This is Ben, and this is Keith.

And this is Main Street Lutherans. And this week we are going to be taking a look at the ELCA social statement, caring for creation. This is actually one of the first round of statements that the ELCA adopted shortly after the denomination was formed in the late eighties and early nineties. This one was adopted in 1993 at the assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. And the caring for creation statement, you know, it seems somewhat dated now, and yet there's a certain timelessness to it as well. It really just kind of outlines our understanding as Lutherans about, you know, what creation is in relationship to God and who we are as children of God and as stewards of creation. So we're going to be taking a look at how congregations use that statement. And to give one example of that, Ben, you had the chance to interview somebody who had something interesting to say. Who was there.

Yeah, a couple of guys I know, Winn Curlfink and John Hardig, are part of this program called the Perennial Waters Project. And that is a thing that comes out of one of our ELCA congregations here in the downriver communities of Detroit. And that is St. Philip Lutheran Church. And St. Philip is right along the Detroit river. The Detroit River's had a lot of industrial cleanup over the years, and people are now fishing quite a bit in it and a lot of recovery there. A lot of that is thanks to effort of people like John Hartick. There's an international wildlife refuge. John was involved in treaties that were signed at the UN and various things. John had written a book that talked about all the five rivers that caught on fire, the Cuyahoga, the Rouge river in Detroit, and three others that I can't remember off the top of my head. The history of our rivers in the Great Lakes has really done a 180. We are now looking at water that's drinkable, that's useful, we can recreate, we can use it for our own personal use without worrying about it being harmful to us. They're involved in this, and that's a pretty present thing for folks that live in this community. Their effort with the printing award project ties into caring for creation, the social statement. But typically, how would a congregation use the social statement? They're sort of started this project that just ties into the social statement. But the social statements come with a little bit of stuff the churches can use, right?

Yeah. Yeah, they do. Each one of them is structured a little differently. There's not like a single formula that. That the denomination uses. Each time we make one of these and so the statement on creation is structured in such a way that it does have sort of segments for individuals to follow up on for congregations and then for people of faith, whether it's congregations or individuals working through partnerships with, you know, say, the business community or government, locally or nationally, that sort of thing. And so we'll look at some examples of that after the interview, too. I think maybe we ought to get to your interview with. Let's do it.

I'm here with win Curl. Think from the Perennial Waters project. Thanks for talking with me today, win.

No, it is my pleasure. Thank you, Ben.

We've been talking a little bit about the perennial waters project. Well, describe it for me.

Well, let me just say that we have been sort of percolating along here since, since just before the pandemic. So we've been a fledgling, I guess, little working group. In fact, our little tagline is a community led working group cultivating mindful partnerships for sustained ecological activism. We're located in the downriver area where downriver of Detroit, we're kind of a ministry for, at St. Philip's Lutheran ElcA church on Fourth street down there and in Trenton, Michigan. Yes. And so we're just sort of have been engaged in small scale ecological activities, civic, civic activism kind of things. But we've done some things. We like to have occasional speakers through the lecture series, had a handful of, of events. Of course, like everybody else, we got sort of derailed with, with events of the last, you know, four years. And so it's been a bit of fits and starts, but we've garnered a little enthusiasm here and there. We've HAD SOme really interesting speaker topics, and we've been doing SOme small projects, like right on our grounds. We've done SOme demonstration gardens. We've got a pollinator gardEn, you know, a lot of beautiful sort of local species of flowers, plants that really attract a lot of hummingbirds and bees and butterflies and things like that. But it's a demonstration garden. We put that in. It's really looking beautiful now right there on St. PHILIp's campus. And we can, at this point, kind of help others if they like what they see, if they like the benefits that that pollinator Garden may provide, that we hope to help some other folks try something like that in their green spaces, in their neighborhood or in their yards. We have a rain garden, which is newer than that, and it's still looking a little rough around the edges, but that's how it takes three years or so, and it collects water off, collects roof runoff. So that helps, and it can in some areas of Detroit, it costs a lot of money just to pay for the, the rain runoff, right. The way that we're taxed for that sort of stuff. So it slows the water down and it pours off the roof and collects in our yards. There are certain plants that thrive with wet feet for a while. And, you know, so that, that little, little plot collects sort of ponds and some plants do real well there. And so that's a kind of demonstration garden we would love to share with other folks. So that's really the kind of local activity that we've been able to get started with.

