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Living Rightly with God’s Earth – Part 1

Nathan Aaberg —  October 3, 2019 — Leave a comment

When I spoke to the North Suburban Mennonite Church earlier this summer, I joked that I had been tempted to shared a list of 700 ways for living rightly on God’s earth. 

Surprisingly enough, several members said they actually wanted such detailed guidance. So I promised to gather my thoughts and advice and share them. With this post I begin to fulfill that promise to a wonderful group of people.

I am dividing my list of suggestions into three areas with a separate post for each. This first epic post is about aligning our everyday habits of living out our faith as it relates to God’s earth. In the second I’ll address how you and I can act for God’s earth beyond our families at the larger scale of our communities, nations, and world.

The third post may surprise you. Its focus will be growing our hearts and minds in relation to God and Creation. I fundamentally believe that our ability to be a good shepherd of God’s earth is shaped in large part by the state of our hearts and the perspective of our minds.

One of the challenges to living out God’s ways in any dimension of our lives is our tendency to allow energetic commmitment to turn into perfectionistic zeal. The reality, however, is that we and everyone else around us will fall short of holiness. What’s more, navigating the complex ways we interact with God’s earth every day in a complex society makes pure living as it relates to God’s earth especially hard to do. 

Striving to live rightly with God’s earth will put you and I in that paradoxical space where grace, faith, an understanding of the tragic fallibility of people, and a fierce hunger for holiness and God’s kingdom all come together. We somehow need to be tenacious and committed without becoming humorless, judgmental, puritanical  zealots who put our attention to God’s earth above all other Christians values. We must give ourselves and others room to get better over time and make mistakes.

This is not easy. We will experience a rollercoaster of emotions in that paradoxical space. We will need God’s help to live out God’s ways with glad and sincere hearts.

WAYS OF LIVING

In Atomic Habits, James Clear writes: “Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

Cover of Atomic Habits book

The fact that you are reading this indicates that you and your family want to be people who preserve, defend, and renew God’s Creation as part of a whole Christian faith. That means creating habits. Habits are intentions translated into consistent actions.

From my experience, changing habits takes an initial investment of energy, new thinking, and change. As we know from physics, it takes energy to move a body out of a state of inertia. The good news, however, is that once new habits are in place, they will become, well, habits and have an inertia of their own. They will become automatic. Once they are automatic, you can free yourself up to be involved in the protection and renewal of God’s earth at a larger scale in a focused way. I would encourage you to read Atomic Habits to gain insights into practical ways you can build positve habits of any kind.

Your changes will not go unnoticed. You will stand out. The larger culture tends to praise us for changed behavior that fits what society appreciates, like fitness and health. But changing one’s life in a direction that challenges society because it honors God can lead to pushback. But that shouldn’t surprise us. What might surprise you is how putting a whole faith into action and facing challenges related to those actions can grow your trust and faith. You’ll also find that once you can create positive habits in one area of your life you’ll be able do so in other areas as well.

Choose Grace-Filled Food 

When you begin to think about the whole faith habits you want to build, start with food.

Our food choices are the single most important way we influence the condition of God’s earth. Three times a day (or more, of course, if you are like me or a hobbit), seven days a week we choose food to eat. That food has come from people using God’s earth. Our food choices make us part of either good systems of using God’s earth or ones that dishonor God. And oftentimes, the systems are somewhere in between.

As Wendell Berry wrote, “Eating is an agricultural act.” So choose, as best you can, to buy food that came from farms where the fruits of the spirit guided how the land and animals of that farm were treated. Choose to be part of agriculture that fits with the values of God’s Kingdom.

Saying Grace by Norman Rockwell - The food we eat should have been produced with grace.

In Good Eating Stephen Webb encourages Christians to consider if there is grace in the food we say grace over. Make it your habit to seek out grace-filled food. (Painting by Norman Rockwell – Saying Grace)

This is not easy. The following are some tips and ideas.

