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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First Blessing in Genesis

Nathan Aaberg —  February 28, 2019 — Leave a comment

Who receives God’s first blessing?

When you read Genesis 1:20-22 you’ll find it isn’t mankind or Adam. It is all of the living creatures of the sea and all of the birds.

How remarkable. How beautiful.

And that’s easy to miss. We tend to focus, in a self-centered way, on God’s blessing to humanity later in the chapter. It’s similarly easy to miss that in Genesis the rainbow is intended as a sign of God’s covenant with humanity and Creation.

Christians have tended to miss a fundamental point. God’s earth matters to God.

But miss it we do. Even when Creation is right there in the front of us in the Bible and all around us.

I had a good conversation recently with a middle-aged Christian. She shared something startling. Until she spent the last summer at the Au Sable Institute, she had not heard of the concept of Creation care.

How can that be?

How could a Christian spend years going to church and in fellowship with other Christians and not be aware of something so fundamental?

If Chrisitans aren’t hearing about it, is it any wonder that Christians are largely not engaged in actively stewarding God’s earth? Worse yet, is it any wonder that Christians accept Creation-harming activities that show neither love for God nor for neighbor?

In the last month or so, a number of new people have signed up to receive this blog by email. I am, of course, deighted. This, along with that conversation I mentioned, is prompting me to feel I need to address some fundamental topics in coming posts.

I will share the reasons why the concept of Creation care is either ignored or just plain hard for Christians.

Another post will explore a positive theme – how striving to be a good shepherd of God’s earth enriches a Christian’s walk in faith.

I will share, too, the story of a person who was called to lead a specific and challenging effort that is culturally changing how Christians interact with Creation. I believe you’ll appreciate how he’s blessed people and Creation even when he didn’t feel equipped to do so. You’ll see he’s been blessed in the process.

Some of what I share will, I hope, be inspiring. Some will likely be challenging. I feel the need to do both.

Please let me know how I can be of service to your own calling in this direction. Let’s learn together what it takes to live a whole Christian faith.

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Together Again – Gathering #2

Nathan Aaberg —  January 21, 2019 — Leave a comment

Attendees of the second Gathering sit and stand together in the home of Lesley and Gilbert Smith

Building on the first gathering that we held in the fall of 2018, a group of us came together again at a second gathering on January 12th.

My friends Lesley and Gilbert Smith generously hosted us at their home in Vernon Hills, Illinois. Despite falling snow and some tricky driving conditions, nine people came. (You can see eight in the photo along with the Smiths’ dog Linden, who is insistent on playing ball.)

I am hopeful that this kind of gathering might be something you might like to try where you live. So below I share some information on the basics of the event as well as some reflections.

We began with a prayer and then a potluck lunch. Over lunch, each person shared how their faith, life, and attentiveness to God’s earth have been woven together over time This brought us together in a significant way right away. I believe it’s not often that we get to speak about deeper things with other people.

We then cleaned up and relaxed a bit before regathering in the living room. We began there with some updates about topics and people from the first gathering, including the formation of the BEHOLD Facebook group by Jon Terry of the Au Sable Institute.

Then Lesley and Gilbert spoke in some depth about their lives, with a particular focus on what they have learned from running a tree care business for nearly four decades. In this business, they have applied their Christian values and their Christian attentiveness to helping connect their customers in thoughtful ways with the beauty and complexity of trees. This was similar to the tour of the Reimers’ family farm we received at the first gathering. The opportunity to be given deep insight into the lives and experiences of people who are interacting with people and Creation everyday is a treat.

I then gave a draft presentation to the group. I titled it “Why Tending and Defending God’s Earth Is an Essential Part of a Christian Faith-Life.” There were 10 reasons. These reasons came from my four years of writing blog posts here and much reading as well. This sparked some lively conversation. The presentation still needs much work, but I am hopeful it will be the start to something I could share more widely. I was grateful for the group’s patience, interest, and candid feedback.

We then moved into a prayer session, with everyone taking a turn. A little more than four hours after we had begun, we closed with the singing of the Doxology.

