From the black walnut tree in our backyard…
Black Walnut Seed Pods in Spring
Year: 2025
From Communion to Kenosis: Toward an Integral Ecology of the Cross
This paper develops the framework of an integral ecology of the cross by weaving together principles from integral ecology, Christian theology, and phenomenology. Building upon the five principles outlined in The Variety of Integral Ecologies (particularly communion, subjectivity, and agency), I argue that the theological concept of kenosis (self-emptying) and the practice of ecological intentionality offer essential deepening for ecological ethics and spiritual engagement. Drawing from thinkers such as Thomas Berry, Leonardo Boff, Catherine Keller, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Edith Stein, the paper proposes a vision of ecological participation grounded in humility, interdependence, and sacramental presence. A case study of fire, examined through Indigenous stewardship practices and Christian sacramental symbolism, serves as a focal point for integrating liturgical, ecological, and metaphysical dimensions. Reimagining the cross not as a symbol of abstract salvation but as a paradigm of relational descent, the paper invites faith communities and scholars alike to consider new modes of ecological formation rooted in attention, vulnerability, and shared becoming. In an age of planetary crisis, an integral ecology of the cross offers a constructive theological and ethical response: one that honors suffering, performs peace beyond the human, and nurtures communion in the face of collapse.
Wording the Between: Toward an Ecological Metaphysics of Communion through Liturgy and Language
I’m uploading a few papers I’ve written lately on the subjects of spiritual ecologies and metaphysics. Here’s the first of those papers which focuses on the work of Catherine Pickstock and William Desmond to derive a notion of ecological liturgy for our modern period. I also delve into understandings of ancient and pre-historical uses of language and intention, which I find a fascinating topic.
Camp Croft Picnic with Little One
We spent a good deal of “Pandemic Time” camping around South Carolina’s State Parks once they reopened. I think back fondly on those times, even as uncertain as they were. We’ve been pass holders to our incredible State Park system ever since. With the move back to Spartanburg last year, I think this might be the summer we get a lot more usage out of the pass!
Camp Croft is just a few miles from our home now, so Lily and I decided to enjoy a picnic by Lake Craig there this morning to celebrate the end of her school year as well as mine (first year of PhD studies is in the books!). She was excited about the baby geese and the Pop-Tarts she had smuggled in. I was excited to see her enjoying such a beautiful place.
Let’s hope our current government leaders don’t do anything as misguided as wrecking state park systems, as they’ve managed to do with our federal parks and Forest Service.
Croft | South Carolina Parks Official Site:
Once an army training base, Croft State Park covers more than 7,000 acres of rolling, wooded terrain just a few miles from downtown Spartanburg. The park offers over 20 miles of biking and hiking trails, a playground, picnicking and camping, as well as fishing and boating in one of two lakes.
Beyond Technocracy: Embracing an Ecological Metaphysics of Communion
Republican Budget Bill Aims to End I.R.A. Clean Energy Boom – The New York Times:
Over the past three years, companies have made plans to invest more than $843 billion across the United States in projects aimed at reducing planet-warming emissions, driven by lucrative tax credits for clean energy provided by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
But only about $321 billion of that money has actually been spent, with many projects still on the drawing board, according to data made public on Tuesday by the Clean Investment Monitor, a joint project of the Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Now, much of the rest, about $522 billion, will depend on action playing out on Capitol Hill. Starting on Tuesday, Republicans in Congress will begin a contentious debate over proposals to roll back tax credits for low-carbon energy as they search for ways to pay for a roughly $4 trillion tax cut package favored by President Trump.
Recent political debates, such as those surrounding the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), highlight a troubling reliance on technocratic solutions to address the climate crisis. While investments in clean energy are essential, they are insufficient without a deeper transformation in our collective consciousness and ethical frameworks.
The IRA represents a substantial federal investment in clean energy, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote the development of renewable energy sources. However, as political dynamics shift, the stability and longevity of such initiatives come into question.
For instance, recent legislative proposals have sought to roll back key provisions of the IRA, including clean energy tax credits. These political maneuvers highlight the fragility of technocratic solutions that rely on shifting political will.
Addressing the climate crisis requires more than policy changes; it demands a fundamental shift in how we perceive our relationship with the natural world. Philosophers like Catherine Pickstock and William Desmond advocate for a return to liturgical language and metaphysical frameworks that emphasize communion and participation with the environment.
Pickstock argues that true language is inherently liturgical, fostering a participatory relationship with reality. Desmond’s concept of the “metaxological” emphasizes the importance of the “between”—the relational space that enables genuine connection and ethical engagement with others, including the non-human world.
By embracing liturgical practices and ecological ethics, we can cultivate a sense of reverence and responsibility toward the environment. This approach moves beyond viewing nature as a resource to be managed and instead recognizes it as a sacred community to which we belong.
Such a transformation encourages practices that are sustainable not only environmentally but also spiritually and culturally. It fosters communities that are attuned to the rhythms of nature and committed to the well-being of all life forms.
While technocratic solutions like the IRA play a role in mitigating climate change, they are insufficient on their own. Lasting change arises from a profound transformation in consciousness, one that reestablishes our connection to the natural world through liturgy, language, and ethical living. Only by addressing the metaphysical and psychological roots of our ecological crisis can we hope to create a sustainable and harmonious future.
Coffee and Ecology
Important thread here on Reddit regarding Western coffee consumption from areas such as Vietnam (a major source of coffee beans for the United States now) as well as our ecological intentions…
Our coffee addiction is sucking the earth dry. : r/collapse:
My guess is that coffee prices will keep increasing because of climate change disruptions in weather patterns. That would mean more and more, deeper and deeper wells. Until there’s truly nothing left in the ground.
