2011 Seminary Network Meeting Day 1 - Austin

One of the areas of church engagement of Episcopal Relief & Development is their Abundant Life Garden Project.  Brian Sellers-Peterson uses this program to illustrate how much a community garden in America looks like a community garden in the developing world.  As a suggestion he told us that we could grow vegetables at every parish, convent, monastery, and seminary.  Even if these vegetables are grown in container gardens, it is still plausible that we could produce food.

Right now, CDSP is trying to re-imagine what community looks like, how we can make on campus student meals more affordable, and how to better use the physical resources and real estate.  It should be no surprise that I think we should frame these imaginings within a framework of incarnating our baptismal covenant through stewardship of the environment.  With that in mind I would ask CDSP doesn't dig up our the grass on campus?  Can't we rid ourselves of the lawnmowers and take up spades.  Why can't the community build itself around growing our life together through the soil.  We have the distinct pleasure of living an area where the weather is conducive to growing all year long.

Perhaps we can integrate the kitchen area, already present in the common area, into a sustainable cafe.  A business project that would draw people from the campus and neighborhood.  We can display our dedication to humanitarian work of environmental justice by using food grown on campus and locally, compostable flat ware, taking serious advantage of the resources that faith provides us in an immense love of food.  As an aside, even Texas A&M has a sustainable cafe - if the Texans can commit to that, why can't we in the heart of Berkeley commit to it?

Maybe it is time to make a radical change in how we imagine ourselves in community.  Cancel our contract with PSR food services and make it a student responsibility.  We could hire a full time gardener who can also provide permaculture education.  We could be a model of urban eco-justice work and provide more than just meeting and classroom space for the community.  We can provide insights into how our faith informs relationships with the environment and our neighbors.



We can even raise awareness of Episcopal Relief & Development by integrating their educational curriculum.  Is it that easy?  No, of course not.  However, I think the work is worth the effort.

-Jonathan Potter

Seminary Representative Visits Eco-Justice Immersion Leadership Conference

I love the opportunity to explain the work of Episcopal Relief & Development to my non-churchy friends. They are often surprised to hear a faith based organization mobilizes people within their local community to empower development around the world. I am often reminded of the bumper sticker: think globally, act locally. When Episcopal Relief & Development asked me, a seminary representative from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, to attend the Episcopal Leadership Institute's Eco-Justice Immersion I was excited but confused. I saw only a tenuous connection between international development and eco-justice.

The event drew participants from around the nation.
L-R, Leanne Gehrig, IL. Caleb Richmond, WA. Ashley
Graham-Wilcox, CA. Christy Dargas, AZ. Rick Richards, MA.

The realization that community gardens look the same in Honduras as in Huston was not lost on me. That, however, was not really the focus of the week. While, yes, it is important to recognize that, as Brian Sellers-Peterson says, all you need to know about the Christian faith you can learn from a garden, the event delved deeper. Local community is like a metaphor for events happening globally. The worker injustices that happen at home are often mirrored and amplified in developing countries. Ecological injustices found on American soil can often be seen in new and horrifying fashions overseas.

Speaking of eco-things, it is worth taking a moment to examine this as a paradigmatic term. The prefix eco- has come a long way since its origins. We now associate it with the Prius, Recovery Act job creation, and expensive household products. The Greek origin, oikos roughly means household or home. When we think of ecology or economy we are thinking of ways in which we relate to and structure home. In thinking of justice issues surrounding these eco- words we must both look outside and within ourselves to fully realize our connection with home; justice, then, emerges as the recognition that through our structure of oikos we are drawn into relationship with all creation.

Jessie Dye of Earth Ministries talking about advocacy

After the week of conversation, led by Mike Schut and Jason Sierra, both of the Episcopal Church Offices in Seattle, I gained not only a better understanding of how to relate to my local communities concerns but also how to recognize a need for radical change on a systemic level. Episcopal Relief & Development works much the same way: local community action based within a world of radical systemic change. Our relationship with home and our neighbors requires us to be responsible stewards of a global community. Theologian Cynthia Moe Lobeda suggests that in this time of ecological crisis that if we, as people of faith, find God in all things, are we crucifying him once again? I would suggest that recognizing the local injustice against our neighbor is the same as recognizing global injustice against our home.