An Earth Day Fast Experience

Nathan Aaberg —  May 5, 2019 — Leave a comment

This update on my Earth Day fast has taken longer to write than I expected. I appreciate the folks who checked in with me and wondered how it went. Here is my report.

On Monday, April 22, around 9:15 p.m., I broke my 24-hour, water-only Earth Day fast with a prayer and a light salad drizzled with drops of lemon juice. I went to bed shortly after, successfully resisting the temptation to indulge in some mint chocolate chip ice cream (organic, of course) in the refrigerator. I slept well and resumed my regular eating habits the next morning.

That’s how my Earth Day fast ended.

I find I can’t summarize the whole 24-hour experience in a pithy, Twitter-friendly form. Portions of the books I had been reading about fasting suggested one would potentially experience a mystical union with God and learn to suffer happily. Neither one of those describe my general experience.

One of the challenges with the fast was that I still had to work that day and do normal household tasks. Even though I prayed during the day and took a long walk at lunch, I found myself unable to create as much space as I would have liked to for mindfulness of God.

What I will say is that I was far more attentive to each moment as it went by. I was prepared for this from my shorter Good Friday fast. Emotions and thoughts stood out more sharply. I was also far more aware of my body. My normal instincts, I found, were to appease my body’s appetities as quickly as possible. Following what I had read, however, I did my best to direct my thoughts and emotions towards God when I felt physical discomfort.

I began my day with the reading of Psalm 104. Two phrases from the psalm became my go-to centering phrases – “…the earth is full of your creatures” and “I will sing to the Lord all my life.” As a result, those phrases imprinted themselves in my mind. In fact, they have come to mind every day since.

You might wonder how hungry I became. In The Sacred Art of Fasting, Thomas Ryan explains that the gnawing in the stomach we feel when we go without food for awhile is not technically hunger. Here’s what he writes about that gnawing:

“It’s not a genuine hunger pang (in the sense that your body needs the food) or a distress signal. It’s just the alimentary tract accommodating itself to a reduced workload.”

My brain and my body had a spirited debate about the veracity of that statement.

Nevertheless, for much of the day, I followed Ryan’s advice. I drank filtered water when I felt discomfort in my stomach. This worked just fine. Calmly naming that discomfort, moving through it, and continuing with life worked surprisingly well. Which is to say that it didn’t seem too intense or mystical.

Until about 8 p.m.

At that point, my body became much more insistent. I had a harder time staying focused on anything other than my body. This happened while I was driving around looking for a good birthday card for my father. Much sharper discomfort emanated from my core. Walking through a grocery store and a pharmacy stacked with snacks didn’t help.

Was I going to give in? Was I going to fight this sharp discomfort with my will?

Eventually, I found myself leaning into it. And from my heart came intense, urgent prayer to God out of both spiritual and physical need. This prayer was simple, direct, emotional, desperate. It came out of my weakness and forced humility. It was for me and also for God’s earth which needs God’s protection and intervention so badly. I have not had an intense prayer experience like that before.

Here are some other thoughts and notes from the fast:

Increased awareness of God’s earth 

I walked to and from work that day. In the morning, there was bright sun. Buds on trees and shrubs were bursting. Male red-winged blackbirds were making a racket as they staked out their territories. During my normal lunch period I walked around the farm our organization owns and manages. I took extra time to spend some time around the beautiful elm tree that has somehow survived all of the years.

The elm tree of the Prairie Crossing Farm on April 22, 2019.

On my walk back home, a soft rain brought a different, more mellow atmosphere. I paid particular attention to the large ant mounds that were visible in a recently burned prairie.

Sympathy for the hungry and needy

It is easy in the abstract to feel sympahty for the hungry and needy when one’s stomach is full. That sympathy is much more heartfelt when one is hungry oneself. I could not imagine a child concentrating in school on an empty stomach. It is heartbreaking to think of children in American and in the rest of the world experiencing hunger on a regular basis.

This broken world

To be honest, I unconsciously expected my day to be smooth and on a spiritually higher plane. I think I expected to find myself able to handle difficulties more calmly and easily.

In general, I did find my thinking clear and decisive. But when I read a group email that I took as directly insulting to me in an emerging grassroots group, my spiritual serenity didn’t do so well. The personal attack stung despite my fast and my spiritual alertness. I tried not to think about it. That just made it worse.