Eat whole foods as much as possible: Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food does a good job of laying out the value of eating foods that are actually food, not processed food-like substances.

Avoid meat from factory farms and fish from fish farms: Factory farms (otherwise known as confined animal feeding operations) are not built on the fruits of the spirit. You will not find love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in those places. Factory farms are also awful to neighbors living nearby.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of meat, eggs, and dairy you’ll find in grocery stores and restaurants come from factory farms. These factory farms can be buildings where the animals spend their whole lives or feedlots where cattle spend some of their lives. This means we need to do extra work to find ethically raised animal products.

Look for certifications that give you extra assurance. This article introduces you to certification options and their relative strengths.  Also look to buy from local livestock farmers who can tell you exactly how they raise their animals.

Be thoughtful, too, in your fish purchases. Do not buy farmed fish. Buy sustainably raised fish. (I cannot help but be increasingly alarmed, by the way, by the prospect of fish increasingly absorbing plastic from the oceans.)

Seek out plant foods grown with fruits of the spirit: Consider carefully where your other food, especially the food you eat the most of, comes from as well. Annual crops like wheat, corn, and soy beans, which dominate our agricultural landscape, are often grown in ways that, again, are at complete odds with the fruits of the spirit.

Here are two examples of farm chemicals used widely on annual crops that are incompatible with a Christian faith-life. Dicamba easily volatilizes and can damage crops, trees, and other vegetation more than 20 miles away from where it was first sprayed. Neonicitinoid pesticides are another example of human ingenuity gone badly wrong. Learn more here.

To avoid supporting the use of those chemicals and ingesting chemicals like them, I encourage you to look for organic products where possible. I also have deep concerns about GMOs as there is no testing or regulation of them. Buying organic foods or foods with the Non GMO Project label are good ways to avoid them.

Buy Local: By buying food from local farmers we reduce pollution from transportation and build up your local community’s economy. However, making the decision between buying food from an exceptionally grace-filled farm far away (like Wild Idea Buffalo) or buying food that is moderately sustainable but grown very close by can be a difficult one. Do the best you can.

Last thoughts: First, I would encourage you to make your first food habit changes with the 2-3 foods you eat the most of. If your family eats a lot of bread, for example, find a good organic bread (and it’s even better if it’s from your local area or region) and start buying that.

Second, surprisingly enough, choosing to buy food that is compatible with the fruits of the spirit and the value of Creation to God is healthier for you and your family. This is another reminder that the kingdom of God is a wonderful, life-giving state of being.

Third, buying truly good food is usually more expensive. This shouldn’t be surprising. Nor should that fact deter you.

Anything that is important to do well (like relationships and parenting) takes more effort, time, and investment. Your family’s health, the fianncial health of farmers and farm workers, and the health of God’s earth are all very important. Doing right by all of them creates a fundamental tension with the push to offer food as cheaply as possible.

You can find creative ways to figure out how to make God-honoring food fit into your budget. Start by eating out less. Live more simply in general. Again, within the limits of your situation, do the best you can in creative ways and prioritize where you can make the most difference.

Fourth, there are some people who care deeply for God’s earth who believe we should not eat any meat. After many years of being a vegetarian, I’ve come to a more nuanced conclusion. This is partly because the studies that generally state that beef production, for example, are bad for the climate don’t distinguish between sustainable cattle grazing and conventional approaches. Here’s an article that highlights the complexities.

I’ve also come to see that the most soil-building forms of food farming always, like nature, integrate animals for fertility and other benefits.  Animals can be cherished partners in rejuvenating the world. We should, of course, do all we can to avoid meat that is raised and slaughtered in ways counter to the fruits of the spirit. And because meat raised with the fruits of the Spirit will be more expensive, we will likely need to eat less meat. But life is on this earth is inherently paradoxical and built on sacrifice. I’ve come to an uneasy peace with the idea of conscious, conscientious consumption of meat.