Orbital
I finally got around to picking up Orbital and can’t wait to read it in the next few weeks. This line with the author Samantha Harvey’s interview in The Guardian stuck out to me as something that very few of us discuss openly, but is certainly a reality of modernity…
“I pretty much hit 40 and became anxious,” she says. “I don’t know why. I think maybe I just decided it was time to have some sort of crisis.” Suddenly, she could no longer sleep. “I was finding the world kind of abrasive. Everything was too noisy and too busy and too huge.”
The human gave names to all…
I’ve been thinking a good deal about language and liturgy lately. That’s due to a paper I’ve been developing on Catherine Pickstock’s incredible work along with William Desmond’s metaphysical approaches.
One of the questions I’ve been fascinated with is the role of human language in our own integral ecologies (not just in the environmental sense but in a broader sense of our being in place, time, and space). Language, in this sense, is a mediator between our own internal self and the concrescence of the world we inhabit and are situated in and responding to with our autonomic as well as intentional senses (to draw from Morleau-Ponty).
Lately, I’ve been returning to the wonderful Merlin app as I pray in the morning under a black walnut tree that we share this property in Spartanburg, SC, with. I’ve also been using the app to help me learn calls from the numerous bird species that share this property. I’ve identified over 30 different species in the last few days, and it’s frankly mind-boggling to consider that so many varieties existed here that I wasn’t aware of in my daily walk and journey. It’s quite humbling as well. In my own sense of being, I try to be while acknowledging their various calls and songs.
Those thoughts take me back to Pickstock and Desmond. What does it mean to call an animal by a name? What does it mean to classify them with Latin and English names that reflect our own human creativity and need for structure?
The need to name something, be it a bird or a part on an automobile, is a deeply intrinsic part of being human.
Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the human should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the human to see what he would call them; and whatever the human called each living creature, that was its name. The human gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the human there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the human, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the human he made into a woman and brought her to the human. Then the human said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,*
for out of Human, this one was taken.’
Genesis 2:18-23 NRSV
But why and how did we arrive at that liturgical dance of classification? I suspect that deep in our human story, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago, we developed an environmental urge to classify things that we could eat, things that could eat us, poisonous things, friendly things, and things we could use to make the tools that would go on to define so much of our ancient and modern classification of ourselves. Perhaps there was a time we shared that information not with spoken language, but with close intuition and dialogue that occurred without the use of our vocal cords as we are so apt to do now as homo sapien sapiens.
Pickstock especially turns my intention towards this contemplation as I suspect that there is something uniquely characteristic of humanity that seeks to find Truth in not just subjective analysis of things or species of birds, but in attuning ourselves towards the sacred re-playing of naming through liturgy (be it the eucharist or morning prayer or a quiet walk on a trail the morning after a thunderstorm).
The Power of Water in Religious Networks and Creation Panel
Here’s the video of a panel I was honored to moderate last week for California Institute of Integral Studies’ Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion’s “Religion and Ecology Summit.”
I thought the panel (as well as the other panels!) were fantastic and I’m still taking notes from the presentation for my own research.
Thanks to Prof. Elizabeth Allison and Charlie Forbes for all of their hard work and time on putting the Summit together.
“2025 Religion and Ecology Summit Hosted by the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies April 21-23, 2025
The Power of Water in Religious Networks and Creation Panel Description: This panel brings together theologians, anthropologists, and scholars of religion to explore how water shapes sacred narratives, spiritual practices, and ecological wisdom across traditions. Together, these voices offer a powerful reflection on how water flows through religion, culture, and creation.
Reverend Dr. Brian Fiu Kolia Malua Theological College “The Power and Politics of Water: A Riverine Re-reading of Naaman’s Cleansing in 2 Kings 5”
Rabbi Dr. Ariel Mayse Stanford University “The Headwaters of Theology: Reflections on Water in Jewish Law and Thought”
Dr. Stephen Lansing Santa Fe Institute “A Letter to the Future from Bali’s Subaks”
Michelle Boyle California Institute of Integral Studies “Sacred Source: Culture and Spirit in the Valleys of the Po River Tributaries”
Dr. Willis Jenkins University of Virginia “Designing Research with Sacred Waters: Interdisciplinary Labs for Integrative Understandings”
Moderated by: Reverend Sam Harrelson California Institute of Integral Studies”
Deterioration of the Human and Remembering Pope Francis
I’ve been watching some coverage of Pope Francis’ passing this morning and I keep asking out loud, “Why isn’t anyone talking about Laudato Si??”
This feels like such a dark day, just a few hours after we Christians celebrated Easter. I pray that we all have the power to speak up about the importance of integral ecologies and the ecology of the cross in the coming days/weeks/months/years as technocratic oligarchic capitalistic interests will surely challenge the concept Francis championed…
I’m thankful for Bill McKibben to pointing out this aspect of Francis’ legacy…
Pope Francis and the Sun – by Bill McKibben:
The ecological problems we face are not, in their origin, technological, says Francis. Instead, “a certain way of understanding human life and activity has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us.” He is no Luddite (“who can deny the beauty of an aircraft or a skyscraper?”) but he insists that we have succumbed to a “technocratic paradigm,” which leads us to believe that “every increase in power means ‘an increase of “progress” itself’…as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such.” This paradigm “exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object.” Men and women, he writes, have from the start
“intervened in nature, but for a long time this meant being in tune with and respecting the possibilities offered by the things themselves. It was a matter of receiving what nature itself allowed, as if from its own hand.”
In our world, however, “human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become confrontational.” With the great power that technology has afforded us, it’s become
“easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit.”
The deterioration of the environment, he says, is just one sign of this “reductionism which affects every aspect of human and social life.”