This was a reminder of the brokenness of the world that permeates relationships. It highlighted the serious fractures in community relationships that prevent us from creating a just world and from truly being God’s selfless shepherds of the world. What hope does Creation have? What hope do we have?

Seeking guidance takes sustained focus

One of my hopes going into the fast is that I would gain greater insight into the direction of my life. That did not emerge at all. I think this was in part because I did not have the space to really pray and write about the topic.

The tick

My interactions with Creation were not all beauty and light. After I took my walk around the farm here, I settled down at my desk and dived into my work. About an hour later I felt a light prickling on the skin of my right just below my knee.

When I pulled up my pant leg, there was a slow-moving tick. I instantly and instinctively flicked the tick onto the floor.

An ethical bind presented itself. I did not feel one with Creation at that moment. Would I kill the tick out of anger? I am not proud to admit that I considered various creative methods of doing so. But what was the right thing to do in light of my faith?

Just then I saw a group of energetic chickens making their way through our orchard and parking lot in the company of one of our staff. It clicked. Chickens like to eat insects and other small bugs.

So the tick was fed to a chicken. Instead of violence from anger, a chicken was able to do what it naturally does. From the life of the tick, the chicken gained sustenance. A good, protein-rich egg would result.

Belief and unbelief

When I am honest, I find my belief is mixed with unbelief. My faith compelled me to try this fast. My lack of faith prompted me, deep inside, to question whether it would actually connect me to the spiritual reality of God. I took that step. I did find a heightened awareness of life around me. I also was acutely aware of my own weakness, a deep need for God, and a desperation for God to save what is left of Creation. It requires almost too much faith for me to pray for the renewal of Creation, for God to fulfill his promise of a new heaven and a new earth.

I found, too, how easily I normally pass through life in an unconscious way. The fast woke me up. Maybe faith is, in part, about being truly awake?

 

As I meditate further on the fast and how it didn’t seem to quite live up to the ideals I had read about, it occurs to me that I was naive. Like any practice, whether spiritual or otherwise, one doesn’t just try it once and suddenly reap all of the benefits. Spiritual practices require practice.

I realize my experience of church has not prepared me for this. This quote from Dallas Willard in The Spirit of the Disciplines rings true to me:

“One of the greatest deceptions in the practice of the Christian religion is the idea that all that really matters is our internal feelings, ideas, beliefs, and intentions. It is this mistake about the psychology of the human being that more than anything else divorces salvation from life, leaving us a headful of vital truths about God and a body unable to fend off sin.”

I want the abundant life Jesus offered. Life involves our spirits and our bodies. Fasting is an ancient practice of unifying our spirits and our minds and of opening our hearts to God. So I intend to keep practicing and seeing where it leads.

And I would like to do it with others.

I realize that my fast ended up being an individual experience. Our inner spiritual life does need feeding. But just as we are both spiritual and physical beings, we need both individual development and community bonds. I hope someday to find a community of believers who want to embark on fasts and other spiritual practices together.

I pray that you, too, will look for ways to deepen your faith-life. Even when it means you’re not exactly sure what to expect.

 

P.S. On behalf of my family, I made two donations at the end of my fast. One was to Cool Learning Experience, a summer camp run by First Baptist Church in Waukegan, Illinois, by my friend Barbara Waller. It provides a nature-oriented summer camp experience for chidren and youth in the Waukegan area who would normally not have summer camp experiences and who would be unlikely to get much experience with nature. Barbara has made the development of this camp her life mission for the last decade and has impacted, with many staff, volunteers, and supporters, hundreds of lives.

We also made a donation to African Parks, a non-profit conservation organization that rehabilitates and manages important protected areas in partnership with governments and local communities. Through this organization, people around the world are able to help resource-challenged African countries manage and defend their natural treasures. Rangers in these parks are in a life-and-death war to stop poachers from wiping out elephants and other increasingly rare animals. Global forces are driving this poaching. Support from around the world is needed to stop it.

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My Coming Earth Day Fast

Nathan Aaberg —  April 18, 2019 — Leave a comment

I’ve decided to fast and pray on Earth Day.

This is a step in a continuing odyssey for me.

