Holding the Peace of the Forest Within
Responsive reading from a worship service in the park ~ ICCT 2025 convention keynote gives us hope ~ ICCT and October 18 No Kings protests ~ Two events with Partners for Environmental Justice ~ Audubon’s Lights Out Initiative ~ Creation Care book discussion
In an interview released posthumously by the NY Times on October 3, 2025 Goodall said:
“I want to make sure that you all understand that each and every one of you has a role to play. You may not know it, you may not find it, but your life matters, and you are here for a reason.
And I just hope that reason will become apparent as you live through your life. I want you to know that, whether or not you find that role that you’re supposed to play, your life does matter, and that every single day you live, you make a difference in the world. And you get to choose the difference that you make.”
I want you to understand that we are part of the natural world. And even today, when the planet is dark, there still is hope. Don’t lose hope. If you lose hope, you become apathetic and do nothing. And if you want to save what is still beautiful in this world—if you want to save the planet for the future generations, your grandchildren, their grandchildren—then think about the actions you take each day.
Because, multiplied a million, a billion times, even small actions will make for great change.
You have an open invitation to submit Creation care-centered quotes, reflection guides and resources for worship, holidays and holy days in your faith tradition to ICCTriangle@gmail.com. You are also invited to submit information about Creation care activities at your faith community.
Dear Readers, it’s with a grateful heart that I reflect on the 2025 ICCT Convention Grounded in Hope last month. I’m thankful that 110 of us were able to gather in person and experience the palpable energy and the words of hope during a time of anxiety and loss.
Today we feature the highlights of Rev. Dr. Jerusha Neal’s keynote presentation that took on the obstacles to hope and the promises of hope. Future newsletters with links to videos and powerpoints will cover our other main speaker, John Morrison, and the panel of ICCT Liaisons who shared Creation care work in their congregations.
In this newsletter we continue in that vein as we remember the remarkable contributions of Jane Goodall and her messages of encouragement, hope and holding the peace of the forest within. Through her close observations of the chimps she found the peace of the forest within. In a sense, Gail’s responsive reading in our first article can bring us that same peace of the forest within.
May peace that surpasses all understanding be with you,
Lynn
Table of Contents
Click on the Table of Contents headings to link directly to the full articles. Better yet, scroll down through all the articles and great photos so you can follow Creation Care in the Triangle.
- Responsive reading from a September congregational worship service in the park
To hold the peace of the forest within. - ICCT 2025 Convention Keynote Gives Us Hope
See Joe’s article on the highlights of Rev. Dr. Jerusha Neal’s remarkable presentation. - ICCT’s take on No Kings Protests, October 18
If your inbox is like mine, you’re receiving scores of notices. Read about ICCT’s view of it. Choose an event near you in the Triangle. Or join Lynn for No Kings in N. Raleigh and blunch afterwards. - Two very different events with Partners for Environmental Justice on the same day, Oct 25
Choose Green Stormwater natives planting at Dix Park OR Healing Our Histories: An Analysis of Environmental Racism in Raleigh at Walnut Creek Wetlands Center. - Do you love birds? Here’s how you and your faith community can protect them
Join Audubon’s Lights Out initiative to keep migrating birds in and over your yard safe this fall. Our local municipalities are on board. Ask your faith leaders to participate by turning off steeple or other non-essential outdoor lighting September 10 – November 30, 11pm to 6am. And start working on it for next spring. - Creation care book discussion
Join Rev. Tracy Clayton online to discuss On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice by Ryan Emanuel PhD, Duke Professor and friend of ICCT, Monday, October 27 at 10:30 AM.
1. Responsive reading from a September congregational worship service in the park
Written by Gail Powell
ICCT Steering Committee
and Pullen Memorial Baptist Church
Think of an experience you’ve had being in your garden or in nature, perhaps a sound you heard or something you saw that made you feel a sacred presence or a sense of awe. We have all had such an experience. Today, we encourage you to seek that sense of wonder and awe in nature. Knowing more about what is happening in nature during September can enhance those experiences.
Divine Energy
As our days grow shorter, our gardens, and woodlands are alive with a complex web of life. Trees share their trunk, crown, and roots with insects and birds, squirrels, lichen and fungi. Through photosynthesis, they share oxygen with you and me just as we share CO2 with them when we breathe.
Response: We honor the Divine energy that flows through all of nature with gratitude and love
Plants
Asters, goldenrod and perennial sunflowers have burst into bloom.
