an eco-spirituality worth getting dirty

Sep 16

Written By Mission Hills Christian Church

God is a life that bestows life, root of the world-tree and

wind in its branches. She is glistening life alluring all

praise, all awakening, all resurrecting.

—Hildegard of Bingen

Dirt is matter out of place.

- Mary Douglas

We will not save what we do not love. It is also true that we

will neither love nor save what we do not experience as

sacred.

- Thomas Merton

John 4:4-14

4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Sunday conversation

What is eco-anxiety?

Eco-anxiety is a feeling of worry or unease relating to the environmental crisis. Eco-anxiety can involve feelings of worry, fear, anger, grief, despair, guilt, helplessness, and shame. People will experience eco-anxiety differently, it might depend on how you experience the impacts of climate change, which could be through direct experience or through news or media coverage about climate change.