Listening to a podcast recently lit the kindling of my awareness that fasting has a long history of being a powerful Christian spiritual practice. I have also long believed that a Christian faith that does not spiritual transform ones’ faith-life is not really faith at all. I will be trying my first focused fast on Good Friday with that same motivation.

My intense spiritual struggle over the condition of God’s earth also motivates me. My heart alternates between breaking at the condiition of God’s earth and intense anger. For reasons not entirely clear to me, I am acutely aware of the wounds of God’s earth. Sometimes I wish I could turn off that sensitivity. I am also painfully aware that few people of faith seem to care with any urgency. And the ones who do, including me, struggle to find meaningful traction and direction in taking meaningful, large-scale action that will alter the course our world is on (Gabe Brown is one exception).

My faith struggles mightily with all this.

So I am going to see where this leads. I recognize many Christians do not associate Earth Day nor God’s earth with their faith. Likewise, many of the people who are acting energetically and sacrificially to defend and restore Gods’ earth do not associate Christians with Earth Day either. Over time, I would like to change this. But I must start with myself.

 

Motivations

I seek the following from my Earth Day fast.

Open My Heart to God

Here is a great quote from Cistercian monk Charles Cummings in The Sacred Art of Fasting by Thomas Ryan. “The more I try to make Christ the center of my life and thoughts and actions, the more I feel every pull and tug that draws me back from the radical, loving surrender of myself.

YouTube, sports, and a host of small matters distract me. These cause me to be deaf to God and his callings as they relate to family, neighbors, and Creation.

I am hopeful that I wil experience a closer connection to God through this fast. I desire the Holy Spirit to fill me so what is uniquely me is creatively directed towards God’s ways. I want to give God’s will highest priority. Even as I write that, part of me is afraid of allowing that to happen. May this fast reduce or eliminate that fear.

Full Mourning

I sometimes retreat from allowing myself to feel the full grief of how much we have defaced the beauty and goodness of the natural world. I want my grief “circuit breaker” removed. I need to dive into that grief.

The grief over the empty forests of Vietnam. Poaching wars over the last great animals of Africa. More thatn 750 impaired (meaning chronically sick and depleted) streams and rivers in Iowa, largely due to the way we farm and raise animals. The decimation of Haiti’s forests. Emerging dead zones (like the one in the Gulf of Mexico. The list goes on and on. People and Creation suffer from all of this.

David mourned by fasting after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:12) and the death of his son Abner (2 Samuel 3:32-35).  Nehemiah fasted in grief over the state of the Jewish people who had returned to Jerusalem and the condition of Jerusalem itself – the wall broken down, gates burned by fire (Nehemiah 1:4). Mourning and grief for God’s earth through fasting and prayer seems wholly appropriate.

Deep Repentance

I want to express deep penance for what we have done to God’s oceans and lands and for the part I have played in it.

I also want to express regret for the fact that Christianity has largely been AWOL from the struggle to cherish God’s earth. And, in fact, too often economic philosophies and political ideologies have used a misrepresented Christianity as religious legimitization for advocating degrading uses of God’s earth.

But repentance is much more than feeling sorry and feeling regret. I’ve recently learned that the Greek word metanoia that we translate as “repent” has a deeper meaning. It means a transformation of our hearts and minds. Father Gregory Boyle of Homeboy Industries articulates it like this: “to go beyond the mind we have.” I will pray that I and many other Christians will go beyond the hearts and minds we have to a loving spirit that cherishes all that is God’s. What isn’t God’s?

Visceral kinship

I believe the fast will help me better appreciate the plight of the poor harmed by climate change and the plight of birds, mammals, insects, fish and other life who find it ever harder to survive in the world we are unraveling.

Seeking direction for action

In Esther 4:16, we read of Esther asking the Jewish people to fast before she visits King Ahasuerus uninvited. She will do so to seek save the Jewish  people from destruction and at the risk of her life. Moses and Jesus both fasted for 40 days before key points in their missions on earth.

I need further wisdom and discernment about where I should focus my energies in trying to defend and renew God’s earth. I hope to gain it while fasting.

Intensify my prayers for Creation and its defenders

Are you praying for Creation along with your prayers for family, friends, and yourself? I do, but I feel compelled to do more. We should also pray for the scientists (like Katharine Hayhoe), advocates, and regular people who are putting their hearts and minds to the service of Gods’ Creation and the people who depend on it. They struggle against the powers and dominions of this world. Their hearts are broken by what they see unfolding. They are trolled viciously. Sometimes they are killed because their words and actions would stop powerful people from making money.

