Archives For Wildlife

Wild Hope – An Interview with Gayle Boss

Nathan Aaberg —  March 24, 2020 — 4 Comments

Cover of Wild Hope

My friend Jon Terry from the Au Sable Institute sent me a surprise gift in the mail – a copy of the book Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing by Gayle Boss. The book has six sections for the six weeks of Lent. Each section features the profiles of four animals, from the Chinese pangolin and black-footed ferret to the Amur leopard and golden riffleshell mussel. Each profile opens your eyes and heart to the wondrous qualities of the animal. Gayle also shares, in an understated yet poignant way, the challenges each species faces to survive.

Because Gayle is such a gifted writer, it’s hard to resist sharing a multitude of excerpts. Here are two from her introduction that get to the purpose of Wild Hope: 

“Attention to the amazingness of our arkmates routes us directly to the heart of Lent. The season means to rouse us from our self-absorption.”

“The promise of Lent is that something will be born of the ruin, something so astoundingly better than the present moment that we cannot imagine it. Lent is seeded with resurrection. The Resurrection promises that a new future will be given to us when we beg to be stripped of the lie of separation, when the hard husk suffocating our hearts breaks open and, like children, we feel the suffering of any creature as our own. That this can happen is the wild, not impossible hope of all creation.”

I highly recommend this book for you and your family. You will more deeply treasure God and God’s Creation. Your heart will also go out to the men and women who are dedicating their lives to preserve the life of God’s earth. Gayle’s writing will affirm your own convictions and heart for the life around us. You’ll be struck by the beautiful art of David G. Klein. And the book will move your heart in new ways during this Lenten season

I’m grateful to Gayle for writing this book. She generously took time to respond to four questions I had for her.

Nathan: You write in the introduction to Wild Hope, “I didn’t hear all creation groaning when my sons were young. I was oblivious to the millions dying, their kinds never to be seen on the earth again.” Can you share how you came to be a Christian, a writer, and a Christian writer called to communicate about the life of God’s earth?

Gayle: I grew up in a church-going family (the Dutch Reformed tradition) and loved all-things-church, even as a teenager! It seemed to me the one public place where what really mattered—who we are and why we’re here—got talked about. That impulse to talk about what matters also drew me into a writing life.

I’ve tried my hand at nearly all creative literary forms, from long-form journalism to haiku. In my early forties I wrote a 535-page failed novel. The wish to write about animals and how close bonds with them make us more deeply human grew on me so slowly I’m not sure I can trace it.

This much seems true: When my sons were young, their love of animals woke a long-dormant attention to animals in me. I remembered how I would cry when my father and uncles hung up deer they’d shot from the branches of a big oak tree to bleed out. And I remembered how the rest of the family laughed at my tears. The venison was part of our winter food supply, my food supply, too.

Led by my children, I let my original tenderness for animals rise again. I noticed how good that felt, even when I experienced an animal suffering. I felt more alive, more free. I now believe that’s because I reconnected with the One Love planted in all things at their creation; the love at my core calls to the love at their core. Restoring that connection is a path back to our deepest selves and back to the beloved community of all created things that we call Eden or The Peaceable Kingdom, where “They will not hurt or destroy in all (God’s) holy mountain.”

Nathan: Please share what your goals were for Wild Hope and why you believe attentiveness to “..the amazingness of our arkmates routes us directly to the heart of Lent.”

Gayle: As with All Creation Waits, I wanted to wake, or fan, in readers the kind of love for animals that was dormant for so long in me—a love that doesn’t “cute-ify” them, but sees each one as “a word of God and a book about God,” as Meister Eckhart said. In that first book, I wrote about animals that many of us see regularly, like skunks, raccoons, and chickadees.

In Wild Hope, I describe animals most of us will never see in the wild, from orangutans to olms. I wanted to describe their magnificence and tell their stories, including the stories of their suffering on a planet we’ve made unlivable for them. I thought that if I could tell their stories in such a way that we readers would be drawn into their worlds, our defenses could melt, and we could grieve their suffering. We could see them as expressions of God’s own self and God’s own suffering—at our hands. Which is the white-hot core of Lent.

