Confession

Something that happened at my new neighbor, Union Theological Seminary, has apparently got the conservative twitterverse in a frenzy.

Pagan nature worship, they cried, idolatry or worse! But what Associate Professor of Worship Cláudio Carvalhaes was doing was something deeply religious, ecological in a genuinely Christian way and, it seems to me, quite profound. His introduction included these words:

Many of us have a disconnected relationship with nature and relate to nature as outside things, as "it." Today we will try to create new connections by talking to the plants, soil, and rocks and confess how we have related with them. Confessions are also forms of mending relations, healing, and changing our ways. We are all manifestations of the sacredness of life and the "we" of God's love is way beyond the human, so let us confess to “each other" including plants, soil, rocks, rivers, forests.

I need to find some way to include this in next semester's "Religion and Ecology" course! Perhaps I can invite him to come visit!