Learn to LIve with Limits

Our appetites tend to be our masters. This is true of our individual lives. This is true of our economic-political systems. Adam and Eve’s sin was ultimately about not accepting a limit on their desire. I struggle with limits on my appetites. And when my appetites for distraction and security fill up our lives then we have little life and love left to give to God’s purposes. I seek God’s help in loving limits and loving God’s ways.

Seek Joy and Hope

This year Earth Day is the day after Easter. That proximity is unusual, and it calls attention to the fact that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection are good news for all of Creation.

I desperately need to remember that good news and to fully experience the joy it contains even in the midst of this crazy, broken world. And by remember I mean a confidence that fills my bones and heart, not just a doctrinal assent.

I believe It is fully understandable and acceptable to be outraged and full of despair at the injustices of the world that harm people and Creation. The Bible gives us many resources for expressing outrage, doubt, and misery. We are not fully human if we can look at injustice in any form, shrug it off, and go on to a Netflix binge.

Yet, our faith also calls us to hold joy in our hearts even as we struggle with brokenness and evil. God loves us and the whole world and has expressed grace and love to us through Jesus. God’s mercy does endure forever. God will make everything right some day. I need direction for action and light in my heart.

 

How exactly this will work

I will begin with a sunrise-to-sunset fast on Good Friday to deepen my experience of remembering the crucifixion of Jesus. Then, on Easter evening, I intend to eat dinner with my family before going on a water-only fast until after sunset on Monday (Earth Day) when I will have dinner again with my family. I will still be working during the day.

In The Sacred Art of Fasting, I read that it is really not a spiritual fast if one does life completely as one would normally would. So I plan to take a walk and pray during the time I would normally eat lunch. I also plan to pray whenever I feel hunger pains and between tasks.

Since fasting is typically combined with almsgiving in Christian tradition, I plan to honor that tradition but will do so in a different way. I will make a contribution to a conservation organization that is protecting habit so that God’s living things have places to live and food to eat.

 

I Welcome Fast Companions

I originally thought I would make a big push to encourage you and others I know who share deep concern for God’s earth to join me in this fast. Having friends to communicate with during the day for mutual encouragement would certainly be wonderful. But I’ve decided to focus this first attempt on my own exploration of this practice. This will enable me to speak from experience for Earth Day 2020.

If you do decide you want to join me, please email me at wholefaithlivingearth@gmail.com. We can arrange to share phone numbers so we can create a text group during the day.

I strongly encourage you to do some research on fasting before you do it. If you have any health issues that would make a food fast a risk for you, please consider a fast from something else.  And if you haven’t fasted before, please consider starting slow – perhaps skipping just lunch or doing a juice fast.

Your prayers would also be welcome.

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A Calling to Honey Creek – Part 2

Nathan Aaberg —  April 9, 2019 — Leave a comment
Monk blessing gravesite in open area

Blessing of gravesite at Honey Creek Woodlands. (Courtesy of Honey Creek Woodlands)

In an earlier post, we began to share 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. 

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. It is a defining moment in the lives of families and religious communities. 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.

Getting Honey Creek Woodlands Going

When talking about the effort and challenges to get Honey Creek Woodland going, Joe says, “It’s good I didn’t know then what I know now. I probably would have just said, “Good luck with your project!””

Joe’s lack of training in land management and lack of knowledge of Piedmont ecology posed big challenges. He was going to try to create a green burial cemetery on 80 acres of formerly forested land that had been clear-cut some years back and was in a state of transition.

As Joe puts it, “I had no idea of what the land was going to do. I was just overwhelmed with what it did.”

In particular, invasive species had already taken hold in the forests. The clear-cutting gave the invasive species a wonderful opportunity to spread. In addition, the natural succession of the Piedmont woods also generated tremendous vegetative regrowth. This meant a jungle of green overwhelmed the land. Blackberry and briars, in particular, grew vigorously.

Walter Bland, a local native plant expert, visited the site with Joe early on and said, “Joe, I don’t know what you’re thinking is, but your clientele is going to want to see natural.”

“That’s what we’ve got,” said Joe.

“No, no, no,” said Walter. “There’s a big difference between natural and nature. Natural has a lot of management involved. It looks like nature but it’s under control.”