Fifth, we should be careful not to judge the character of the many farmers using conventional methods. As I wrote in this blog post, American farmers today work within a system that pulls and pushes them towards using chemicals and valuing production volume over all else. Most are decent, hard-working people. Many are Christian who have been immersed in the theology of dominion and the corporate-supported slogan of “feeding the world.”

Finally, food is at the heart of culture and sociability. Be senstive in how you handle your ethics in other settings when you are offered hospitality. Not everyone sees the linkage between trying to live ethically as part of a faith-life and our interactions with God’s earth.

Bring Life to Your Land

You likely have control or input over how a particular piece of God’s earth is treated. This could be your yard. It could be farmland you farm. It could be land you own that someone else uses for farming or some other activity. Or even be the common spaces of a condominium in which you live or at the church which you attend.

Trail scene in Prairie Crossing. Living rightly on God's earth means carefully using each patch of Creation carefully.

People can bring life to their land on their own home properties and even to the land of whole communities. This is a part of the Prairie Crossing conservation community in Grayslake, Illinois, where I live. Prairies and other natural habitat have been extensively restored, providing habitat for the life of God’s earth.

The more control you have over a piece of land the more effort and thought you should give to having it stewarded in ways that honor God and promote God’s glory. For yards and common spaces, planting native plants and avoiding the use of chemicals as much as possible is key. For farmland, use practices that promote life, especially the life of the soil. These include using cover crops, regenerative grazing, longer rotations (corn-beans-wheat is a longer rotation than just corn and beans), and converting some areas to perennial plants. Whether you’re a farmer, a farmland owner, or both, you’ll be inspired by these words from Christian farmer Joel Salatin.

Reduce and Eliminate Harmful Chemicals

Look for safe alternatives to chemicals for cleaning your home and caring for your lawn. Baking soda and vinegar are surprisingly useful.

Reduce Use of Resources

Energy is a good place to start here. Find ways to reduce your use of energy in every form. Find ways to use renewable energy.

Avoid using disposable items whenever possible. My wife Mayumi, for example, bought us a camping backpack with plates, cups, and utensils. We can bring this to events where people would otherwise use plastic utensils and paper plates. Buy products made with recycled and/or compostable materials. Buy products that will last rather than cheap products that you’ll need to replace much sooner. Try to live close to work so you use fewer resources going back and forth and have more time for family and other life pursuits.

Live Simply

The simpler the way you live the richer your actual life even as you have less impact on God’s earth. Do without whenever you can. Walk or bike when you can. Observe a Sabbath. Value experiences over material goods.

Pray for God’s Earth and Those who Protect It

If we believe that prayer matters and is heard by God, then we should be praying for Creation. We should also pray for the people, like farmers, who use it every day. Urge God to open their hearts so they will be attentive to the fate of God’s life in their hands.

Finally, we should pray for the people who are trying to understand and protect God’s earth. The scientists who are paying attention to the degradation of natural systems and the advocates who are speaking up face many difficulties. They often grieve deeply when they see the earth’s life diminished and destroyed. Because they stand in the way of greed and power, defenders of the earth often face death.

Use Money with a God Filter

This principle applies to food and materials. For example, choose products (like computers) designed to  be easily recycled. Avoid buying products with palm oil unless it has been sourced sustainably. Avoid products with plastic packaging where possible. Try to support companies that do their best to ethically produce the goods and services you need. Consider whether they treat people and Creation well.

Green Burial

Let your body do what it’s designed to do – return to dust. The traditional approach to burial use bad news for God’s earth. Cremation is one option. Another is green burial where your body is allowed to decompose naturally. The very best option along these lines is what is called conservation burial, where the green burial takes place in a natural setting that is being actively managed for conservation. The number of these kinds of cemeteries is growing, but they can still be hard to find.

Choosing natural burial is a strong statement of your faith and your life principles. It is the punctuation mark for how you have tried to live.

