The Graze V.245: A Thing is Right

Dear Friends,

Every morning this week, a lovely barred owl joined me at the vicarage kitchen window. She patiently watched for her breakfast in the field below and then spread her wings to soar into the snowy meadow when it finally arrived. She reminded me of the larger community of which the people and pets at Mission Farm are a part.

I mentioned at our Annual Meeting last week that we might be the only Episcopal Church in the country with a Forest Committee. What we have learned over the past five years is that we live and exist within a larger ecological community and that our duty as people of faith is to intertwine our care for humanity with our care of the land.

January 11 is the birthday of writer and ecologist Aldo Leopold, born in Burlington, Iowa in 1887. Aldo Leopold’s contribution to the world was the articulation of a Land Ethic. Leopold believed that humans should change their relationship with the natural world - seeing ourselves as plain members and citizens of the land along with soil, plants, water, and wildlife, instead of acting as conquerors of it and using the land for “resources” to benefit ourselves. Mission Farm has adapted this ethic into the warp and weft of a community of faith.  As we watch the fires in California with heavy hearts, it is clear that we have great need for such an ethic in our faith.

“A thing is right,” Leopold argued, “when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

I am grateful to be on this journey with you as we strive to live into this ‘right’ vision together.

🌱 Lisa