Fascinating (and much needed) work here on texts that still have much to teach us…
Many of Dead Sea scrolls may be older than thought, experts say | Archaeology | The Guardian:
“Overall, this is an important and welcome study, and one which may provide us with a significant new tool in our armoury for dating these texts,” he said. “Nevertheless, it’s one that we should adopt with caution, and in careful conjunction with other evidence.”
I’m excited to present a paper this weekend at the Center for Process Studies’ conference (Pomona College, CA), “Is It Too Late?: Toward an Ecological Civilization.”
My paper is titled Relational Roots and Ecological Futures: Bridging Whitehead, Cobb, and Gullah Wisdom Toward a Decolonized Ecological Civilization and I’ll be posting that up after the conference this weekend!
Lately, I’ve been thinking and writing about human uses and conceptions of fire in relation to liturgy, language, and ecologies. Research such as this about early uses of fire as technology (and I would include language, spirituality, and mythologies in there) has fascinated me recently as a result…
Stone age BBQ: How early humans may have preserved meat with fire:
Prof. Barkai explains, “The origins of fire use is a ‘burning’ topic among prehistory researchers around the world. It is generally agreed that by 400,000 years ago, fire use was common in domestic contexts—most likely for roasting meat, and perhaps also for lighting and heating.
“However, there is controversy regarding the preceding million years, and various hypotheses have been put forward to explain why early humans began using fire. In this study, we sought to explore a new perspective on the issue.”
You may want to sit down to read this…
Today, as well as being an ecologist Wagner feels he has taken on a second role – as an elegist for disappearing forms of life.
“I’m an optimist, in the sense that I think we will build a sustainable future,” Wagner says. “But it’s going to take 30 or 40 years, and by then, it’s going to be too late for a lot of the creatures that I love. I want to do what I can with my last decade to chronicle the last days for many of these creatures.”
Here’s the final part of the Northern Birds of South Carolina trilogy. I encounter the Northern Crow, Northern Cardinal, and Northern Mockingbird each day here in the piedmont of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and they always have something to teach me.
In the hush just before morning,
he perches above the old creek,
a plain gray cipher, alert in the fog,
summoning every sound the watershed has ever uttered.
He is the weaver of other voices:
the high whistle of the hawk,
the rattle of hub city train tracks,
the hymn fragments that once drifted from clapboard churches,
even the keening of a lost child calling for home.
Here in the Blue Ridge, they say
he was made by the Creator to keep watch,
not just to sing,
but to recall all that is spoken and unspoken,
to give shape to the inarticulate ache of mountains
who know they are ancient but cannot say so themselves.
I once thought of mockery as scorn,
the cheap imitation of what is true.
But he teaches me another meaning:
that to echo is to bear witness,
to catch the echo of what matters and make it linger,
to gather up the lost notes,
the sigh of a dying ash,
the wild laughter of children,
the whispered prayers that never found an altar.
Some say the mockingbird is a trickster,
Hermes with a Southern drawl,
but I see a priest in plain feathers,
administering the liturgy of memory,
baptizing the day with a polyphony
only he can conjure.
What is revelation but the repetition
of what we have forgotten?
Isn’t this the task of the faithful,
not to invent, but to remember,
to sing back the world to itself until
even God might hear it again,
and call it good?
He stands in the half-light,
not red like fire, nor black like the secret,
but a vessel for all colors,
the fullness of sound and shadow.
In his song I hear the crow’s wisdom,
the cardinal’s blaze,
and something more:
the promise that every borrowed voice
can become a prayer
when given with intention.
By dawn, I find myself singing too,
not my own song,
but fragments stitched together
from ancestors, wild earth,
and whatever holy silence
will let me listen.
The mockingbird does not mock,
he remembers.
He calls forth what the world has spoken
and lets it live again
as hope in the air
above a waking world.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the remaining ash trees here in Spartanburg. These quiet giants are now gravely threatened by the emerald ash borer, a small, invasive beetle that’s making its way across our county.
This beetle (first discovered in the US in Detroit in the early ’00s) burrows beneath the bark of ash trees, cutting off their lifelines. It’s a slow-motion crisis, one that’s easy to miss until a favorite tree starts to show signs of stress, such as leaves thinning, bark splitting, a hush settling over a place that once felt vibrant.
But this isn’t just about trees. In my work and study, I keep coming back to the idea that we’re all entangled here… people, trees, insects, the soil under our feet. What happens to the ash tree happens to the creatures and people who live around it. Our ecosystems aren’t just backgrounds; they’re communities, and we’re an integral part of them, just as they are an integral part of us.
So what do we do? For me, the first step is to pay attention. Notice what’s changing in your yard, your local park, or the street where you walk your dog. Talk with your neighbors about what you’re seeing. And when you can, support local efforts to monitor and care for our ecosystems.
Maybe most importantly, let this be a moment for spiritual reflection and a reminder that our call to care for the earth isn’t just about preservation, but about love and connection. The fate of the ash tree is tied up with our own, whether we notice it or not.
Let’s notice. And let’s act with intention (not sure releasing non-native wasps is the way to go, either)…
Invasive Emerald Ash Borer attacks South Carolina ash trees:
“I would argue that the Emerald Ash Borer is the most invasive forest pest of this generation,” Clemson University forestry professor David Coyle said. “It’s on the level of Chestnut blight.”…
“We can expect Ash to be very rare in South Carolina, as it’s becoming a very rare tree in most of the U.S.,” Jenkins said.
Here, they often follow the rivers, which is where most Ash trees are found. That includes Lawson’s Fork Creek, which flows right through the Edwin M. Griffin Nature Preserve…
“That tree’s doomed; there’s no coming back for it,” said Sam Parrott, executive director of SPACE. “I think most of our mature Ash trees are toast, unfortunately.”
He appears, a flash of red
against the gray-branched sorrow of late spring,
not summoned, not prayed for,
but suddenly here, as if the world’s liturgy
required a single, burning presence.
His song is an ordinal, notes rising like incense
through the hush of my morning litany.
I remember how the grandfathers spoke of angels in disguise,
and how every sparrow counts,
but the cardinal is no messenger.
He is the message,
blood-bright and unapologetic
in the ruins of what I thought was ordinary.
I pause, mid-step, boots sinking into mud and leaf mold,
and let my catechism falter:
If every creature is a word of God,
what language does he speak
when he flares his crest, flings his voice
across the ravine of silence between us?
I think of the psalms,
the trees clapping their hands,
the stones crying out,
the heavens declaring, but here
on this cool fence post, it is enough
that red exists, incandescent,
in the waning light.
There is something Eucharistic about him:
how he breaks the dullness open
with his body, how he makes the sacrament
not of bread but of being,
the wild, pulsing glory
of being here,
now,
in this battered world.
I want to confess to him
my small faith,
my brittle hopes,
my longing for resurrection that comes
not as thunder, but as color
in the middle of the woods.
He cocks his head
unconcerned with theology,
yet radiating the kind of grace
that leaves a mark,
that stays in the body like a refrain.
In his departure,
I hear nothing but my own breathing,
a little steadier,
my heart echoing
some silent, ancient amen,
the red in the gray,
the promise of return,
the gospel of this world.