In short, people were not going to want to bury their loved ones in thickets. Nor would they find it practical or appealing to come back to visit a thicket.

Joe, with the benefit of the wisdom of Walter and the Georgia Piedmont Land Trust, made a significant decision. Rather than trying to control all 80 acres in an aesthetically pleasing way through an intensive use of resources, he would allow much of the 80 acres to go through a decades-long natural succession process. Over time, trees would naturally emerge in these areas. Their shade would, over time, thin out the understory plants.

But in the smaller areas where burials would be done in the short-term, Joe and his staff actively managed the landscape. This meant trimming trees and controlling brush. These areas would still be natural and have abundant native plants that are vital for wildlife. They would, however, be more visually appealing and accessible for visitors. Honey Creek Woodlands would, in other words, be going for something that looked natural and functioned ecologically. It just wouldn’t be 100% unmanaged naturalness.

Joe then worked to figure out the logistics and layout of the cemetery. The area where the burials were to take place was actually a mile and a half from the monastery itself. And between the monastery and the burial area there was Honey Creek, crossed by an old, dilapidated bridge. The only existing way to travel in that direction was a rough Forest Service road. Joe gave the solving of these issues a high priority.

A gravel road leads through the southern woods of Honey Creek Woodlands

The road through Honey Creek Woodlands and a forest rebounding from clear-cutting. (Courtesy of Honey Creek Woodlands)

“One of the things that I’ve really focused on for the last ten years,” says Joe, “is trying to make this as convenient and logistically smooth for families as I possibly could.”

“People get caught up in the warm fuzzy part of the funeral service. But you’ve got to have parking. You’ve got to have accessibility for elderly people. I keep beating that drum. You’ve got to think logistics, people. Before any natural burial cemetery gets off the ground, think about logistics!”

This focus on the details has come out of the awareness that the modern, conventional funeral does make things convenient. There is parking. There are bathrooms. For natural burials to work for most people, it can’t be too challenging or inaccessible.

“If we can grow the number of people that this options works for just by providing a little bit of convenience,” says Joe, “then it will be well worth it. If your facility does not work for the elderly, it’s probably not going to be very successful.”

One of the ways they provide convenience is by having a fleet of golf carts visitors can use. While some visitors use the hiking trails, the vast majority of the people who come to visit their loved ones are going to use golf carts to travel the three-mile round trip.

Having some golf cart repair experience, by the way, was another serendipitous part of Joe’s background that he brought to Honey Creek Woodland. Who would expect that working for a golf course during the summers of his high school years would pay dividends much later in life? Destiny? God’s plan?

Thanks to the efforts of Joe and his team, the Honey Creek Woodlands conservation burial cemetery opened on April 22, 2008 – Earth Day.  Since then, more than 1,300 people have been buried there, including the remains of about 30 miscarriages. Honey Creek Woodlands has sold almost 3,500 plots.

The Demographics of Burial at Honey Creek Woodland

True to his background in market research, Joe has paid attention to the demographics of people who choose to be buried there. He’s categorized them into three groups.

The first are those desire to be buried on the grounds of the monastery where monks will pray for their soul every day. This appealed deeply to many people of the Catholic faith. Because there aren’t that many monasteries in Georgia, Honey Creek Woodlands possessed a unique attraction. These deeply Catholic families, however, rarely have had any exposure to green burial beforehand. Their faith doesn’t necessarily include a concern for Creation.

“That’s a big hurdle to overcome,” says Joe.

“If a grave isn’t manicured,” says Joe, “then some people feel their loved one is being disrespected. That’s been one of the biggest hurdles for me to get over – this cultural notion of manicured graves.”

The Pavilion at Honey Creek Woodlands. (Courtesy of Honey Creek Woodlands)

Joe identifies the second group by their financial motivations.

“They’ll call up,” says Joe, “and say, “My uncle died without any life insurance but he left instructions that he definitely didn’t want to be cremated. And we don’t have any money.””

The lower cost of green burial is attractive to them. At Honey Creek Woodlands, the total cost is usually around $5,000 for everything. According to this article from 2017, the average cost of traditional funeral is around $11,000.

Joe found the budget-minded customers to be challenging to work with at times. The environmental and spiritual philosophy of a green burial did not motivate them.

