earth

faith and ecology: collected works

7/16/2018

"Compelled to Respond," with James Allison, originally published in Presbyterian Outlook, June 14, 2018.

"Our Climate Salvation Will Be Collective," with Aric Clark, originally published in Sojourners, April 25, 2017.

"Don't Let the Rocks Cry Out in Your Place," with Aric Clark, originally published in Justice Unbound, October 27, 2016.

"Divestment: Loving Creation and Each Other With Our Whole Selves," originally published in Justice Unbound, June 24, 2016.

"Fossil Fuel Divestment: Strengthening Our Response to An Urgent Crisis," with Colleen Earp, originally published in Justice Unbound, June 8, 2016.

"Dressing for A Funeral," with Aric Clark, originally published on Sojourners, March 2, 2015.

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Things you will learn on your pilgrimage

8/3/2017

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You will forget that you are wandering. One day you will be walking through Matagalpa and give someone directions without thinking and you’ll know which is the best bakery and you will walk through the city without a jacket when it rains.
You will know who your friends are. This does not mean that you will discover who is not your friend—instead you will be buoyed by your beloveds from afar on tough days. They will send you cat photos and jokes and good articles, and remind you of your spirit.
You will walk through Matalgalpa at night by yourself and suddenly everything you’ve been working on in therapy for the last three years will click into place and you will feel the strength of your heart and will not be afraid.
You will make friends whenever you open your heart up to new people. You will meet Megan at an art gallery when she asks “Gringa or Nica” and then you will spend a week trying to figure out how you didn’t know her before. You will meet Itsel and her family on the side of a mountain when you can’t breath and your heart needs a boost. You will have dinner with Erika the night when all you want is a friend to have ice cream and a beer for dinner with and that is what you’ll have and you’ll remember that no one really knows what they’re doing anyway.
You will drink too much Coca-Cola with real sugar and small loaves of bread. You will forget to bring water on your runs and you will get dehydrated.
You will forget the English words for indignity and suffering and tolerance.
You will walk down a mountain barefoot, remembering that every rock is sacred. You will take your time and fall in love with the dirt that gets ingrained between your toes.
One day you will be sitting in the garden and the sun will be peeking over the roof and you will get an email with a poem from your mentor and you will burst into tears in gratitude for this space and time… and for emails with poems that always arrive just when they are needed… and you will be grateful that this mentor has spent hours sorting out concepts of place, home, earth, and self.
Your heart will break open with fear and mourning and grief. You will hold onto a longing for what cannot be, and you will offer that pain to the earth again and again, not because it will not take it but because you keep snatching it back.
Your heart will hold so much joy that you feel like your skin might burst.
You will be lonely some nights, so much that the tears you hold back will be a flood. You will sit with that loneliness and find strength in your own vulnerability. You’ll still be lonely, but then you will remember to text your people and Skype your parents, and you’ll be grateful.
One night you will be painting a llama and singing to yourself and discerning some big questions, and your mentor will send you a poem at that moment and you will realize that you are grateful beyond words for a mentor who has almost singlehandedly reshaped your sense of people of a certain gender and age.
You will run up a mountain and walk next to a river and count bridges. Dogs will bark at you.
You will yell in Spanish at a man who thinks you need help. You will dream in Spanish about ecofeminism. You will bless the work of the land in Spanish.
You will cut open your foot, skin your knee, get the flu twice, fall down the stairs twice, split your toe, and burn your eyebrow. You will keep getting back up, ready to face the world.

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Where Our Hearts Are

6/25/2016

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For me, divestment from fossil fuels has never just been about money.

It’s about living into our God-given vocation to be ourselves.

As a teaching elder, I often talk with Presbyterians about how the authors of Genesis put forth our original vocation as human beings—to love creation—and that that love for creation is a response to God’s love for us. In the New Testament, Jesus reminds us that the greatest commandment is about love: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength.” (Jesus quotes the Torah, Deuternomy 6:5, Common English Bible)

We have to love God and creation with our whole selves.