Hydrangeas, zinnias and salvias continue to bloom while black eyed Susans have faded leaving seeds for the finches.
Berries ripening on dogwoods and purple beauty berrys welcome migrating birds.
Walnuts, acorns, and pinecones hang from trees offering future nourishment for mammals and birds.
We honor the Divine energy that flows through all of nature with gratitude and love
Insects and spiders
An occasional monarch may pass by as they migrate south.
Butterflies abound, pollinating flowers by day,
Moths are pollinating by night.
Caterpillars pupate in preparation for winter
Praying mantises lay their egg masses to overwinter til spring.
Spiderwebs glisten in the fall sunshine.
As the daytime sounds of cicadas wane, the evening chorus of crickets and katydids create a night time din.
We honor the Divine energy that flows through all of nature with gratitude and love
Birds
Now that breeding season has ended, morning bird songs grow dimmer.
Tanager, grosbeak, warbler, and hawk migrations begin.
Cardinals, wrens, titmice, chickadees remain to winter with us.
We honor the Divine energy that flows through all of nature with gratitude and love
Reptiles and amphibians
Eggs of lizards and snakes are hatching, including copperheads.
Most turtle nests have already hatched.
Marbled salamanders are migrating to breeding sites.
Tree frogs share their evening chorus
We honor the Divine energy that flows through all of nature with gratitude and love
Mammals
Many mammals are foraging to build their fat reserves for winter.
Squirrels and chipmunks gather and bury acorns and nuts.
Deer begin to develop a thicker coat. Fawns lose their spots. Bucks shed their velvet
Let us open our hearts to the natural world.
We honor the Divine energy that flows through all of nature with gratitude and love
2. ICCT 2025 Convention Keynote Gives Us Hope
by Joe Rabenstine
ICCT Vice President
In her keynote address on September 20, 2025, Rev. Dr. Jerusha Matsen Neal, associate professor of homiletics at Duke Divinity, reminded 110 of us at the Convention that our reasons for hope, “grounded hope”, are part of an “old, old story.” The words of prophets and sacred scripture writers from many faith traditions have told of problems afflicting us and our world, and have shown us how to maintain hope. With eloquence, passion, anecdotes from cultures around the world, and engaging rhetoric Jerusha showed us a plan to grasp hope “in the face of ecological loss” today.
She said that before we get to optimism – and let’s get there – we have to look this crisis in the face, particularly as people of faith. Jeremiah 4:24 says, “I have seen the earth and here, it is wildness and waste, and I look to the heavens – and their light is gone.”
Her talk began with impediments to real hope and progress. Thinking that hope is abundant is cheap hope. There’s denial about what we’re really facing. And having so much confidence in our ability to fix, save, and go into communities and tell them what to do is like playing at divinity. There’s also succumbing to despair.
Her colleague, Biblical scholar and Professor Ellen Davis, and Jerusha taught a class to Duke Divinity students, many of whom were working and preaching in North Carolina congregations. They looked deeply into the many reasons it’s a challenge to preach and teach climate change in their settings – including plain old fear. “What does one say in the face of the unthinkable?”
Jerusha demonstrated that the many reasons for avoiding this topic can be faced and preaching “Creation Care from the breadth and depth of your sacred text” is welcome and effective. There are so many texts that help us grapple with questions…like where is God during this exploitation, displacement and loss? Can God be trusted? What does faithfulness look like? And does human action matter?
For those preaching, teaching, and practicing Creation Care, Jerusha provided six steps, “takeaways”, to enable us to move successfully on a hopeful path forward.
1. Re-remember the “Old, Old Story.” Our sacred texts give us story after story of hope
2. Make justice connections – Social justice and environmental justice go hand in hand
3. Honor everyday resistance – Refugia, relationships and resistance do prevail
4. Draw on spiritual disciplines – Table fellowship, communal discernment, sacraments and our unique cultural and spiritual practices lift us up
5. Renounce false optimism … reject despair … look honestly at today and toward tomorrow. “Hope is a discipline.”
6. Recommit to community – reflect and work together for we are each other’s hope
“There is beauty in this brutal, damaged world of ours … beauty that is uniquely ours and beauty that we have received with grace from others.” Arundhati Roy
Look for Jerusha’s Powerpoint presentation in a subsequent newsletter. See the cover page of her new book here.