Share Your Joy of Creation

Earlier this summer I heard a harsh, loud sounds coming from our bur oak tree in our yard. I didn’t recognize the sounds. I thought it might be an upset squirrel or a large bird I didn’t know. While looking in the tree, I saw a small bird moving about. Even though the bird was opening and closing its beak in a way that corresponded with the sounds I literally couldn’t believe that this small bird (a house wren) could responsible for such a large auditory impact. I had to share that story and I did.

Share your joy of Creation with others, both Christians and non-Christians. When friends go on vacations to places with significant wildness, for example, ask them what wildlife they saw.

What’s the point? We don’t live in isolation. We shape the mindset and culture of people around us by what we talk about and show pleasure in. Be an agent of change in the family and community culture of which you are part.

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Fast for the Amazon from 9/30 to 10/1

Nathan Aaberg —  September 23, 2019 — Leave a comment

I invite you to join my friend Bryce Riemer and I on a 24-hour fast for the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous peoples.

We will eat dinner on the evening of Monday, September 30, and then not eat again until 24 hours later on Tuesday, October 1. We will only be drinking water during that time.

During the fast, we will be seek to draw near to God and will also pray for one of the most remarkable features of God’s earth – the Amazon rainforest. Where ever you are, we would love to have you join us

As you likely already know, large numbers of fires have been set in the Amazon this year to clear land for agriculture and other uses.

 

I urge you to read this interview with Carlos Nobre, who has been studying the Amazon for over 40 years. He explains that the combination of fires and climate change is pushing the Amazon forest to a critical tipping point. Before long, it could begin to change from a tropical rainforest to more of a dry, hot savanna.

This would mean a slow-motion apocalypse for the Amazon’s diverse animals and plants and of the peoples who depend on that life. It would also mean a dramatic decrease in the ability of the Amazon to store carbon. It currently stores, according to estimates, somewhere between one and two billion tons of carbon each year.

As the interview makes clear, deforestation and the spread of fires are no accident. Government policy and international agricultural institutions (like Cargill and JBS) are, by sins of commission and omission, incentivizing the burning.

You and I cannot fly to the Amazon. We can’t directly stop the fires and deforestation and the harm caused to indigenous peoples. But we can pray even as we act in our own local communities. And by fasting we can intensify our prayers and our focus.

King David fasted for his son’s life. Ezra prayed for safety when he and Israelite exiles set out from Persia to return to Jerusalem. In Jonah we read of the people and livestock of Ninevah fasting as a way of repenting and turning away from evils ways and violence. Jesus fasted as he prepared for his last three years of ministry.

Let’s write a new chapter in faithful people praying and fasting for God’s will to be done on earth.

During the fast, we will open our hearts to God and remember his love and goodness. We will plead for God to intervene for the future of the Amazon rainforest and its people. We will pray for the hearts and minds of the people who have created the conditions for this destruction to be undertaken. And we will repent for what we have done and are doing to harm God’s earth.

I’ve found that repeating a Bible verse or phrase that expresses your thoughts and feelings throughout the day is a good way to center yourself. Those words will take on great power. I’d encourage you, too, to use your normal time of eating lunch to take a walk, pray, and open your heart.

This fasting will also be a way to grieve. When I spoke to a local Mennonite church this summer, several members shared a common challenge. They asked, “How do we deal with the grief?” The grief they spoke of was seeing God’s earth damaged and declining. We tend to flee from grief or allow it to paralyze us. Through this fast I want to open myself to letting grief fully take my heart. And then, I hope, there will be Spirit-led commitment to act on the other side of that heartbreak.

I’m still learning how to experience a fast in a deeply spiritual way. So if you haven’t fasted before, be easy on yourself as you experience it for the first time.

Please join us. Please email me at wholefaithlivingearth@gmail.com if you will be fasting with us.

 

P.S. If you haven’t fasted before, I’d recommend reading The Sacred Art of Fasting and/or this blog post on fasting for beginners.