I remember when I first fell in love with creation as a child in Northern Illinois and when I first had emotional reactions to the devastation of climate change in Northern California. I remember when I first realized that the destruction is so bad, that we must do and change everything or everything will be lost.

We must change how we treat creation, with all our hearts, all our being, all our strength… and for us in the United States, a great symbol of that is our wallets.

Where we put our money defines us and has great power. That power is why it matters what we buy at the supermarket (buying organic and local food creates greater demand for more organic and local food), why it matters what kinds of cars we buy (buying less gas for a hybrid vehicle creates less demand for fossil fuels), and why it matters what products we fill our lives with (even changing to recycled toilet paper changes demand for paper!) Where we put our money shows where our hearts are.

And so it matters where we put our investments—how we make money is a symbol for who we are as people who follow Jesus, people who are called love with our whole selves. If we make money from fossil fuel companies, it doesn’t matter if we put that money back into local food or hybrid cars or recycled paper—it’s money that comes from companies that burn fossil fuels and wreak havoc on the planet.

But again, it’s more than just about money. Money is symbol of where our hearts are.

We’ve forgotten our hearts and being and strength as people of faith—we’ve forgotten that we do have power to make change and to protect the earth. We have to change everything—we have to do everything—as individuals and as a denomination—to change the world we’re called to love.

With courage and God’s grace, we may still have a chance.

Originally published on http://www.fossilfreepcusablog.org/blog/where-our-hearts-are

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why everyone should be upset with Starbucks (and not with their cups)

11/8/2015

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Christians are mad about Starbucks cups. Really mad, just because Starbucks has moved to plain red cups... and that somehow makes a statement about how the corporation is anti-Jesus and anti-Christmas.

I think this is a ridiculous conversation. For one, I don't go to Starbucks to go to church; that's what the ocean is for.

But more importantly, I think this conversation takes us away from the larger conversation of what is wrong with Starbucks and with all of us.

I've written elsewhere about some of the problems of Starbucks. It's corporate and often disconnected from the neighborhoods around their stores. It's commercialized the coffee shop community space, and while many locations offer composting to neighborhood gardens and their cups are recyclable, there's still so much waste associated with going to get a grande sugar-free vanilla soy latte (and even their blueberries come packaged in plastic).

I know, because I drink Starbucks.

But I also believe in a God who calls us to work for just economic and food systems and to love one another. I also believe in Jesus, who overturned tables in the Temple when people who were poor were swindled. I also believe in the Holy Spirit which moves us to act on behalf of people on the margins.

And while Starbucks has reported some good things about their economic connections with Latin America for the good of their coffee empire, they still don't use their buying power to ensure fair trade practices in an industry that has been ravaged by la roya (coffee rust), a disease that has wiped out 70% of crops in some parts of the Latin America. (To be fair, Starbucks has promised to buy coffee in a program that supports local farmers as they recover from la roya, and to be even more fair, they've created their own system to ensure responsible and ethical coffee growing.)

Last spring, the class I co-teach at Stanford went to Nicaragua to learn about neo-liberalism and liberation theology. We also went to a coffee cooperative and a roastery and a tasting. We saw first hand how the crops had been destroyed by la roya as we walked through the brush and over the hills. We listened to why the cooperative was necessary: so that workers could actually make money, and we talked with them about how if they were paid a fair wage, we would have to spend much, much more for a cup of coffee. More than the $6 I spend on that grande sugar free vanilla soy latte. And we are not willing to pay more.

Those farmers do not get paid fairly to put coffee in those offensive red cups, or any cup really.

Whenever we buy coffee, we buy into a system that does not value the bodies and lives of the farmers who risk their livelihoods to grow a crop that Starbucks has played a huge role in commercializing.

This is not just Starbucks' problem.

It is our problem.

As Christians, we should be pissed off because our purchasing of coffee contributes to poverty and back-breaking work. That's not loving others and it's not seeking justice--and that IS anti-Jesus.