And you do a lot of contemplative pieces, too, right? A lot of, well, advocacy and thinking. I think I remember seeing something about meditation.

Sure. So in some ways, what has gotten me pretty enthusiastic in the beginning was I got kind of inspired by some of the folks that I had been reading and certainly still do a place that's pretty, made quite a name for itself. And a franciscan Catholic brother, Richard Rohr, who's sold a heck of a lot of books, has been me and all of the folks that have been working in his organization in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Center for Action and Contemplation. And it's good work, but it's not that we're modeled after them, but the spirit of it certainly is. One of the things for sure is that there's a lot of folks who get real inspired to get involved in whatever kind of activism they are engaged in. But it's so easy to kind of get caught up in that and get burned out and discouraged very quickly. So the kind of spiritual dimension of that and the contemplative piece is, is a way that they've really kind of taught down there that keeps us fresh and engaged if we, if we're, if our, if our activities are really engaged through a kind of contemplative efforts as well. So some of us may really come together to do prayer circles, yoga circles, contemplative meditation from whatever spiritual traditions we may draw from. And some of us are, may just want to get the hip waders on and go clean up the river. And so our idea was whichever part of this most inspires and you may be most comfortable in, we'd like to kind of forge on and be a home for anybody who wants to participate. The difficulty that is, if people ask us, what are we doing? Well, it's hard to pin that down because, because a lot of that also, my question is, well, what do you want to do? One of the things is maybe the most difficult for us to articulate. Our mission really, is that, you know, we're going to start out with a few of us and whatever activities we want to engage, and we can do that. But I've had this sort of ambition that it grow into a kind of organization that it decides for itself as it grows. It's not top down, but a civic coalition of folks who decide what kind of activism they want to engage in. It's ecological in nature, it's environmentalist in nature. But, you know, we may feel most energized to do some, you know, to carry placards in front of a, for example, in front of the old McLeod steel, which is now finally torn down. But it took a while and it took a lot of effort among a group of activists like some of our founders, who also, who in fact, sort of inspired the perennial Waters project in the first place. As our website, I can't imagine necessarily what all kinds of activities we may want, want to be engaged, and I don't want to be the one to decide that so much.

You were talking about engaging other organizations. And so it's starting with a single ELCA congregation in a way, but sort of branches out to include at least two more. And then the future is beyond just churches too, and beyond, certainly beyond the ELCA denomination, other churches around and organizations and even other faiths.

Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, what I meant to say as well, with the contemplative peace, I think the practical, sort of the most practical, I guess, component of the perennial Waters project right now is a weekly yoga group that has begun to meet. I actually, because of my work, aside from all of this as a therapist and addiction work, I've acquired a teaching yoga, teaching certification. So I teach yoga and meditation. And so I've brought that over to St. Philip's, and we do that on Tuesdays. And that's one way that I call that perennial arts yoga or perennial arts yoga meditation. And really that's, I fit that within, within the umbrella of the perennial waters project because that's, that really is, for now, in small way, it's the contemplative piece of the work. And as we grow, I'd like to see them really begin to coalesce. But at the moment, at the moment, what we're doing is great. You know, little by little, they'll sort of find, find the threads that pull them together. But so the contemplative piece to me is very important. I'm less, personally, I'm less inclined to be the person that just sort of puts on the waiter boots and gets out and cleans up.

But the important part is, you know, people who do, it would seem.

Yes, I certainly do. And I don't want to be shamed out of participating in the real active work as well. But. Yeah, but I get a lot of, you know, I feel great satisfaction in the contemplative part of the work.

Yeah.

And growing.

That part of our, part of our reason for talking about this for the. For the Main Street Lutherans podcast is talking about how it ties into the mission of our greater church. And I see two different connections. We talked about this a little bit already, and that is that our church, the ELCA, tends to act in coordination with other churches. We don't see ourselves as the single entity that can do all the stuff on our own, and we really value cooperation. And I think this is a great example of that. And the other part is we have a social statement. It's pretty old, it's from 1993, but part of that, that social statement called caring for creation, it says that human behavior may change through economic incentive, guilt about the past, or fear of the future. But as people of biblical faith who live together in trust and hope, our primary motivation is the call to be God's caregivers and to do justice. And I think that's an important connection there.