It’s important to me that we readers respond to the animals’ stories first with love, not shame and guilt. Because we’ll only make the radical life-changes that will protect the earth for all animals, including us, if we’re motivated by love. Guilt-motivated change may work for the short term, but it can’t be sustained. Over the long haul, we only protect and save what we love.

Gayle Boss in woodsNathan: What animal of God’s earth most captivates your heart? Why?

Gayle: Of course you know that I’m going to say I’m smitten by every animal I see and learn about. And it’s true, I really am!

The “episode” of each animal’s story that most undoes me, though, comes when, faced with impending death, they desperately do everything in their power to protect their young. While researching and writing Wild Hope, I saw that episode occur over and over: The mother polar bear struggling to keep her cubs afloat in seas without ice floes, and failing; Laysan albatrosses watching their chicks sink into lethargy from plastic poisoning, and die; the pangolin mother curling around her baby when the poacher pulls her out of her den. As a mother, to recognize that my actions, our actions, inflict the worst suffering I can imagine on other mothers was almost more than I could bear.

Learning the stories of these animals swelled my love for them, and love wouldn’t let me look away from their suffering. It made me fiercer in my commitment to change parts of my life that contribute to their suffering. We only protect and save what we love.

Nathan: What role do you believe art can play in inspiring Christians to understand God’s love for the whole world (including our “nonhuman kin”), to act on that understanding, and to somehow work through the despair and grief we experience as we see our nonhuman kin suffering?

Gayle: I don’t believe we’ll ever “understand” God’s love for all created things. Understanding is a motion of the mind, and God’s love for all things is way beyond our minds. It can happen, though, that we’re grasped by God’s love for all created things. Somehow, that “beyond us” Love that created the universe finds an opening in the hard husk of our egos and “cuts us to the heart,” as It did those who heard Peter tell the Jesus-story at Pentecost. Once Love has got hold of our hearts, it changes how we see everything. And when we see differently, we behave differently. “If your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light,” Jesus says.

At their best, stories, visual art, dance, and music bypass the mental constructs we use to defend ourselves and our walled-off ways of living. True art is the dart Divine Love uses to cut to our hearts. Suddenly or slowly, it reveals a new way of perceiving a world we thought we knew. Think of how differently the night sky appears once we’ve been struck by Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.” What was static is suddenly full of energy and motion and presence.

It’s important to say that art doesn’t always pierce our thick husks with what we find beautiful. Sometimes art seems ugly or threatening, troubling. Van Gogh’s neighbors did not think “The Starry Night” was beautiful. They thought he was a crazy man making unpleasant, offensive paintings – that’s how new his way of perceiving was.

But for those of us who can allow even a crack in our armor, God can use art to peel the scales from our eyes and show us a universe pulsing with Presence, with creative energy unbounded. That vision becomes so compelling, we want to do everything we can to make ways for God’s always-creating energy to manifest in the visible world. “Working for change” isn’t a burden we bear but a dance we cannot help but do. As Paul says in the fifth chapter of Romans, “We rejoice in the hope of sharing in God’s glory.”

At the same time, we also suffer more deeply with the suffering. But as Paul goes on to say, “We rejoice in our sufferings,” because somehow suffering leads to a hope that “does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

My limited experience tells me that in suffering we sink more deeply into the heart of God, into the Love that is at the core of the Universe—at our core—and know ourselves to be truly alive. Sunk in that Love, we also know that it is the truest thing in the universe—it’s the origin of the universe—and that Love cannot but have the final say. We carry on in the irrepressible hope that God is the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into being the things that are not.” (Romans 4:17)

That’s the Wild Hope at the center of the book Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing. I hope the stories reveal the pulsing presence of God in each creature and the drive of Love for that creature to survive. That’s a drive I want to join.

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Rescuing God’s Land – Jeff and Lori Sundberg

Nathan Aaberg —  September 29, 2018 — 2 Comments

In a recent post I wrote that whole faith Christians will work to bring more life to the corners of God’s earth they hold, keep, and use. And they will do so even when the culture of land use around them creates pressure to do otherwise.

Whether that corner is an urban yard, a suburban lot, a rural property, or a farm, there are creative ways to bring more life to the parcels of land under our care. Figuring out those ways is one of the pleasures and challenges of being human. Over time I want to share profiles of what Christian land stewardship looks like in real life.

In August, I shared the story of David and Dianda Easter. In this post, you will read about Jeff and Lori Sundberg.