As people, we should be pissed off because we are whining about coffee cups instead of working against neo-liberal policies that allow corporations to continue to impoverish farmers and workers. As people, we should be pissed off that we're talking about disposable cups instead of a system that says that people and planet are disposable. And we should be pissed off that climate change will make coffee harder and harder to grow--no matter how much we pay farmers.

But that's a post for another day.

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choosing winter

10/22/2015

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This is a season of discernment for me. I'm so grateful for the work I'm doing and for the people I get to spend my days with, and yet for all this gratitude and love, I know it's time for me to be looking at PhD programs.

It has been an entirely affirming process, because I am lucky to have so many people to reflect with, to weigh the possibilities and the consequences with, to dream about the future with.

And yet whatever/whatever I choose next, I'll have to grieve letting go of many things that have become foundational to my identity. I'll have to move into something new and different, trusting that the newness is good, that the letting go doesn't necessarily mean that the old is bad.

Even in the crowd of people who have been so good about reflecting with me, I have felt so alone (and I'm aware of how irrational and real that feeling is). The gift of having so many people willing to walk with me, willing to cheer on whatever comes next, does not outweigh the reality that eventually I alone will be the one who chooses. It will be my decision.

On Tuesday I texted a friend (obnoxiously, incessantly) about how terribly lonely that realization was, how I felt so alone, that I was terrified and excited and scared. and alone. and scared.

And finally he called me (probably because he was tired of getting one word texts of just "scared." "alone." "terrified.") and reminded me that it is a privilege that I get to do this discernment, that it is a choosing I want to do, that it is a terribly terrifying thing--to choose a new season--and that he could only just tell me that all would be well.

All would be well.

It was then that I remembered that spring only comes after winter, that the beauty of the new is only possible after the death of what has been. This analogy is often lost on people in Northern California, perhaps because they have blessedly been spared three feet of snow in January. But my tears turned to giggles when I heard myself say, "I don't want to go through winter. I just want it to be spring."

I said that. out. loud.

I really did laugh at myself then and gave myself some grace.

Winter is not fun. Another (midwestern) friend and I had just been talking about how we have all our good winter clothes with us because we cannot bear giving them away--sturdy boots, thick coat, warm hat and gloves. Winter is harsh and hard and I do not miss having my breath and snot and eyes freeze.

This morning, I walked on the beach, listening to the waves and watching the birds. In the distance, there was a mound on the sand, and as I got closer I recognized it as the corpse of a seal. Crows were picking at it, and I stopped to take in the life of this creature.

The waves lapped against its body, ready to reclaim it when the tide was right.

Its life is over, yet it's sustenance for the crows and for other parts of creation.

We do not have harsh winter here, but death always means life, no matter where we are. I don't want this part of my life to die so that the next part of my life will live. I don't.

But somehow, all will be well. I'll cry more and listen more and I'll hold this discernment in perspective.

And then, then it will be spring.

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tired hands

5/30/2015

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This afternoon I got an email from our property manager saying that one of our plants was growing over and through our fence. She asked if I wanted to take care of it or if I wanted the landscaper to do it. I said I would do it, because, frankly, it was a chance for me to get my hands dirty.

But when I went outside and looked at the plant, I realized a couple of things. One, it was a couple of plants that had grown together. And another thing was that they were deeply rooted on the outside of the fence, meaning that technically this problem was not mine. And finally, I really had no idea what I was doing.

I started cutting into the plants and pretty quickly my hair was full of leaves and dust and dirt and my hands got tired from cutting over and over again and my arms hurt from pulling at the vines. At one point I realized that the vines had grown into the tree branches and that I was literally fighting the tree.

As I kept cutting, I got angry. Why had I said I would do this? I almost gave up half way and went back into the house to send an email that said, “you know, you need to have the landscaper do this. The plants are outside the fence and I don’t know what I’m doing.” But then I smelled my hands and saw just how dirty my fingers were getting and I remembered a conversation I’d had earlier this week.