Yes, and I'm. I'm especially glad you brought that up because it's, it's so central to the mission that I think it's easy for me to just lose it in the air we breathe and forget to make that explicit. That is certainly at the heart of the mission. So thank you for reminding us. That's, of course, what brings us. And this is, as you said, we've got St. Philip's, but we've got unity up there on Fourth street, which you and I met there, and know some, some folks at the synod. At the, down at the semi synod.

Yeah.

Are also know what we're doing and they got their ear to what it is we're growing here. So. And so we are in the process of kind of reaching out and building those, building the network, building these relationships. And certainly I'm very interested and the interfaith dimension of it, whether it's. There's. I've been dialoguing with a woman over here. Right near my house is the Lotus Sea Samadhi meditation center. It's a beautiful house that has been converted into a buddhist meditation center, and they're growing something there. And I think those dialogues are every bit as important as any of it. So.

Yeah.

So it's exciting in spirit, and I can't wait to see where we go with all of this.

Yeah. And there's an event coming up. It's later this fall. Right. Well, it's a hybrid event, so there'll be some seats for it here in Trenton, Michigan, but then also online. Tell us more about that.

Yeah, we have a guest we're actually in partnership with Dan Robinson has a little organization. It's called the Great Lakes Spirituality Project. And he's done some really interesting work. Most notably, he's interviewed a whole lot of folks from all over the Great Lakes basin and talking about the real sort of spiritual dimension of our experiences in, with swimming in, living near, drinking from the great lakes and what this region means to us. And he has brought to our attention a real interesting character from the Menominee nation group up in northern Wisconsin. I hope I'm getting this right. I want to honor him and his group. Well, his name is Wade Fernandez and he's an activist and a musician, artist, phenomenal personality. And he's going to give a talk, a presentation. I think he will do some music. And that's, I think on the 27 August. And that will be hybrid. I think he'll be presenting from his, his home region up there and have yet to know, really a whole lot about what he's going to be speaking on. And we do have, we do have a summary of, I don't have that right in front of me of what that presentation is going to be, but perhaps you can put that in the show notes.

Yeah, we'll have links to all that sort of stuff in the show notes there.

Yeah. Yeah. So what I like about this also is, you know, what you and I had talked about earlier about the kind of, kind of nested ecologies we're talking about here.

Yeah.

You know, on one hand, working downriver Michigan here, and we're working in Trenton, right here on our campus of our church and in the region, in the neighborhoods where the folks who want to show up and get their hands dirty and do some work. But we're also thinking more broadly about the Great Lakes basin, those of us who identify from this region how we kind of spread our, we pull the lens back a bit and look beyond just our neighborhood and how we can participate in this work in a much broader region, because eventually, here we are in a time when the climate crisis is so central to our current age and struggle that the local work is so important. And this is where we are and this is where the work is that we do. And, you know, how we dialogue more broadly and are able to kind of do localized and kind of tangible work and yet affect positive change on the broader scale is a pretty important discussion to have.

And I think this region in particular has a reason that we can point to that. The rivers around here, folks know I live on grocery on island in the Detroit river, and it used to be that the fish, there was no way you could possibly consume a fish in this river. And now for months you can virtually walk from boat to boat across the river over to Canada because of all the fishing that's done in the river. Now, the success of the river cleanups, partly due to the help of a member of your organization, John Hardick. The turnaround of these waterways in the Great Lakes has just been remarkable. And I think the hope that we see is hope that other folks are not experiencing with climate change yet.

Right. Yeah, that's, that's the, that's the grand challenge, isn't it? And, but, but absolutely the hope shows up in the wildlife in our neighborhoods right now is we see it. You know, I'm just right in town here in a little town, Rockwood down here. And, you know, a year or so ago, you know, a bald eagle just flew right across my front lawn and, you know, and we're not even near the woods. Well, you know, a couple blocks away, but there are, you know, owls and everything that, you know, we might have missed a few years ago. They're right here. And the change is happening, you know, and. Yeah, and John Hartig has been a part of the leadership of all this for years. Can't thank him enough for that. So we forge on how we kind of look at the great work that has been done and gives us a real enthusiasm, gets to carry forward into kind of broadening our scale. So, you know, I'm excited about sort of participating in that.