As their daughters went off to college and life after college, Jeff and Lori Sundberg had been thinking about where they wanted to move to for their next phase of life. They lived in a neighborhood in the prosperous town of Libertyville, Illinois. They were long time members of First Presbyterian Church of Libertyville. They had good jobs at nearby Lake Forest College. Yet, they knew that in their approaching retirement they wanted to be in a more rural place.

When Lori had lunch with the husband of her boss who had recently passed away, she didn’t know she would receive insight that would impact their decision on exactly where to move. The husband shared that he and his wife had also had conversations about where to retire to and had talked about different places here and there.

But then they had come to an important realization. “Why,” they had asked each other, “would we want to move away from our community when we’re approaching the time of our lives when we really need our community?”

This resonated with Jeff and Lori. So when they became aware of a 10-acre property on the northern edge of Libertyville in an area where public and private people and organizations had largely preserved its rural landscape character, they were intrigued. Five of the ten acres were in agriculture. The other five included a house that needed to be demolished, a large shed, a small wetland overgrown with nonnative plants, and a small woods also overwhelmed with invasive non-native plants. It was not a posh, pristine place, but they saw potential. They especially liked all of the open space around the property. In September 2015, they purchased it.

This is where a bit of backstory on Jeff is helpful. In addition to being a professor of liberal arts, business, and economics, he is an avid birder who has seen and identified 625 bird species to this point in his life. His ability to share a wealth of bird knowledge in entertaining, vivid, and funny ways makes him in constant demand for talks and for leading bird tours. He has served on the board of local and regional conservation organizations as well and volunteers for workdays restoring natural areas. He saw the land through an ecological lens.

“Some people like to rescue dogs,” says Jeff, “and I felt like this land needed rescuing.”

He explains further. “The land needed rescuing from us. The property was full of stuff that had been planted here on purpose that doesn’t serve any ecological purpose. It was also full of plants that had just come in here because they’re invasive and don’t serve any ecological purpose. An example is the Siberian elm. They are one of the least useful wildlife trees in North America. There’s almost nothing that eats them. They’re all over the place, and they spread like crazy.”

Jeff and Lori began rescuing the land by removing as many of the non-native trees, shrubs, and other plants as they could. This was hard work.

Lori is honest about her level of initial interest in tackling the ecological problems of their new property.

“Before we started the removal of the invasive plants, I didn’t think anything about rescuing the land. And I really didn’t see myself restoring property in my retirement plan.”

“But then when we started in on it and Jeff was showing me the Oriental bittersweet and other invasive plants, I got really into it. At one point Jeff gave me a whole patch of brush back there and a weed wrench and said, “Take out everything.” It was fun.”

“She had never used a weed wrench before,” says Jeff proudly, “but she was an unstoppable force.”

As they removed invasive non-native plants, they also began planting a wide variety of native plants indigenous to the area. They’ve planted over 140 trees and shrubs. The tree species have included six different kinds of oaks as well as two hickory species. The shrub species have included viburnums, ninebark, American bittersweet, hazelnut, and witch hazel. They’ve also seeded prairie plants in the open areas, woodland plants amongst the wooded areas, and wetland plants in and around the wetland.

Photo of wooded wetland pond in spring.

When Jeff and Lori first purchased their property, this wetland was not visible due to the massive wall of invasive brush that had grown up over time. Since they opened up the area, turtles have returned and frogs have become abundant.

“We’re just trying to undo some of what humans have done or allowed to do to the property,” says Jeff.

There have been signs they are on the right path. “In the woodland, all the native grasses came up right away after the seeding,” says Jeff. “And all of a sudden last year, all these tall bellflowers, were blooming everywhere one day, and it was just spectacular.”

God’s wildlife have responded, too. Turtles have been seen around the pond, after not having been seen at all the first two years. Frog and toad numbers are way up. “We have lots and lots of leopards frogs and chorus frogs and American toads and green frogs,” says Jeff. And Jeff and Lori are seeing tons of birds. While I was there, for example, Jeff pointed out a ruby-throated hummingbird foraging for food.

Jeff has noticed that the birds are mostly seen nesting and foraging in the native trees.

Small oak leaves bursting from bud.

