November 26, 2024
Online at 12.00 - 1.00pm EST
With guest Lauren Van Ham and hosts Rev. Alison Cornish and Michael Skaggs
Hosted by The BTS Center
“To be a chaplain who is tending ‘home’ can mean and look like a lot of things… It’s about understanding that I am as much a participant in the ecosystem, like the mushroom, like the bird, like the creek bed…” — Lauren Van Ham in Sojourners
Chaplains who ground their work in the healing power of being in relationship with Earth — particularly a climate-changed Earth — are shaping a new field of practice: climate conscious chaplaincy.
As the real effects of the climate crisis are felt across all nations and peoples, there is such great need for responsive, skilled, compassionate spiritual care to address the short-term and long-term needs of those who are, and will be, affected by these new realities. The conditions to which we must adapt, and the changed landscapes of which we must make sense, require adjusted spiritual understandings for each of us, as well as the support that will enable us to make those adjustments.
But what exactly is “The Work”? Our presenter, Lauren Van Ham, has asked and answered this question for herself in roles as varied as our society itself: working with multi-national corporations and non-profit organizations; teaching, coaching and mentoring; and creating ceremonies, prayers, and writings.
Lauren will join us for this special conversation about the work of chaplaincy rooted in relationship with Earth in these times of crisis and change.