P.P.S. In general, I would ask that you choose not to eat meat from any major company – like Costco, McDonalds, and Burger King – that sources meat from suppliers connected with the deforestation of the Amazon. Instead, support local, sustainable livestock farmers in your own area.

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Dig In for God’s Earth!

Nathan Aaberg —  June 26, 2019 — Leave a comment

People standing and planting in former farm field

Over the weekend I joined about 20 other volunteers in helping one small corner of God’s earth make progress towards renewal. I want to encourage you to seek out opportunities like this in your own life. They’re out there.

In the photo above, you can see what we were doing – planting thousands of young prairie grasses where corn and soy beans used to be grown.

The Libertyville Township Open Space District has long owned this 44-acre parcel of land. For the last number of decades a farmer farmed it. Soil eroded, harming local waterways. Wildlife, including butterflies, found no food or sanctuary there.

The Open Space Disrict has begun restoring this field to prairie and oak savanna. In the first step, contractors removed 5,500 linear feet of drain tile from the field to allow water to more naturally infiltrate the land. But until diverse prairie vegetation can be established, preventing erosion is critical. This is why you see the erosion-preventing, bio-degradable mesh blankets in the photo.

And into that fabric volunteers are planting 10,000 young prairie grasses over two weekends. Specifically, we are planting prairie cord grass.

This is a favorite prairie plant of mine. Prairie cord grass likes its “feet” a bit wet. It also spreads quickly through energetic rhizomes. Pretty soon you have a thick, beautiful stand of green waving and undulating in the wind. Below the ground you have a thick, anchoring root system. This makes it perfect for erosion control.

For nearly three straight hours, we used hand-spades and even just our hands to create small gaps in the fabric. Once we had access to the soil, which was usually somewhere between being moist and water-covered muck, we dug a thin hole. Into that hole, we inserted the prairie cord grass plant. We then pressed the soil close around it.

If you don’t like sun, breeze, dirt on your hands, living things around you, and the chance to talk and even banter with people around you, then you should definitely avoid this kind of thing.

But I’m guessing you’re someone who would enjoy the experience. And, like it did for me, it would do your heart good. By the end, I felt tired and yet very alive and satisfied.

Being part of these kinds of projects is a way to honor and serve our Creator God. This is a natural part of a whole Christian faith. We should do what we can on as large a scale as we can to enable God’s earth to be as alive as possible and to recover from the wounds we have inflicted on it.

And doing so is a spiritual growth experience.

Look for opportunities like these. Non-profit land trusts and nature conservation organizations near you are a good place to start. Agencies like conservation districts, park disricts, and departments of natural resources are also well connected.

Dig in!

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Where Are the Christian Greta Thunbergs?

Nathan Aaberg —  June 10, 2019 — 2 Comments

Have you had the experience where dealing with a problem couldn’t just be one of a million things on your to-do list?

Perhaps it was a loved one getting seriously sick. Perhaps it was a crisis at work. Perhaps a rising river threatened to flood your community. You joined in with others building walls with sandbags for hours on end. You had to do something about it above all else. The rest of your normal routines had to fall away. Bills and sleep could wait.

When an issue is urgent, tangible and very specific, we respond to that issue with all that we have. We put everything else aside.

It’s much harder for us to respond that way when the causes of the challenge are broad and hard to see and when the impacts are incremental. This sums up the general human experience with things like national debt, education system dysfunction, cultural decline, and crumbling infrastructure.

This is even more true of problems for the rest of Creation. Our civilization dams up rivers, creates dead zones, depletes fisheries, degrades soils, and destroys and fragments habitat. Where God’s living things once lived there is only silence and stillness. If we’re aware at all, we may feel bad, but our lives carry us along.

Greta Thunberg, a 16-year old girl from Sweden, is challenging all of us in this regard. She is a rare person who won’t accept the collapse of the commons.

She has stopped going to school in order to protest at the Swedish Parliament and to bring attention to the dire threat that is global climate chaos. She is now speaking around the world. The world is paying close attention.