The bud of one of the many oak trees the Sundbergs have planted opens to the glorious green of young oak leaves. Oak trees support an amazing variety of wildlife.

“I think taking care of the earth is part of what Christian stewardship is,” says Jeff. “I don’t in any way think I can make this better than what it used to be, but I’d like to make it closer to what it used to be. I don’t think the earth is here just to give us oil and coal and big muddy pits in the ground.”

“I certainly think there is a Christian element to what we’re doing. Plus it’s fun. When I was out here slaying Oriental bittersweet, it really felt like Onward Christian Soldiers.”

Lori finds that the way their home fits in most with her Christian life is being able to share the inspiring, peaceful setting with her church community. “We’ve had plans to have a silent Saturday out here in the morning,” she says. “I think it would be a good spot for that. There are plenty of places people can spread out, sit, and enjoy nature while doing their meditation or their prayer. We’ve also had deacons’ meetings here.”

“It does feel like a place that has a role to play in other people’s lives and not just ours,” adds Jeff.

They have several pieces of advice for other people who want to restore the beauty and ecological abundance of God’s earth.

1. Volunteer for ecological restoration work days: Volunteering with people who know what they’re doing is a really good way to learn. It can be hard to just take a book and just figure it all out.

2. Not everything will work: “You need to realize that everybody fails in so many ways,” says Jeff, “but especially in what they plant. It would be entertaining, in a dispiriting way, to know how many things I planted that didn’t live a week. That’s just part of the learning process.” Having someone to encourage you and give advice is really important.

3. Keep a record of what you plant and where: Jeff has a spreadsheet of every plant and seed mix they’ve put into the ground. This allows him to track the success and failure of what has been done over time and to make adjustments going forward. Keeping that record will also allow you to feel some satisfaction in what you’ve done over time.

Jeff and Lori sitting outside of their home.

Jeff and Lori live about a mile away from me. It has been wonderful to see the transformation of Jeff and Lori’s property over time. What a world and what a Church we might have if more Christians around the world were committed to rescuing and renewing God’s earth.

 

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Bringing More Life – David and Dianda Easter

Nathan Aaberg —  July 28, 2018 — 3 Comments

In a recent post I wrote that whole faith Christians will work to bring more life to the corners of God’s earth they hold, keep, and use. And they will do so even when the culture of land use around them creates pressure to do otherwise.

Whether that corner is an urban yard, a suburban lot, a rural property, or a farm, there are creative ways to bring more life to the parcels of land under our care. Figuring out those ways is one of the pleasures and challenges of being human.

I would even assert that taking on the challenge of bringing life to different places and at different scales is a path towards growth in our hearts and minds. It takes patience. It takes careful observation and nuance. You need to research and gain new knowledge while also using practical, down-to-earth skills. Anyone doing this will make mistakes. What works at one point may not work at another point. Love and faith will be needed. Sometimes discipline will have to be applied. Sometimes hard choices will have to be made.

Sounds a whole lot like parenting, doesn’t it?

Over time I want to share profiles of what Christian land stewardship looks like in real life. And in this post, I share the land-to-life story of David and Dianda Easter.

In 2008, they acquired a 7.5-acre property near Urbana, Illinois after a search of over a year. They were living in Ohio at the time and had been working with a real estate agent for their search. David’s sister was eager to help. She drove back county roads looking for properties that might not be listed. Her efforts paid off when she found an abandoned Christmas tree farm.

Your average person might have seen only problems. The Scotch pines that were left on the property were succumbing to disease. The former owners had been harvesting the Christmas trees with a big digger but had not been replacing the missing trees or filling the holes that had been left behind. There were over 200 holes scattered about. Each was 3-5’ in diameter and 2-4’ in depth. What’s more, invasive non-native plants like Asian honeysuckle and autumn olive now dominated the undergrowth.

Open woods in the foreground without any invasive plants and in background, across the property line, is a wall of invasive shrubs.

The contrast is stark. Across the Easters’ property line in the background of this image, you can see their neighbors’ land is still dominated by a thick mass of invasive shrubbery that prevents light from reaching the ground. In the foreground you can see what the land looks like after the Easters have removed invasive shrubs and diseased trees over the last 10 years.

It was an aesthetic and ecological mess. The Easters saw a chance to restore and renew God’s creation.

