Claiming Sacred Vocation in an Age of Ecological Lent

In class this past week, we finished our engagement with Mark Wallace’s Christian Animism, reflecting first on the central aim of his book “to empower our collective desire to heal Earth’s suffering by rekindling a spiritual vision of our biotic and abiotic kinfolk as revered members of a unified, blessed family.” In particular, we asked what role our congregation will play going forward in the formation of members equipped with such a spiritual vision, so that they might have the energy “to enter the public fray, to bind up the wounds of an injured planet, and to fight the long-term battle to save our own and other species” (145). We also explored Wallace’s proposal that Christians speak of the ecological crises of our time – biodiversity collapse, habitat destruction, climate chaos – as an ongoing crucifixion of God incarnate in the body of the earth and the bodies of our plant and animal kin. Finally, drawing on Wallace’s descriptions of sacred sites and holy pilgrimages, we imagined what it would look like to work toward a vision of Hennepin’s grounds as a sacred site, an enchanted landscape, and an oasis of ecological hope.