Like a prophet, Greta speaks powerfully and directly. Diagnosed with Aspergers, her intense focus and directness are sometimes disconcerting. She believes, in fact, that her Aspergers has driven her to become an activist. It has been a gift.

“The politics that’s needed to prevent the climate catastrophe—it doesn’t exist today,” said Greta in a New Yorker article about her. “We need to change the system, as if we were in crisis, as if there were a war going on.”

You should watch her speech to the United Nations. Her example is prompting other students around the world to start school strikes and protests as well.

So where are the Christian Greta Thunbergs?

Climate change chaos is causing tremendous disruption and harm for people around the globe, especially the poor. Farmers around the world are becoming increasingly desperate. It is also accelerating the extinction crisis to a new level.

Greta learned of all this and couldn’t believe people weren’t in crisis mode and acting at all levels of life. She stopped speaking. Eventually, she began a new path of life.

How do we as Christians not raise the alarm and jettison our normal routines as well?

Why aren’t there new Christian prophets completely devoted to urging commitment to God that will translate into better ways of living at the individual level and at the community and national level? What is wrong with Christian culture that many Christians don’t care or worse? Are we not paying attention? Or have our hearts not been changed by our faith? Can we love God and love our neighbor and yet pretend all of this is not happening?

Three things come to mind as I consider those questions.

First, my impression is that Christians don’t have a good track record of taking care of God’s earth. We have tended to go along with the dominant culture in which we find ourselves. If Christian Greta Thunbergs emerged and Christians responded to them, it would be the first time in history Christians stepped forward as a whole body of Christ based on the conviction that God’s earth mattered.

Why is this? I’m going to be writing occasional blogs as a way to dive further into this topic. There are, I believe, multiple reasons.

Second, two verses from the Bible come to mind. In Luke 14:5 we read this: “Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?””

Being deeply devoted to keeping the Sabbath was one of the central features of the Jewish faith-culture. Jesus was making clear that nothing should stand in the way of compassion for people and non-human life we have responsibility for. Ignoring the cries of one’s child and the moaning of an ox while going to worship God would be completely contrary to who God is. It would also be an indication that the state of our heart is rotten. Following the routine, even the routine of holy worship, would be wrong.

Consider, too, Proverbs 21:3: “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.”

Today, through communications, we better understand what is happening around the world then ever before. Our economies are more interdependent than ever before. In some ways, due to the development of technology, the condition of the earth is collectively ours more than ever before. The systems we are part of shape and reshape other places around the world. So when we hear of pain and destruction to people and life beyond our family, I would suggest the core principles at hand are the same as what Jesus asked in Luke and what we read in Proverbs.

Third, I can’t help noticing that, despite my convictions, I’ve largely gone along with my normal routine.

If I’m aware of all of these issues and have these convictions, why haven’t I done more of what Greta Thunberg has done?

The excuses and rationalizations have loud voices in my head. I have a family. My parents are failing. Someone else will surely do something. This is when I realize I sound alot like the people in the Gospels who wouldn’t follow Jesus because they had obligations to life as usual.

The whole Chrisitan faith-life includes putting your faith into action and your life on the line in pursuit of what God desires.

So do I really believe? Am I really committed to following Jesus? What would I do if I was?

And why do I feel alone struggling with these questions?

 

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A Calling to Honey Creek – Part 3

Nathan Aaberg —  May 27, 2019 — Leave a comment
People using shovels to fill in grave in the woods

Familiy and friends pitch in during a burial (photo courtesy of Honey Creek Woodlands).

In two previous posts (here and here), we have been sharing the story of Joe Whittaker. He played a pivotal role in the founding of the Honey Creek Woodlands green cemetery on the grounds of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. It was, I’m convinced, his life calling.