Its context, which David’s sister had noticed, also gave the property latent potential to be ecologically valuable . The property, for instance, is next to a river. River corridors are especially important for wildlife. Their property is also across from a publicly-owned natural area. By restoring this degraded property, the Easters saw they could have a larger impact.

The Easters were motivated by their long-time Christian faith to take on this challenge.

“We’ve done organic gardening for thirty something years,” says David. “We’ve always felt that God created the earth, and the earth should be protected. We believe we need to protect and improve the world around us and leave it a better place, both spiritually and physically.”

The Easters were able to retire early to this piece of land because they had long committed themselves to living as simply as they could, which itself was a reflection of their Christian values. They chose not to buy into consumer culture, which compels people to keep consuming and buying.

“Early in our marriage we set a lifestyle, and we capped it, even when our incomes rose,” says David. “Instead, we saved, and we gave.”

In 2008, they weren’t quite ready to move, but were eager to begin improving their new land. So for the next four years, they would travel from Ohio and spend several weeks of their annual vacations filling in the holes, clearing the invasive plants, taking down the diseased pines, and planting native trees and shrubs.

“The first years we planted and went back to Ohio so we didn’t care for them well so we had to replant quite a few.”

In 2012, they moved to their property in Illinois, building their own passive solar house there with solar panels on the roof providing much of the energy they needed. They also planted a large garden so they could grow more of their food. Now that they were there year-round, their restoration of the land picked up in pace and intensity. To bring ecological life to their land, they’ve planted a wide variety of native trees and shrubs.

A young oak sapling protected by wiring.

The Easters have planted hundreds of native trees on their property since they bought it in 2008 and have also seen native trees and shrubs spring up even when not planted by them. Here is a young oak with protection from deer.

David is proud to recite the diverse native species of woody plants he and his wife have planted, both from seed and as live plants – 10 species of oaks, four species of hickory tree, two maple species, persimmons, sassafras, viburnums, pawpaws (a favorite of mine), hornbeam, Juneberry, wahoo, snowberry, coralberry, ninebark, hazelnut, witch hazel, and spirea. For their own sustenance, they’ve also planted fruit and nut trees and bushes. These include pecans, gooseberries, currants, blueberries, pears, peaches, and plums. In all, they’ve planted 82 different species of trees and shrubs on their property.

“We have a book called Trees of Central Illinois,” says David, “and we’ve planted everything in the book, I believe, except perhaps for the ones that would belong on the river bottoms. Based on the number of fenceposts we’ve purchased for marking the location of the woody plants we’ve planted, there at least 750 trees and shrubs growing right now.”

David Easter stands next to pawpaw tree.

David stands by one of the pawpaw trees he and Dianda had planted some time ago. Seeing what they planted grow and prosper over time has been a great pleasure for them.

They’ve had pleasant surprises as well. After they cleared out the invasive plants that had been dominating the land under the trees, native plants began springing up that the Easters hadn’t planted, including sassafras, oaks, and spicebush. “We’ve seen plants come up that we would not have expected and had not done so in 20 years,” says David. His guess is that birds were bringing in nuts and dropping berry seeds from other nearby properties.

The rich variety of native plants and the pollen, nectar, fruit, nuts, and cover they provide has attracted a variety of wildlife. They have seen turkey walking through, hawks and eagles flying over, and owls in the woods. Deer are actually overly abundant. They are happy to see coyotes using the land frequently. The red fox are a mixed blessing, as they are beautiful animals but have also absconded with several of the Easters’ chickens. Monarch butterflies, which face a difficult future as a species, often visit their land. Dave and Dianda enjoy watching bluebirds nesting in the next boxes they’ve installed on the property as well..

They’ve even had moments of discovery. “In the tallgrass area one day we saw hundreds of swallows and hundreds of dragonflies,” says Dianda. “Were swallows eating the dragonflies or were they both eating insects there?”

David and Dianda have advice for people who want to bring life to their properties:

1. Do research before you begin

2. Use native plants whenever possible

3. Start planting native plants (especially trees and shrubs) as early as possible in your ownership or stewardship of a piece of property so you can enjoy them as they grow

4. It’s never too late to start planting and restoring your land

5. Start small so you don’t become overwhelmed and can learn lessons that you can easily fix as you go

It was a pleasure to spend time with David and Dianda on their property when I took the photos you see. They were simultaneously at peace with who they were and energetic in their life purpose that is bound up with their Christian faith.