I’ve been working on divestment from fossil fuels for more than two years now—particularly in the church—and I’m frustrated by how many people make excuses for not divesting. Excuses like “well, does that mean I have to stop driving my car?” “do I have to stop eating meat?” “aren’t we hypocrites if we don’t divest our own selves if we ask the church to divest?” “shouldn’t we be keeping our money in fossil fuel companies so they can fund research into alternative energy?”

This conversation I had this week brought all those excuses (though if I’m honest, they’re important questions to ask) to the forefront and I totally lost it. I started yelling about how we have to do everything in our power to stop climate change. That we can’t somehow think that climate change is going to affect us sometime in the future because the people I serve on the South Coast are already screwed. That I’ve been a vegetarian for 13 years and live in a three room apartment and drive a Prius and I’m not invested in fossil fuels and don’t have children and I compost and make art out of garbage and NONE of that has yet saved the world. In fact, if everyone on the planet lived like I do, we’d still be screwed.

In that conversation, I was pissed. I didn’t make climate change start. I’m still pissed. I didn’t start the Industrial Revolution and I’m not on the board of fossil fuel companies. I’m pissed because the roots of this big problem are outside my fence and they’re intertwined with lots of other issues and I don’t know what I’m doing.

A little while after that conversation, I wrote an apology to my conversation partner. I apologized for yelling but not for getting mad. I’m still pissed. I want a world that is full of joy and I want a world where people do not have to fear. I want a world in which I can hope to have a child and a world in which my child can hope to pick apples from the trees her mother planted. I want to live with a hope that plants those trees.

But for that world to exist, we have to do all we can, together. We have to work on these problems that we didn’t plant and that aren’t really our fault but, still, are our responsibility.

I finished pulling up the plants. I didn’t do a perfect job, and there’s still more to work on, but it’s enough for today. And now, sitting in my apartment, my hands are dirty and my arms are tired and my skin has a layer of sweat and my heart is grateful.

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Compost 1

5/2/2015

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Every Sunday, two to four Tupperware containers appear (like magic) under my desk in my office. These containers are filled with rinds and coffee grounds and banana peels and apple cores.

Two members of my congregation used to sheepishly try to sneak this garbage into my office in paper bags and leftover lettuce bags, until I presented them with their very own reusable containers, and said for the millionth time that compost is wonderful.

I take these containers home to my compost pile, letting their contents join the weeds and worms, stems and stalks, pits and peels from meals ago.

This is real resurrection.

Turning the new earth and the earth-to-be—mixing past and present and future—soil invades my fingers nails.

The scent of earth fills my nostrils.

The heat of decomposition warms my skin.

O God, this earth is so good.

I could eat it.

These peels and rinds and pits—they are reminders of death and what has been.

They transform in the ground, resurrecting into dark earth—full of new life to give to the meal that has not yet been planted.

++

Every Monday, I rise before the sun and walk a block to the yoga studio to breathe deeply and let my body transform into new shapes.

Joining my class, we sit on our mats and set intentions for our practice. I always try to focus on how strong and wonderful this body of mine is.

Breathing in, I remember the breath of God.

Breathing out, I give thanks for the Spirit.

My fingers—still muddied from that new earth—spread across the mat and I push my hips up and back, my toes curling under. I give thanks for these muscles and this skin, stretching and moving.

And rising into mountain pose, I give thanks for the ground beneath me. That beautiful, eatable ground.

These are moments of God—of grace--incarnate.

I didn’t believe my body could be transformed into crow or warrior or eagle.

+++

Home again.

I wrap my hands around my mug filled with coffee. My mug from one of my budding composters.

Not grounds.

Not compost.

Just coffee.

Breathing in, I can smell the delicious earth.

+++
Originally posted for "Landscape of Powerful People," at Eye of the Sparrow by Ashley Goff. http://godofthesparrow.com/landscape-of-powerful-people-abby-mohaupt/

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places of faith, oceans of grace.

2/11/2015

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I’m coming over the last ridge, after a forty-five minute drive through the redwoods and along a twisting road through the hills. I’m engrossed in a podcast from NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” and already considering my to-do list for work. I’m feeling the lack coffee in my system and the readiness to get out of the car.