People who specifically wanted a green burial comprises the third group.

“These are people who are environmentalists, whether they’re birdwatchers or people who camped a lot in their life or even hunters and fishermen – anybody who’s spent a lot of time in the outdoors. Even master gardeners,” says Joe. “It’s perfect for what they want.”

“When I’m trying to pitch green burial to people one of the things I’ll say,” says Joe, “is that our Creator had no need for a trash can.”

“Everything’s recycled.”

 

Part Three will be coming before long.

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Insights on Jeremiah 29:4-7

Nathan Aaberg —  March 24, 2019 — Leave a comment

Time is precious. Like Creation and all that we are blessed with, we should steward it carefully. We should number our days and even our hours and minutes.

This is why, in part, my philosophy on posting here is to err on the side of depth rather than frequency. (At least I hope I’m providing some depth!)

I do, however, come across good many articles and stories that I’d like to share with you.

An example is this piece, entitled Mangrove theology: Get stuck in and put down deep roots and written by Dave Bookless. It came to me through A Rocha International. Dave shares the insights he finds in Jeremiah 29:4-7 that relate to his own efforts to live out a Christian life that enriches rather than depletes God’s earth. And he makes a wonderful linkage between those ideas and deep-rooted mangroves.

I heartily encourage you to read it and explore more of Dave’s work.

I usually wouldn’t share an article like this through my blog. Through my Twitter account, however, I tweet links to articles and other news I believe are significant.

If you’d be interested in following me on Twitter, check me out here. Be assured. I’m not a tweeting machine. And you should know, in the spirit of full disclosure, the photo of me is very dated.

But if you follow me, you’ll come across some interesting, provocative thinking and information from around the world. I tend to tweet and retweet articles about what’s happening in the natural world and in the Christian world. I’m especially interested in where they overlap.

 

P.S. I know it’s a little contradictory to suggest you follow me on Twitter and also encourage you to be thoughtful with your time. In that spirit, I’d encourage you to check out two different resources on how to be thoughtful in your use of time. These can help be more focused on what matters most in your life, including your calling.

One resource is this article by Jake Knapp and John Zertasky that summarizes the main thoughts of their book Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Everyday. The authors highlight the dangers of being sucked into what they call Infinity Pools. Infinity Pools are, to quote from the article, “…essentially apps and other digital sources of limitless, inexhaustible, constantly-replenishing content — whether it be information, entertainment or a bit of both.” Like YouTube, Facebook, and, yes, Twitter. Use them with great caution.

Along those lines, I suggest you check out the blog and work of Cal Newport. His latest book is Digital Minimalism, and he’s also written Deep Work, which I very much enjoyed.

His main themes in Deep Work are: (1) deep, concentrated work is where you will bring the most value to yourself and the world, and (2) social media, scattered busyness, and even open floor plan offices are dangerous distractions to that deep work.

Just as God sometimes prunes parts of our lives, we should proactively prune our time commitments. What is most important should get our full commitment. Do you struggle with this as I do?

 

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A Calling to Honey Creek – Part 1

Nathan Aaberg —  March 16, 2019 — Leave a comment

As people like you work to change how churches act towards God’s earth, weaving mindfulness of God’s earth into the culture of our churches is vital. When we do so, we enable the Spirit to more truly shape our hearts and souls.

For cultural change to happen, we can’t just say a prayer like a magic incantation. Someone needs to actually carry the ball forward. That someone needs to sense that it is their calling, even if it is not their place of expertise. That someone needs to be willing to dive into the details that can be less than sexy.

With that in mind, I want to share the story of Joe Whittaker over several blog posts. Joe played a key role in launching Honey Creek Woodlands, Georgia’s only green burial ground. It is owned and operated by the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, a Roman Catholic contemplative religious community in the Trappist tradition. 

More than one thousand people have been buried at Honey Creek Woodlands since it opened for business in 2008 in Conyers, Georgia. What makes Honey Creek Woodlands distinct from some other green burial grounds is that the land above ground is managed to be as ecologically healthy as possible as well. Conservation efforts there are part of a larger constellation of conservation and cultural activities happening in the 8,000-acre Arabia Mountain Natural Heritage Area.