As I wrote earlier, two elements of Joe’s story compel me to share it. First, for Creation to be healed and renewed in any significant way, we need to integrate a commitment to God’s earth into our culture. The burial of our loved ones offers a great opportunity to do just that. Burial intimately connects us with Creation. It also brings us back to the humility and radical Creation kinship of dust to dust. 

Second, when God calls you to make a difference for the future of God’s earth, you will need to step outside of your comfort zone. You and I can learn about the challenges and rewards of answering that calling from Joe.

In this last segement, you’ll learn more about the burial services at Honey Creek Woodlands, what Joe will remember from his time there, the wildlife this green cemetery supports, and what Joe is doing now.

Burials at Honey Creek

“We pride ourselves on the fact that every service is a little different,” says Joe. “The modern American funeral can start to have a little bit of a cookie cutter kind of a feel to it.”

“The pine box burial is probably the most common in terms of what people are going to be buried in,” says Joe. “Those are a nice canvas for people to express their feelings and their loss and their love. We see a lot of painting on caskets and writing and decorating of caskets. That’s something that you wouldn’t see at most modern cemeteries.”

“The family is usually heavily involved. We’ve had families help dig the grave. We’ve had families help fill in the graves. I’d say the vast majority of the time it’s actually the family that is lowering the body.”

Group of people fill grave of friend

Community burial at Honey Creek Woodlands (photo courtesy of Honey Creek Woodlands).

“I told my clients, “You can sit there and watch us do everything just like any other funeral. But we just want you to know that you are welcome to do as much as you’d like.””

“Often it’s basically a family burial. They take care of everything themselves, which in a bygone era used to be the norm. It can be a little dicey sometimes, because they don’t have a whole lot of experience doing this. But typically it’s very moving, very touching.”

Meaning and Stories

When I asked Joe, what he has going to hold onto from his time at Honey Creek Woodlands, he said it would it would be the people he’s met and the strength he’s seen in them.

“I wish every person I’ve buried would have lived a nice long life and just kind of faded out at the age of 95 or something, but that’s not the case,” says Joe. “You bury men who die at 40 and leave behind children. You bury children. You bury teenagers from car accidents. You bury suicides. You bury drug overdoses. You’re dealing with moms and dads.

“It’s hard to watch what they go through, but it’s just awesome to see the strength that people have.”

“I remember early on there was a very young man that came to see me in June of 2008, the first year we were open. He was a musician in Atlanta, and he had lung cancer. His friends brought him. They were all in their twenties, and one of the friends pulled me aside pretty early on. She said, “Look, he doesn’t have any family and doesn’t have any life insurance or any money, but don’t worry – we’re well connected with the musicians in the Atlanta area. We’re going to have a fundraising concert, and we’re going to get the money.””

“So I met with the young man. He was in pretty rough shape as he was in hospice at the time. We put him in a golf cart to take him out there. We picked him a spot. I don’t think a week went by before I got a phone call that he had passed. The person who called me was the same person who had assured me about the money. She said, “Well, we haven’t done our benefit concert yet. We thought he had more time.””

She promised, however, that even if it took until after the burial to do the benefit that they would get Honey Creek Woodlands the money. Joe trusted her. The burial went ahead.

“So they put the word out on social media that this guy had died. Money poured in from musicians from all across the country. A lot of money came out of Chicago, all the big cities. And this wasn’t like a well-known musician. He was just with a garage band.”

“By the time we buried the guy, his friends didn’t just have the money to bury him, they also made a very substantial donation to the monastery and to the hospice where he had been. And this was all pulled off by twenty-somethings.”

A Cemetery with (Wild) Life

Thanks to being managed for natural habitat, Honey Creek Woodlands is full of life.

“We see an awful lot of wildlife,” says Joe. “I’ve probably taken it for granted the amount of wildlife I’ve seen.”

Honey Creek Woodlands has owl, hawks, and all varieties of other birds. It also is a home for turtles, lizards, snakes, and amphibians.