It was good. It was very good.

We live in a time when more and more of our communication is by social media, It was refreshing to talk at length together in person with people of faith who were all ready to share their challenges and hopes and deep concern for God’s earth. One of the attendees even said, “My wife and I could have hung out for hours with each person there.”

Here are some of thoughts, impressions, and lessons:

Meeting in a Home Adds a Lot: When I organized the first gathering, I actually checked out a number of meeting rooms and facilities before the Riemers generously offered to host. While there is probably a place for larger gatherings being held in larger buildings, there is something down-to-earth and just right to gathering in a home. Of course, it helps to be in a home that is full of art, books, plants of all kinds, and even a beautiful dining room table that one of your hosts handcrafted from a black walnut tree that he and his brother harvested.

Trying Not to Get Caught up in Numbers: It is so hard not to judge success by numbers. We actually had 15 people signed up to come at one point, but a number of folks had to cancel in the last two weeks. A little voice in my head wondered if this was still going to be worth doing with a smaller number. Where was the momentum?

With God’s help, I’m letting that go. I ended up very happy with how it went. In our metric-oriented society, it’s hard to let go, have faith, and focus on the quality and intangibles of an experience, isn’t it? One wise friend suggested, in fact, that too large of a group could actually hinder people from sharing their hearts openly.

Who Knew?: At the very last minute, I invited a friend and her husband, and they were able to come. The funny thing is that the friend and I have been in the same professional orbit for years. It was only very recently, however, that we learned that we and her husband were all people of the Christian faith and like-minded about God’s earth. How many other people are there out there like that in all of our circles?

Allow More Space: A good friend who attended gently pointed out that I have tended to try to squeeze in a lot of content in these first two gatherings. This was, of course, a Midwestern way of saying, “For heaven’s sake, Nathan, don’t organize the life out of these things!” Having some structure is good, of course, but we might benefit from more breathing room and organic conversation flow. I will take that to heart.

What Kind of Words?: During my presentation, conversation flared up around one of my slides that presented a forceful statement that, among other things, explicitly called what is being done to God’s earth as “violence.” There was some concern that I was speaking too boldly and provocatively. Will we, some of the group wondered, turn off Christians who are just beginning to become open to seeing that God’s earth matters? How do we express convictions and urgency without being a zealot? It occurred to me that we must somehow reconcile the fruits of the spirit with Jesus’ readiness to express anger, to speak against wrong, and to create tension. This is no easy task.

In the Shadow of Climate Change: Climate change and the chaos it is bringing were part of our conversation. One provocative thought that was shared was this – only when the scale and urgency of climate change cannot be ignored will a significant number of Christians and others look to change their ways. Christians who are paying attention and are convinced that this world that God so loves matters to God need to be ready together when that happens. But what does being ready mean? What does that look like on the land?

Truly Living by Faith: During our sharing over lunch, a number of the people there shared stories of deep faith. In some cases, it was their own experience of living on the edge between despair and hope and survival. In other cases, it was people and groups of people they had spent life with who truly lived on complete trust in God. I was also struck by the fact that a number of people there have served people in need as professionals and as volunteers and/or are doing so now. Faith and compassion can’t help but be expressed both towards people and towards Creation.

Finally, I cannot describe fully how good it was to be together that Saturday. How much our hearts and minds are inspired and expanded when we share our faith-lives deeply with others who who experience wonder in God’s Creation and who feel compelled to tend it and defend it.

I hope you already know what that kind of togetherness feels like or will in coming months.

I end with a prayer that Lesley Smith shared with me after the event. It is a prayer that she says before she and her husband Gilbert meet with a customer to talk about the customer’s trees.

Blessed are you, YHWH, creator of the universe who made the trees with wisdom and grace, without which we would all perish. Thank you for these gifts of life, healing and beauty. Father, you are the author of the light, and I ask for permission and insight to communicate with this tree for its healing and for the benefit and blessing of all Creation. Lord have mercy. Amen.

 

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