which maybe some people of faith may not feel comfortable with, but it's what's necessary to. It's the means to the real ends that we want, which is to stop the production and the proliferation of plastics. There's just no other way, and so we have template campaigns available. We have. We actually have an upcoming training at Beyond Plastics. It's totally free grassroots activism training and that's coming up on May 3rd.
Speaker 2:Flexible meetings for schedules and we can. If you have meeting notes, we can link to that as well, and we also do have a course through Bennington College that you can audit for a small fee, just about the plastic pollution crisis in general. But it's, you know, that's where the rubber meets. The road is in this policy work, and people of faith have such a powerful voice in these coalitions of activists working on this issue. Legislators listen to both clergy and and people who identify with faith traditions, and so we can't underestimate the power of our voice and our values in in this, this sector. So I really, really encourage people of faith to get out there, beyond the walls of their church, and share the message with the people who are in power and make decisions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and I think that idea of reducing plastic use and considering I'm thinking as you're talking, I'm thinking about things like you know, church, school and all the kind of you know things we buy to do with kids. You know these sort of tactile activities and how you can do. You can do things differently.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was growing up, my mom used to make our Play-Doh. I it's it's some recipe involving salt and flour and coloring, something like that, and so I think that ways like you could, you know, do that and you could still do play-doh right for your pre-K kids in church, but you don't have to buy like play-doh like at you know Target or something like that, right, you can like. There's other ways of doing the same thing and it's it's kind of the it's more fun. I remember it being fun when my mom used to like make Play-Doh and my friends and I could, like you know, make our own colors and stuff Like we liked that better, and so I think sometimes going back and getting old school can be really a fun thing to do and you know, we survived without plastics for a long time and we had wonderful things like milk and Play-Doh, and also, you know, we, somehow we managed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think old going old school is is the way for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm realized like I'm getting older and I'm just old enough to remember like milk delivery and we got milk in the glass bottles.
Speaker 1:And I mean we lived in like the suburbs of Philadelphia, literally a mile outside of the city line, like I didn't grow up in some like far away place, like I grew up like right in a big city, but we still got like milk delivered and things like that and that's those are, and there's all sorts of ways you can think about making small changes and bigger changes and then ramping them up as you go.
Speaker 1:And as a person of faith, then, right, it gets you more connected to your community and you get to know, if you do opt for something like milk delivery today, that means you're going to get to know that local farm and you're going to be interested in them and that's going to be a community connection and that's a way of potentially sharing your faith or knowing someone else or they, knowing who you are and what your commitments are. You just never know where God's going to use or take those sorts of encounters, and so I just you know, I think I also want to throw in a plug for that of as we do new things. You know, god's going to show up and unexpected pieces are going to start happening with it. That's how God works, typically Agreed, absolutely, yeah, yeah. So I had forgotten about that until we started talking.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, I remember the Plato talking, I was like, oh, I remember the play-doh. Yeah, I mean, and I agree, as as a parent of younger children, I used it's like it happened so quick where I used to say of little kids and now, now I say younger children, they're so fast. But you know, we go to birthday parties and there's little bags full of tchotchkes and they're all just crap. You know things that bake within a day and then they end up in the garbage because what else, what else can I do with them? You know, and that's like really heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:And we do bring a lot of that stuff into our congregations and there are some hints in here about things like that in the in the toolkit that we created. One thing is you know, like that in the in the toolkit that we created, um. One thing is you know, reuse the easter eggs every year, collect them from the children after the hunt and just reuse them. I mean, in my home we use, like wooden eggs and that's not necessarily like accessible um, because there are, they're pretty expensive, honestly, but we use very few, right, collecting those Easter eggs and, for a Jewish congregation, using wooden dreidels at Hanukkah rather than little plastic ones. So many little things that once you get intentional about it and you really drill down to the minutia of your operations, you'll see so much plastics in there. But you know, one of the things we recommend in the toolkit is first adopting a policy and then auditing all the materials that are coming in and then evaluating. You know what the alternatives are and there's some suggestions in there as well.
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah, no, this is really helpful, and I also am remembering you did a was it a study guide with Creation Care Ministries for Lent? It was something like that that you worked on with them. Yeah, creation.