Tiger swallowtail butterfly on flower of shrub

A tiger swallowtail butterfly at Honey Creek Woodlands. I would hope to be buried in a place like this that is full of wildlife. (Photo courtesy of Honey Creek Woodlands)

“We also have an unbelievable number of butterflies,” says Joe, “which is such a great thing for us because it’s symbolic of the resurrection.”

“I love the analogy that the caterpillar has no idea that it’s going to be a butterfly. It’s just going along being a caterpillar. And then all of a sudden, it’s a butterfly. I think that kind of has a parallel with us just living our lives the way we do not even knowing that when we’re done being this person that there’s something even more amazing yet to do.”

In fact, Honey Creek Woodlands holds the Georgia record for the number of butterflies found on a single day at one site. It helps that they have some of the best-trained butterfly counters in the Southeast.

“When we do the counts twice a year,” says Joe,  “we routinely either set a new record for ourselves or try to break the record for the state of Georgia for the number of butterflies found.”

In the chapter in Sacred Acts about Honey Creek Woodlands, the reader learns, too, that Father Francis Michael, a leader in the monastery’s decision to proceed with Honey Creek Woodlands, has identified 52 species of dragonflies on the monastery’s grounds.

The staff at Honey Creek Woodlands and visitors see a lot of deer, turkey, squirrels and chipmunks. Signs of coyotes are also about.

“We know we even have bobcats, but I’ve yet to see one,” says Joe. “People really love that wildlife is here,”

Stepping Back

While the work for Honey Creek Woodland has been a satisfying and deeply rewarding experience for Joe, it’s also been a challenge.

“It’s been very challenging for me being that I don’t live in Georgia. I’ve been going back and forth for years, and I didn’t start this project thinking it was going to be a ten year project for me.”

When he first started, his wife needed to give ever more care for her aging mother, so Joe and his wife agreed that he should work for Honey Creek Woodland despite the separations it would require for them. She would be able to focus on her mother without feeling neglectful of Joe. Joe could pursue his life mission.

But then when his wife’s mother did pass away about four years ago, they had to make a big decision about what to do. They ultimately decided that Joe should continue at Honey Creek Woodlands. since she had four more years of teaching before she retired. Still, Joe makes clear these last four years have been the hardest on them.

His wife retired on June 6, 2018. Joe officially ended his time at Honey Creek Woodlands the day before on June 5. They are enjoying their next season of life together.

I’m happy to report that Joe continues to serve Honey Creek Woodlands as an advisor and consultant. But even after his consulting work ends with Honey Creek Woodlands, his life will eventually reconnect with the place in which he invested so much of his life. Joe has recently made the decision to be buried in Honey Creek Woodlands.

“I’ll be the first member of my family not buried in South Carolina,” says Joe, “so it was a big decision. My family’s kind of scattered in a bunch of different cemeteries, so there wasn’t one that was a family cemetery. I no longer live in Charleston, which is my hometown.”

“It just seemed like more people would know me, and I would be surrounded by more friends at Honey Creek Woodlands in Georgia.”

Covered burial site in a light-filled woods

(Photo courtesy of Honey Creek Woodlands)

One last note. The numbers of green cemeteries are growing, and there is likely to be one or more in your state. I would encourage you to be discerning in choosing a green cemetery for yourself or a loved one. I totally believe in the green burial ideal, but I have seen green burial offered in woods that are clearly not being managed well for conservation. This is far better for Creation than the conventional burial, but it is not ideal.

The ideal situation is a cemetery that offers green burial as the burial method AND is managing the land of the cemetery and around it for conservation with long-term commitment and capabilities. It’s even more ideal if the land has some sort of permanent legal protection. Here’s a short piece that explains the distinctions between generic green burial and conservation burial. If you’re looking at a green burial option and have questions, I’d be happy to try to help you decipher whether it’s a good option. 

Last thought – it’s been such a delight to talk with Joe. I’d ask that you ask God to bless Joe and his wife. He answered a call and moved a better culture of living with God’s earth forward.

 

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