I interviewed Joe because of my own interest in green burials and was planning just to write a blog about Honey Creek Woodlands. But his story was fascinating, and I was struck by his big heart and humility. I discovered he is Episcopalian, and he has also long loved the outdoors. He seems to have been destined to do what he did at Honey Creek Woodlands. 

I believe Joe was answering God’s call. I believe you and I are hearing the call of God to preserve and renew God’s earth. We can be inspired by Joe’s faith and courage. He helped accomplish accomplish a great deal, despite his nervousness about stepping into the unknown. That’s what building God’s Kingdom looks like. It requires real faith and action.

 I hope you will be inspired and also take away insights about the challenges and rewards of launching a green burial cemetery. Moving to green burials is, I believe, one way for Christians to create a culture that truly lives out a conviction that the earth is God’s.

A Monastery Needs Help 

The Monastery of the Holy Spirit had a challenge at the end of the 20thcentury. How could the Monastery use its 2,260 acres of land to generate needed revenue while still stewarding that land in a way pleasing to God? In the past, there had been some clearcutting for timber. This was not something the fathers considered a good option going forward. The abbott at the time – Francis Michael – was, among many things, a naturalist. He understood that growing monocultures of pine trees on that land was not how you stewarded a healthy ecosystem.

Yet, how could that land be conserved as natural habitat when restoration efforts take money instead of generating revenue?

“Your options are limited,” says Joe. “You can exploit the land or you can sell off the land. Neither one of those were too appealing to the monastery.”

A way out of this conundrum presented itself when Francis Michael and others at the monastery heard of the first conservation-oriented green burial cemetery. Dr. Billy and Kimberley Campbell had launched it in South Carolina. It was a place where people could bury their loved ones simply and humbly. The Campbells used some of the revenue for management of the land as a healthy natural area.

The monastery came to the conclusion if they should look into doing this on their land. They could meet people’s desire for natural burial, steward the land, and support the Monastery as a whole financially.

They began exploring the idea more seriously. The metro Atlanta community showed great support as little wilderness has been spared from development in the past decades. The city and Rockdale County were also very supportive.

They were ready to go but who would actually make it happen?

Joe’s Call

Back in 2005, Joe was working in South Carolina for a company based in Chicago that did consumer research on what people buy in grocery stores. He traveled a lot and worked to understand the connection between food sale trends and what stores were doing with promotions. While he was driving he heard a story on National Public Radio (NPR) about green burial. It so happened that Joe had long been telling his family, in a half joking way, that when he died he just wanted them to put his body out into the swamps.

The green burial story on NPR riveted his attention.

“Holy smokes!” he thought, “This is exactly what I wanted my whole life.”

His excitement was tempered a bit by the assumption that the green cemetery they were talking about must be somewhere out on the West Coast. Then the radio host noted that they were talking with Dr. Billy Campbell. He was operataing the only green burial nature preserve in the country at Ramsey Creek Preserve in Westminster, South Carolina. This was in Joe’s own backyard, just an hour away.

So Joe contacted the Campbells, met them in 2007 and initially just talked through his own burial plans with them. But the relationship deepened. He began helping them as a volunteer.

The Monastery of the Holy Spirit contacted Dr. Billy Campbell about their plans to convert 80 acres of clearcut land to a green burial cemetery. They asked if he knew of anyone who could get their green burial cemetery off the ground, Billy connected them with Joe.

“That’s kind of crazy,” thought Joe when he first heard of the monastery’s interest. “I don’t live in Georgia, and I have a job.” It would also mean commuting back and forth to Georgia and living there for ten days at a time.

He and his wife. however, gave it some more thought. In the end, they decided that he would go to Georgia to help get the cemetery up and running. They realized it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“It’s almost like going to a Rolling Stone concert and saying I really like this band and then writing them an email saying, ”You guys are great.” And then they say, “Well, hey, do you want to come and help us out?”  And the next thing you know you’re playing backup guitar for the Rolling Stones.”

“I don’t think I could have created a more perfect position for myself. I’ve always felt very blessed. I don’t think a lot of people get to do things that they’re passionate about and that they enjoy and that they get a lot of meaning from.”

You’ll read more about how Joe helped to launch Honey Creek Woodlands despite many challenges in the next installment. Be sure to read the chapter “Life is Changed not Ended” in the book Sacred Acts: How Churches Are Working to Protect Earth’s Climate. It provides more details about Honey Creek Woodlands.

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