3. ICCT’s take on No Kings Protests, October 18
Submitted by Lynn Lyle
ICCT president
Millions are expected at protests across the country and the prospect is not going unnoticed by leaders in our Capitol who seem worried and are making statements, possibly to deter participation.
Bill McKibben encouraged members of Third Act (the environmental group he started for seniors) to join No Kings saying, “I think we older Americans have a particular duty to be out in action right now, because we know better than anyone else how bizarre and abnormal this moment is in our nation’s history. Our president has told us that he hates half of America
[his opponents]; we don’t need to hate back, but we do need to be determined and fierce in our resistance to tyranny.”
It’s clear that a weakened democracy slows progress toward environmental justice and creates even more extreme damage than we expected. We are thinking of our grandchildren here!!
Find a protest near you in Cary, Durham, Johnston County, Orange County, Raleigh, Wake Forest and beyond. Come and bring your friends!!
I’m going to the Raleigh event at 6200 Capital Boulevard at 12 noon with a friend and we’re having lunch at a Mexican restaurant afterwards. If you’re interested in joining us, let me know at ICCTriangle@gmail.com and I’ll send you the details of where to meet on Capital Boulevard at noon and the name of the nearby restaurant.
4. Two very different events with Partners for Environmental Justice on the same day, Oct 25
There are two events with Partners for Environmental Justice in Raleigh on the same day. One is hands-on native planting in Dix Park; the other is learning about and healing our racialized histories in our community and their impact on the environment, held at Walnut Creek Wetlands Center.
ICCT is excited to share these events. One of our three operating principles is to focus on environmental justice. Working with Partners for Environmental Justice (PEJ) is a way to do that right here in the Triangle.
Your first PEJ option is:
Healing Our Histories: An Analysis of Environmental Racism in Raleigh
Organized by the Covenant Christian Church, Walnut Creek Wetland Center, 950 Peterson Street Raleigh, NC 27610
Saturday, October 25 · 9am – 2pm
You are invited to join members of the wider Raleigh community to learn about the racialized history of our community and its impact on the environment. The event will include lunch, conversation, and time on the creek.
You will hear from historian and activist Carmen Cauthen, author of Historic Black Neighborhoods of Raleigh, pastor and author Rev. Greg Jarrell, author of Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Taking of American Neighborhoods, and the staff of the Walnut Creek Wetland Center.
We will organize for action around the current issues facing our area, as the population grows and development increases, and we will build relationships that will connect those already organizing in Raleigh.
Your second PEJ option is Green Stormwater native planting at Dix Park on Saturday October 25th!
5. Do you love birds? Here’s how you and your faith community can protect them
Submitted by Bobbi Mullins
Co-leader, ICCT Advocacy Team
Audubon North Carolina, through their Lights Out initiative, is working with cities, individuals, businesses, and churches to become more bird-friendly by turning off unneeded lights at night during the fall and spring migration periods.
Lights Out NC occurs every fall from September 10 – November 30 and again each spring from March 15 – May 31. Turn unnecessary lights out from 11pm to 6am.
Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, and Cary have developed Lights Out policies. Raleigh, for example, turns off all non-essential lights in City facilities during the migration periods. This simple practice saves birds from disorientation and deadly collisions while reducing energy usage, saving money, and protecting the environment. Now, many buildings are extending the policy year-round.
Your faith community can participate as well. It’s as easy as flipping a switch. Ask your faith leaders to turn off steeple lights and/or other non-essential outdoor lighting, especially upward facing lights, between 11pm and 6am. Lights Out Wake advocates for all homeowners to take simple steps at their homes to create a better nighttime environment for birds, wildlife, insects, and people, too. Let’s all pitch in together and care for our human and non-human neighbors!
6. Creation care book discussion
All are welcome to join the online discussion led by Rev. Tracy Clayton about On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice by Ryan E. Emanuel on Monday, October 27 at 10:30 AM.
Dr. Emanuel is a Lumbee scientist, community-engaged scholar, and author from North Carolina. He is a tenured faculty member at Duke University who specializes in the science of water and ecosystems as well as policies on environmental justice and Indigenous Rights.
Book Discussions are on Zoom on the third Mondays at 10:30 a.m. If you’re not already on Tracy’s list and would like to receive the Zoom link, contact her at tclayton@nccumc.org. Regis
https://us02web.zoom.us/
Note: In 2020 Dr. Emanuel led an engaging webinar for ICCT on Environmental Racial Justice in the Age of Climate Change. You can watch it here. Scroll to the 18 minute point to go directly to his presentation.