Speaker 2:Justice Ministries has another resource called Plastic Jesus you can download. We can probably put that in the meeting notes too to download that resource and that really and it's also hyperlinked within the resource, the our resource that really can help inform worship. It's really meant to be more of a theological tool for reflection and then ours is more about like taking action. So they really they work well hand in hand with one another.
Speaker 1:Okay, great Plastic Jesus, that would be good. Sort of riffing off those little plastic Jesuses that people you know put places and take around with them, right, right exactly, it was a song too right, isn't it? Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there is a song, yes, yes. So, um, yeah, I'm also working on a resource for Lent, because I'm currently you know, we're currently in Lent and for the last few years I have fasted from plastics, um, with some very small exceptions for, like caps on things and whatnot, like stickers on fruit, and you know, very minor exceptions and you can, you can approach it with whatever caveats you want, but, you know, I think Lent is really it's meant to be a time when we really challenge ourselves and fasting from plastics is a huge challenge and it's such a powerful exercise in consciousness raising about how much we really do rely upon plastic. So this year I'm sort of taking notes as I go about my fast and trying to put together some helpful hints. So next year, in, you know, january or February, I can release a resource because this is really a growing movement of Christians who are taking this on. It's really powerful and I recommend that anybody, any version of it is really it's helpful in just opening your eyes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always tell people Lent is the time to do these things right.
Speaker 1:I, years ago, was just trying to decide whether or not I would go vegetarian, really for faith-based reasons. I was really concerned about the abuse of animals and what that meant for us as people of faith and also climate impacts, and so I was beginning to sort of ease into it by eliminating, you know, just pork and then beef, and beginning to ease into it. But I preached a sermon what was it? 13 or so years ago, to the congregation I was serving at the time on Ash Wednesday, and basically said to everyone like this is going to be my Lenten practice, I'm going to completely go vegetarian during this Lent. One like this is going to be my Lenten practice. I'm going to completely go vegetarian during this Lent. And you know what's the why behind it, what's the Lenten practice and inviting people into a conversation right about that. And I've pretty much been vegetarian ever since. So it's you know Lent can really it can be a time to help us really be intentional and to think about our faith and how it is lived out in our personal discipleship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would say Lent, you know, has had my fast from plastics really had a very similar impact in terms of I've just adopted, because when you get into certain habits you know it facilitates adopting them year round, and so a lot of it has just stuck so that every year when I re approach, when I approach Lent, I can, I can actually challenge myself even more, because some of the things that I started in the previous year like, for example, like in the very first year I did it, I bought a ton of glass like spray bottles for all my cleaning products and then I started getting those little concentrates from I buy them from Grove, but there's other companies that make them but just little cleaning product concentrates and now I just use them all the time so I don't buy any plastic cleaning products. So you know, now, when I, when I approach Lent, there are new things that I can consider. So I that's it's totally kickstart a lot of just my lifestyle habits.
Speaker 1:Right, Right, yeah, yeah, for sure, and it's I think these are just, you know, being intentional. The real question is right, right, Intentionality about our faith journey, both as people and as communities, and this is one really key way to consider intentionality and consider spiritual growth by you know folks that talk about the climate crisis that it's not a technical crisis or a scientific crisis or even a pollution crisis, that the climate crisis is really a spiritual crisis because it's a crisis of relationship and how we relate to the creation and how we relate to the earth, and it's a spiritual crisis that we should all consider from that perspective we should all consider from that perspective.
Speaker 2:I really resonate with that idea, me too, and the fact that you know I don't really have any other theological lens for understanding plastics aside from sin. Honestly, and again, like you know, we're Presbyterian, so we're not shy of talking about sin, especially during Lent. But that's why Lent provides such an appropriate framework, I think, for delving into what's my participation in this system that is sinful in that it's having these extremely harmful impacts on all of creation, and yet every day I'm participating in it. And so I just think, you know, reflection upon that, you know, not in a way that it's self, because we don't want to live at the expense of our siblings in creation, and so, just like the opportunity to get in touch with coming home to yourself, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah for sure. Well, I'm so glad we've had you on the, on the podcast, catherine, and to talk about these things, and I can't wait to see the Lenten resource. And you know it's been. I've been so lucky to be with you in ministry for the last gosh. How long has it been? It's been longer than a decade, which is kind of amazing. But but the evolution is always so interesting to me.