I first met David at a land conservation meeting we both attended in central Illinois. In addition to what he and Dianda are doing on their land, David also works to help God’s creation be protected and restored to life on a larger scale by serving on the board of Grand Prairie Friends. This is an organization that protects ecologically important lands from development by purchasing them and also by using legal tools like conservation easements. David and Dianda attend and are active in the life of Stone Creek Church in Urbana.

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Bring God’s Earth Alive Where You Live

Nathan Aaberg —  June 17, 2018 — Leave a comment

How well are you stewarding that part of God’s earth that is under your care? Are you giving it any thought?

You and I can learn from Gabe Brown in that respect. Gabe Brown is a Christian farmer in North Dakota who is helping to change American agriculture for the better. He transitioned his family’s farm from conventional, chemical-dependent farming practices to a creative, Creation-friendly, profitable system. For years now, he has been tirelessly sharing his lessons with farmers around the country.

In his talks and interviews, Gabe recalls that before he made that transition in farming, his focus on most days was how to kill things. Weeds and bugs were his enemies. Now, in contrast, he wakes up each day trying to figure how to bring more life to his farm through cover crops, grazing, and other nature-mimicking approaches.

Gabe makes clear that creatively striving to bring more life to the land is rewarding, energizing, and just more fun.

I urge you, as part of your whole Christian faith, to make the commitment to bring more life to your corner of God’s earth. 

Photo of eastern tiger swallowtail on flower of Silphium

This is what life looks like on a landscape – plants providing what wildlife (in this case, an eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly) need. For this native butterfly to live and thrive, it needs both host plants and nectar plants. Your yard or your church property can provide both. (Photo courtesy of Joan Sayre)

I urge you to then choose how to best act on that commitment.

One excellent way is to grow food. There is much more to write on that. And I will!

But another way I want to bring your attention to is this – managing your landscape so it feeds and shelter birds, butterflies, and other wildlife. Speaking in general terms, this boils down to planting native plants on your landscape and minimizing the use of chemicals that are directly or indirectly harmful.

Just like Gabe Brown has gone against the flow of conventional farming culture, Creation-friendly landscaping goes against the flow of conventional American landscape culture.

Are you willing to go against mainstream culture for your faith?

Culture is the invisible voice that tells us what should be done and how for reasons that we really can’t explain. The lawn is the centerpiece of American landscape culture. For reasons we can’t explain a yard, cemetery, or church property without lawn just doesn’t feel right. This compulsion is invisible to us. It is just what we expect to see.

And we see a lot of it. According to this article, a NASA study estimates that there are over 63,000 square miles of the United States is devoted to turf. That is three times more than any other irrigated crop grown in our country. It is approximately the size of Texas.

We as Christians, however, should not blindly accept the culture around us. We’re called to consciously question every element of the culture we find ourselves in and determine whether it is consistent with the core threads and values of the Bible.

Israel was threatened by the lure of surrounding cultures and their gods. The story of the Good Samaritan is a story of God-honoring love triumphing over culturally formed dividing lines. Paul’s letters reveal early churches wrestling with questions of local cultures that were sometimes contrary to Christian values. One of the factors behind Christianity’s early spread was how its followers were willing to live out a charitable, loving culture in stark contrast to Roman culture.

It’s time Christians questioned the lawn culture.

When you do so, you will find that the pristine lawn as the default and unquestioned landscaping option is, in fact, contrary to a Christian perspective. This is not to say that there isn’t a place for lawn in our landscapes where there is abundant rainfall, especially when it isn’t dowsed with excessive chemicals and fertilizers. It does bring order.  It offers a place to play. There are places where vegetation close to a building is not a good thing.

But the lawn culture at its most extreme is inconsistent with a whole Christian faith.

It reflect a compulsive need to control nature to the extent that we damage and exterminate it. It is built on a culture of figuring out how to kill things. It deprives God’s wildlife of sustenance and shelter. It is a culture of selfishness at odds with what we see of God in Jesus and the rest of the Bible.

 

The number zero representing the wildlife value of lawns.