*

I’m on my way to the rural South Coast of Northern California the place my heart now calls home, Puente de la Costa Sur. I spend three days a week there, supporting the non-profit’s work as a resource center for four isolated communities of farmers, farmworkers, and families. I make the hour-long drive willingly, giving thanks for the time to clear my head and pray. Sometimes I call my mom and sometimes I call my partner. Sometimes I sing prayers for Sunday, practicing until it won’t be a performance. Sometimes I sip coffee or eat breakfast.

And sometimes I shut everything off and drive in silence.

I’m very much a young woman from the Midwest. I love flat farmland and white oaks and the riverbanks of Northern Illinois. I love the autumn leaves and the way Lake Michigan freezes over. I think trees should lose their leaves in achingly beautiful evasive dances to the ground, and I think that the savannahs along the Rock River are breathtaking. I don’t understand earthquakes and I miss thunderstorms.

When I left the Midwest, when I said yes to my first call in a congregation in Palo Alto, CA, my thesis Advisor Ted Hiebert told me that I should never take the redwoods for granted. I wondered how anyone could look at those beautiful giants not be overwhelmed.

Two and a half years later, I don’t gape open-mouthed at the redwoods anymore. I don’t stop to hug the three big trees on my walk to the church or give audible thanks for the redwood that’s visible from the sanctuary. I don’t take these trees for granted, but I’m used to them. I have redwood bark and seeds and needles in my house—domesticated objects of the wild. When I stand at the base of a giant, I look up at the canopy with gratitude, but no longer with tears of wonder glistening my eyes. They are beautiful, and somehow I’ve internalized them.

But I’m not quite used to this landscape.

When I left the Midwest, it wasn’t long before I got my first real taste of the ocean. During our first week here, my partner and I drove out to the coast to eat dinner overlooking the sunset and the waves. We were still reeling from our cross-country move, still grieving family and friends and familiarity, even when we knew deep in our hearts that God had called us west. We looked out at the ocean, at the waves that kept coming, and ate. After dinner, we climbed down closer to the water, letting the salt and the sand get into our hair, into our souls. Then we drove back home to the peninsula, waves at our backs.

A couple months later, a good friend from seminary and her partner came out to visit us for Thanksgiving and we went to ocean, for her first experience of the Pacific—ever. We walked over the edge, where the waves lapped up onto the sand. We wandered along the coast and discovered a cave with a heart carved into the opening.

A month later, another good friend came to stay with my partner and me and we scrambled over the rocks to an island that so often is cut off from mainland. We climbed to the top (ignoring the bird droppings) and let our feet settle into the ice plants and algae. We crossed back to the beach, just as the ocean began to rise again.

And many months later, my parents came to visit. My mom had never seen a seal before and we walked along that same coast line until we got to a family of seals. She and I climbed out onto the rocks and when she slipped and fell, she came up laughing. “They’re so close!” And she, covered in salty ocean water, climbed back into my car glowing.

*

I’m coming over the last ridge. I slow down, as my breath catches in my lungs. I pull over and climb out of my car. I can hear the waves—over and over—their rhythm continues.

I’m used to the redwoods, but this view—this never-ending water running into sky—I never get used to it. The waves keep coming, never exactly the same, but never completely different. Like grace, those waves keep coming. Like grace, those waves can’t be stopped. Like grace, those waves change everything.

This new landscape never freezes and yet it’s always there, welcoming me to my new home, reminding me of how faithful God has been in this call to an unknown landscape. I will never give up my Midwestern self but that same self is in awe of that water.

Water that is always there—welcoming me and waiting and sending me on my way.

- See more at: http://www.ecclesio.com/2014/11/place-of-faith-abby-mohaupt/#sthash.mg4R614v.dpuf

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faith and ecology: collected works

Things you will learn on your pilgrimage

Where Our Hearts Are

why everyone should be upset with Starbucks (and not with their cups)

choosing winter

tired hands

Compost 1

places of faith, oceans of grace.

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