Speaker 2:And I give you Shannon every Easter, because Shannon baptized my daughter Harvest yeah. I got to baptize her On Easter Sunday 2015 or 2016. 2016. Yeah, yeah, and so you know those Facebook memories pop up every year of her in her little plate dress and you're carrying her around the sanctuary, and so it's a really special memory and it's such a cool thing to be bonded with you over.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, and you helped me get my first chicken, so that's also very special, and I know the Presbytery is exhausted by hearing about the chickens, but you know, catherine.
Speaker 2:Once you have them, you can't stop.
Speaker 1:I know it's addictive and it's good that there's a limit where I live of just six, because I could see myself getting into serious trouble here.
Speaker 2:So there's imposed limits.
Speaker 1:There's imposed limits, which is good for someone like me who could really kind of, you know, go off into you know another zone somewhere. So so one of the questions I've been asking people lately it's actually a question I'm borrowing from a from a climate podcast I listened to called Outrage and Optimism, and which is really great. And their closing question is to ask people like what's one thing you're outraged about and what's something then this work that's making you optimistic and why? And so I feel like the Presbyterian spin on that question is like where do you see total depravity and where do you see the Holy Spirit showing up? And like what's the challenge, what's the hope? You know what's making you just go completely out of your mind these days in your ministry and in this work, and what? Where do you see the movement of the spirit? You know, any way, you want to answer that big question.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean I could certainly answer as it relates to plastics, or I could. I mean, what is there not to be outraged over these days? I have to say I will start with what's giving me hope is Wisconsin. I was so encouraged to see that, you know, bribing people to vote doesn't work. I teach my children that cheaters never prosper and as we heard, you know, that adage when we were growing up and it's nice to see that it hasn't gone out of style yet, at least in America's dairy land where we vacation in the summer. So we I'm very proud of, you know, democracy having a win. So you know that's not necessarily the Holy Spirit at work, but yet it is because that's justice, you know, the will of the people being heard. So that is to me a glimmer of hope. That just happened just yesterday.
Speaker 2:And you know outrage I mean I try honestly, I really am trying hard not to be outraged.
Speaker 2:I I'm not surprised. I can say that I'm never surprised at what's happening in this country Right, right now. I think it is sort of the the natural end to things that have long been in place, but I will say like the gutting of our, you know, regulatory agencies like the EPA, and having a new mission, completely contrary to its mandate, is particularly enraging. And so, you know, also, I just I ordered the couple books from Rebecca Salmet about communities that have resisted, and I think we need to, I think we need to take some, we need to be listening and attune our ears to people who've been long fighting pollution in their communities and fighting for clean air and clean water, fighting pipelines, and, you know, hearing their stories and their victories, that seemed impossible against all odds, and so to me, you know it's, it's outrage, but it's also I just look at it as an opportunity to dig further into my calling, which is to grow closer to those voices and to listen and draw nearer to those communities. So that's my takeaway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've talked to so many pastors in the last couple months and all of them are saying the same thing to me, which is that this moment that we're living in, which is full of so many challenges, this is the opportunity to really go back and focus on the gospel and to really focus on Jesus and what he's asking of us. And you know what is resurrection, what is new life, what is wholeness and I love Jesus talking about I came to bring new life to all of creation. You know, talking about I came to bring new life to all of creation. You know that Jesus's ministry was that big and that wide and that open for everybody and everything.
Speaker 1:And so I just I hear a lot of people saying we've got to go back to basics, we've got to go back to the gospel, we've got to go back to the Bible and we've got to really dig into what's really there and dig into our faith. And you know, let a thousand flowers bloom, right, I mean, I think it will. Just, I really am hoping and praying for that renewal of the church and the renewal of each of us, because I think that that is one of the ways, you know, we get to healing, and not just for ourselves, but for all of those that we're in community with. So so I hear that in you and in your work too, catherine, so I'm grateful for you.
Speaker 2:I'm grateful for you. Thank you for everything you're doing, Shona.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Well, thanks for being on our podcast and being part of connecting the conversations, and we will link all of these resources we talked about in the podcast notes. So you just click on that notes section in your podcast area and whatever however, you get your podcast. I know our podcast goes out in all sorts of different ways and people listen to it and we're grateful for you, catherine, for your ministry and all the ways we can dig into being ambassadors and disciples for Jesus and people who love God and love the created order. So thanks again and may this Lent continue to be fruitful for you.
Speaker 2:And to you as well. Peace be with you, thank you. Bye, shannon, bye.