A lawn with nothing but bluegrass offers sustenance to ZERO butterflies and other pollinators which are essential elements in God’s very good Creation.

And that says nothing of how lawns are usually kept green and weed-free.

In practical terms, lawn maintenance for most Americans means using chemicals to keep the lawn as green and bug-free as possible. These chemicals are not benign. Follow this link to a chart showing potential and known health issues of the 30 most commonly used lawn chemicals. Here’s a quick summation. Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 16 are linked with cancer or carcinogenicity, 12 are linked with birth defects, 21 with negative reproductive effects, 25 with liver or kidney damage, 14 with neurotoxicity, and 17 with disruption of the endocrine (hormonal) system. Of those same 30 lawn pesticides, 19 are detected in groundwater, 20 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources, 30 are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms vital to our ecosystem, 29 are toxic to bees, 14 are toxic to mammals, and 22 are toxic to birds.

Do you want your children rolling in those kinds of chemicals? Our pets, too, are at risk.

In light of all of the above, the lawn is actually a symbol of the false understanding of dominion that Christians have extracted from Genesis 1. Dominion, when you read the Bible simplistically and under the influence of self-centered human culture, comes to mean domination. The assumption of the culture of domination is that the decline, diminishment, destruction, and disappearance of other life on God’s earth are acceptable collateral damage in our pursuit of power and comfort.

in contrast, Christians living out a whole Christian faith will naturally want to be pro-life in the largest sense of the word. That must translate into how they landscape their own properties and their churches’ land.

You and I will know when Christians are truly pro-life when instead of commenting on how green and weed-free their lawns are they compare notes (and perhaps even compete?!) about the numbers and diversity of birds, butterflies, and pollinators they’ve been able to attract to their yards.

I’m happy to say there are Christians who are already purposefully and creatively bringing life to their corner of God’s earth. I will be sharing their stories. This will lead, too, to practical tips and advice. I hope all of this will be the springboard for you to think again about how to best shape the health of the corner of God’s earth that you have responsibility for.

One of the things I will highlight in those coming posts is the rewards of this approach to stewarding your yard or property. You will grow in knowledge. You will grow in observation skills and how to think and act holistically. You will experience wonder.

And like Gabe Brown, you will wake up and enjoy the challenge of how to bring more life.

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What Good Stewardship Looks Like

Nathan Aaberg —  January 30, 2018 — Leave a comment

It’s easy to write about what good stewardship of God’s earth looks like in the abstract. It’s another thing to live it out.

And it’s another thing altogether when you are trying to make a living off of the land, and your particular neighborhood happens to have grizzly bears.

That’s why it was inspiring to read this article by Kristine Johnson of the Food and Environmental Reporting Network. The article describes how ranchers in the Tom Miner Basin in Montana are raising cattle in ways that prevent predation on their cattle without killing the predators.

You’re probably inundated with information, articles, and books. Nevertheless, I urge you to take the time to read this article and ponder it. And if you can, do so before continuing below.

In the Tom Miner Basin in Montana ranchers are trying to live with grizzlies. (Photo used with kind permission of photographer Louise Johns – www.louisejohns.org)

Here are the traits of good stewardship of God’s earth that this story brings to the fore.

“They deserve to be here, too:” Fundamentally, this story of ranchers in Montana is about people who are living by the conviction that grizzlies are part of the fabric of that country. From their ethical perspective, it’s up to them to figure out how to make a living ranching while allowing the whole fabric to continue to thrive. And that means figuring out how to live with predators.

This parallels what we see in the Bible. In Psalm 50:11 we read: “I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine.” Without doubt, predators are included in “all the animals.”

In Job 38:39-41 we read:

Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
And satisfy the hunger of the lions
When they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
Who provides food for the raven
When its young cry out to God
And wander about for lack of food?

In Exodus 23:10-11, we read of the Sabbath concept of giving a parcel of farmland a rest every seventh year which enabled the poor and wildlife to be able to gather food from that land.

And we tend to forget that God made a covenant with both humanity and the rest of life. Wolves and grizzles were included in that covenant as well.

