Category: Ecotheology

Emerald Ash Borer and Spartanburg (and Us)

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.”

Ecological Intentionality: Performing Peace Beyond Human Boundaries

Here’s a paper that I presented at this year’s American Academy of Religion, Western Region held at Arizona State University in March 2025 (Tempe is quite beautiful in March, btw!). It’s a good starting point for approaching my work and research called The Ecology of the Cross as a part of my PhD interests (and hopefully beyond)…

“This work explores the intersection of ecology and religion, theology, and phenomenology, drawing particularly on process thought, embodied consciousness, and participatory awareness via decolonization. I want to suggest that ecological intentionality offers a framework for peace that extends beyond Human interactions, challenging anthropocentric models of peace and instead envisioning peace as a relational, ecological, and more-than-human performance. I’ll begin by defining this concept of ecological intentionality within a phenomenological and process-relational framework, then explore its implications for peace beyond Human boundaries through examples drawn from both ecological and spiritual contexts. Finally, I’ll propose that peace, in this framework, is not simply an absence of conflict but a mode of relationality grounded in ecological reciprocity and mutual flourishing. This is part of a larger project for my PhD work that I’m calling Ecology of the Cross in reverence to Edith Stein and her influential work (on me), The Science of the Cross.”

Ecological Intentionality Performing Peace Beyond Human Boundaries PresentationDownload

Conservation as Communion

Here’s a paper I’ve written on the concept of re-thinking conservation attempts in modern societies based on technocratic and market-based ideas. Conservation and human action (and inaction) is a fascinating area to ponder. As part of my wider work on The Ecology of the Cross, this is a paper that explores some of the roots of our Western concepts of “conservation” and a possible middle way in these uncertain times using fire as a case study 🔥🌲.

Here’s the abstract:

“This paper proposes a paradigm shift in conservation, moving from technocratic and colonial frameworks toward an ethic of interspecies communion. Drawing on Juno Salazar Parreñas’ critique of biopolitical care, Mara Goldman’s analysis of Maasai narrative epistemologies, Barrett et al.’s model of intuitive interspecies communication, and philosophical reflections from Edgar Morin, William Desmond, and the emerging field of Ecocene fire practices, the paper articulates a vision of both conservation and understandings and uses of fire rooted in reciprocity, complexity, and ontological humility. It argues that communion, not control, must ground conservation in the age of ecological disruption.”

Conservation as Communition PublicDownload

Process Ecology of the Cross: Communion, Kenosis, and the Politics of Planetary Becoming

This paper proposes a Process Ecology of the Cross, a theological and philosophical reframing of the Christian symbol of the cross through the lens of process-relational metaphysics, ecological kenosis, and more-than-human cosmopolitics. Drawing from the work of Alfred North Whitehead, Catherine Keller, Mihnea Tǎnǎsescu, Donna Haraway, and Indigenous fire stewardship practices, the paper explores how the cross can be reclaimed not as a juridical transaction or redemptive violence, but as a cosmopolitical threshold: a site of shared vulnerability, transformation, and planetary communion. The argument unfolds across seven sections, examining communion as an ontological principle, kenosis as an ethical-political descent, fire as a sacrament of regeneration, and ecological intentionality as a mode of participatory perception. Through phenomenology, posthuman theology, and lived ecological practices, this paper articulates a vision of salvation not as escape from the Earth but as a deepening within it. The cross becomes an altar of becoming-with, a liturgical site of composted grief, regenerative peace, and hope beyond the human.

Process Ecology of the Cross- Communion, Kenosis, and the Politics of Planetary Becoming PublicDownload

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.

From Communion to Kenosis PublicDownload

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.

Wording the Between- Toward an Ecological Metaphysics of Communion through Liturgy and Language PublicDownload

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.

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.

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”