Yeah, absolutely. So we will have information. So if you're interested in getting in contact with the Perennial Rogers project and win here or anybody else involved in the project, we'll have all that information in the show notes. And, yeah.

I am sort of, sort of very enthusiastically looking for folks who are interested in whether it's doing some demonstration garden work or whether it's in some sort of contemplative prayer work and thinking deeply about how it is we may have not yet considered contributing and being a part of the change we wish to see.

Absolutely.

We're looking for volunteers and even if there's somebody out there who's really good with a computer and great at building websites, if there's somebody keep up with social media, there's lots of things. And anybody who's enthusiasm, there's, as they say, God equips those who serve, not the other way around. Yeah, but we're enthusiastic about where we're going from here, so keep an eye out for us and I will you as well. I've really enjoyed your, your podcast, so.

We certainly appreciate that. You know, actually to our audience there, if, if you happen to have a rain garden at your church or if you have a, maybe a local garden with a pollinator garden with local plants, send your pictures in. We'll love to see, see a look at that. And I'm sure that the perennial waters project would love to help other churches install rain gardens and other things anywhere in the country or around the world.

Absolutely. Absolutely. That's why we're building this. So that would be fantastic. Yes. I'll send you some photos.

All right.

That'd be great.

Yeah. Well, thanks and good luck with everything. We'll see each other plenty. But. Well, once again, I want to thank Winn Curlfink and the Perennial Waters project for enlightening us on this project and we wish the best for him. We're going to have links to all this in the show notes, of course. So, Keith, the caring for creation, has that come up as a study in your church?

It hasn't, except that it's been something I've been thinking of lately about looking at all of these social statements and social messages from the ELCA. It actually was kind of inspired by this podcast that we're working on to try to find a way to help individual members in the congregation to be more connected to the work of the wider church. And I think that these statements are a good example of that work. It's sometimes tough to engage in at a practical level, but I think in a, in a discussion you can really flesh out some of what our theology says about each of these various topics. So I'd really like to do that. And you had mentioned the study guides, which are a great resource for congregations to use each one of these. I think most of them, if not all of them, have these statements and messages, have a study guide for congregations to do just that over the course of a couple of sessions or a half dozen to, you know, to read through the parts of the social statements and what they mean.

Yeah. And I think it's going to be good if we can continue to highlight activities that congregations are doing that connect into those social statements. This just being the beginning of that. Yeah.

And you know, even when it didn't sound like in the interview that he, as one Lutheran, happened to read the caring for creation statement and said, oh, hey, I think I should start this Pernata Waters project in response. But to see how there's an example of how these statements really are in line with the things that real people are thinking in real life and trying to act out of their faith. I remember when I came to visit you in grocery a year ago, and you first told me about the international Wildlife Refuge and how it came about to be reminded today, listening to this interview, that part of how it came about was that Lutherans, people of faith, acting out of their faith and their expertise and real world training and experience, came together to create this thing. That's huge.

Well, and it's not just in this case, in the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge. It's not just that they are environmentalists. It took lawyers, it took politicians, and they were all of various faiths, to be honest, and various nationalities. We had Americans and Canadians working together with the United nations to make this happen. So it's a project like the Perennial Waters project, which doesn't want to just be a lutheran thing. It doesn't want to just be a christian thing. It doesn't even just want to be a religious thing. It wants to integrate secular groups, governmental institutions participating, and that sort of stuff. So I think it's a great basis. And as our church, we are perfectly put to be able to do that, to bring different types of purposes together for the kind of good.

Yeah. And just at a personal level, it's one of the things I really do value about the evangelical, withdrawn church in America is. Is this denomination's willingness to engage with the world around it. The world of faith, the world of government, the world of individuals and nonprofits. Yeah. And both the burning of waters and the wildlife refuge are great examples of that.