Acting within Creation’s framework: I was struck by the words in article of Whit Hibbard. A rancher and the editor of The Stockmanship Journal, Hibbard is an advocate for low-stress livestock handling. These are techniques that more peacefully and subtly direct the cattle to do what is needed. Knowing how to get your goals accomplished without being a tyrant is the most obvious sign of a good steward. For ranchers that can mean how you handle your cattle and how you interact with your predator neighbors. For all of us, no matter where we are, that means paying attention to how the ecosystems and the animals and plants around you interact and naturally behave and then trying to fit your place, your activities in those patterns.

Apply our creativity: Genesis tells us we are made in God’s image. I’m convinced that one of the primary elements of that image is creativity. We worship a Creator God, a God who is amazingly imaginative and who has endowed Creation with its own creativity. And we are, similarly, inventive beings. Using God’s earth for our needs while purposefully enabling God’s earth to thrive and even regenerate is one of the most important and most challenging puzzles we face as a species and as communities and individuals. This puzzle should bring out in us our best, most thoughtful,and wisest innovations.

It takes a little extra: Doing the right thing is rarely the easy thing. In comparison to the long-time ranching approach of letting the cattle out on the range for weeks on end with little human presence, having someone riding the range every day takes more time, energy, and money. Seeking out specific breeds of cattle that are better able to fight off predators also requires an investment of energy and research. In page three of the latest newsletter of People and Carnivores, you can read of ranchers learning how to put up special fences with fluttering flags attached (a practice called “fladry”) to scare off wolves without harming them. This is another example of thoughtfulness translated into action.

It reminds me of the parable of the good shepherd. In that parable, Jesus reminds us that an attentive shepherd puts his heart into his task and will search out one lost sheep. That’s neither the easy or simple thing. It might not make pure economic sense. Creation is God’s flock. Are we willing to be the kind of shepherds God wants us to be?

You and I cannot be judgmental spectators of the challenges ranchers face. We should be going to the extra effort of supporting farmers and ranchers like these by buying their products, even if it costs a little more. We should also be good stewards of our own land, even if that is just 20′ x 30′ backyard.

Living with loss: I don’t know how I would react to the killing and consumption of an animal of mine by a wolf or grizzly bear. I know it would be wrenching. This is what makes the stewardship ethic of the ranchers profiled in this article so powerful. They are moving forward even as they know there is danger of loss. Somehow, we must be able to be vulnerable enough to accept some level of hurt as we work to be good stewards.

Boundaries and solemn necessities: Any close relationship will have some friction and reasonable boundaries are needed. Some culling of the most aggressive individuals of predator species is a solemn necessity in places where people and nature live side by side, which is increasingly the future of conservation. Conversely, there must also be abundant preserves, reserves, and national parks where predators and other wildlife can thrive without pressure from humanity.

Right stewardship comes from the right heart: It is not stated directly in the article, but it’s clear from the words and actions of the ranchers that are profiled that everything starts from their hearts. Their actions are the fruits of what is in their hearts. Of course, I don’t know if many ranchers would feel comfortable using the language of “fruits of the hearts” to describe their motivations. Nevertheless, consider the qualities in Galatians 5:22-23 that describe the person in whom the Spirit of God has transformed:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.”

I believe these ranchers and their families, regardless of their faith convictions, are showing us what the fruits of the spirit look like when applied to how we live practically on God’s earth.

Experiences of the world in synch: I became very interested in learning more about what values and family cultures compelled these ranchers to adjust their way of life and to put their ranches’ future on the line in the way the article describes. So I made some inquiries and was eventually able to speak with Andrew Anderson. Andrew grew up on a ranch in Montana and works on the J Bar L Ranch, which uses many of the predator-protecting practices mentioned in the article. He said something very interesting towards the end of conversation:

“When I’m on a horse, working with cattle, knowing that predators are on the land around me, it feels great to feel that I’m part of this natural system and not working against it. I love horses. I love working with animals in nonstressful ways. I love being connected with the landscape. And I don’t have to choose. I can have it all. That’s where the real satisfaction comes from.”

This might be one of the better descriptions of shalom, the peace that the Bible speaks about, the peace that is not just the absence of conflict but is all the elements of the world and life in synch.

Committing ourselves to creative Creation stewardship doesn’t mean our hearts will always be in a state of bliss and harmony. Far from it. This is a challenging, difficult world.

Yet, when we respond to God’s call to tend God’s earth, we will have the kinds of moments that Andrew Anderson does.

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