Yeah. So does St. Matthews do any environmental stewardship activities?

So one of the things that's fairly new for us in the last couple of years is we've started quarterly through the year using a liturgy on Sunday mornings that's entitled of the Land and Seasons. This is actually something that was published by Augsburg Fortress, our denominations publishing house, a number of years ago. And it's a really cool setting of Sunday liturgy. It's designed for winter, spring, summer and fall. And so we pick four Sundays a year that we use it on. And it does a couple of things. First, it's very. The language that it pulls from scripture for those Sundays is very closely tied to the cycles of planting and harvesting, the changes of the seasons as we experience them here in North America especially, and the closeness to farming in particular. It was created by some folks connected to the Lutheran Seminary, formerly the Lutheran Seminary Gettysburg, now part of United Lutheran Seminary, that is, campuses in Gettysburg and in Philadelphia. But because Gettysburg is a small town in the middle of farming country, they created this thing primarily for use in congregations in that kind of a setting. So not necessarily small congregations, but congregations in communities that are either small towns or in farmland themselves. And so even though St. Matthew is set in the city of York, Pennsylvania, we are surrounded by farming communities. And so we use this liturgy for that reason. And we have farmers in our congregation, even though, you know, we're set in the city itself. The other thing that's kind of cool about this setting of the liturgy is that it uses appalachian folk tunes for the liturgical musical settings. And so again, we use that four Sundays a year as a reminder of our connection to the land and the fruit that it produces. What about you guys at unity?

You know, I don't think we have anything very specific. We're sort of participants in the printing of Waters project, not as actively as we probably will be soon. Winn is a member of unity, but all the activities for that project have been at St. Philip. We're working on it. I think our congregation is like most where we struggled to do things like fix the roof and pay for the things, you know, I think, you know, things like getting the sprinkler system inside, you know, scheduled for updates. And it almost leaves our people strapped for time. You know, they just don't have that much left after all that. But I think that we might be getting a mass of people together that would be able to do something like this. I don't think it takes a long time to do something like build a rain garden, divert the roof water off onto, you know, a garden or a pollinator garden or something like that. We do have a giving garden that we give the produce to the home, the food banks, but that's not seen, really as an environmental project. So, yeah, yeah, we talked about a.

Community garden at St. Matthew for a couple of years, and then the pandemic came, and we ended up using the same space on the east end of our campus for outdoor worship services. So we were kind of like, wow, thank God we hadn't, you know, plowed this up and planted stuff in it. But, you know, we've had that same thought, to create a garden where people could come and volunteer their time and whether it was to grow veggies for their own family, especially for folks in the neighborhood who may not have access to enough land to, you know, have a garden to grow tomatoes or squash or lettuces or whatever they want. Or then if there is, you know, excess beyond that, that would be donated to the food, mandatory. But as I said, we haven't actually pursued that yet.

Yeah.

So something on people's minds.

Yeah, I think it's an interesting thing. So if you've got some projects that your church is doing you want to share with us, send them to us at the links. We'll talk about after we talk about the catechism questions. So last week's or the last episode's question was about the first article of the Apostles Creed. And is it a, one God in three persons? B the funny part c I believe in God the father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, or d I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me. And I think all of us remembered on Sunday, it's I believe in God the father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. So what about this week?

Yeah, we had chosen last week's question because that episode was fairly close to Trinity Sunday. And so now this week we're talking about creation. So it seemed to still stick with the apostles Creed as a foundation for that and its connection to creation. So this week's question is that we recite the apostles Creed to A. Philip two minutes of dead airtime on the radio B remember who we are and what we believe C stand together with a billion christians around the world in a common witness to God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or D, which would be both a or both B and c. So that is the question that we will leave you with for this episode.

That's right, and Main Street Lutherans is hosted by Keith Fair and Ben Fote. You can reach us by [email protected] dot our website is mainstreetlutherans.com. we're on the socials as Main street Lutherans on Facebook, Instagram threads and YouTube, and you can share your answers to the catechism questions and any suggestions or share what your church is doing for the environment with us there. You can also call to leave us a message at 734-250-9554 the show is produced by folk media Productions. Until next time, go in peace. Serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God.