24 Jul God Is Teeming Everywhere: A Pastoral Note from Rev. Dr. Sharon Rhodes-Wickett
Over the summer, I am inviting clergy members connected to our Westwood UMC congregation to serve as guest writers of our Pastoral Notes. This week, we are pleased to share words from Rev. Dr. Sharon Rhodes-Wickett. I am grateful that she is a part of our community! – Pastor Molly Vetter
Dear Westwood Family,
I first learned about the concept of global warming and world hunger when I entered seminary at Claremont School of Theology in 1973. Dr. John Cobb and C. Dean Freudenberger taught me to see the world and our place in it in a new and altered perspective. Al and I began our marriage being mindful about the environment and became vegetarians for reasons related to world hunger. I began my years of ordained ministry hopeful that we could change the trajectory, sure that everyone would want to do what they could to save our beloved planet.
Tragically, that didn’t happen and the unimaginable is now reality. It’s easy to feel discouraged which is why I live on the lookout for hope. Last month while listening to the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett, I was excited by her interview with biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus and biomimicry practitioner Azita Ardakani Walton. Tippett describes biomimicry this way: “simply put, it takes the natural world as teacher and mentor – emulating the genius with which it solves problems and performs what look like miracles in every second all around; running on sunlight, fitting form to function, recycling everything – relentlessly ‘creating conditions conducive to life.’”
In the hour-long conversation the two scientists describe ways that nature naturally heals, naturally propagates itself and how we might pattern ourselves after that. They describe how the land comes back to life after a volcano ravages it. They describe how trees propagate (hint: it’s a circular pattern, not straight rows). They talk about the place of cooperation as part of the evolutionary process. (Have you read the book The Overstory by Richard Powers?) They talk about the importance of beauty and playfulness, all found in the plants and animals that inhabit this earth. Having recently re-read the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, I feel so indebted to Native American wisdom that asks us to listen and learn from nature.
Beynus cautiously gave a word of hope: phenotypic plasticity. She said,”life has many more tricks up its sleeve, and many more responses than we thought life had. In a climate-changed world, we’re seeing organisms begin to stretch into behavioral and physiological repertoires that we didn’t know they could do.” Scientists are re-thinking their understanding of genomes. The caution is, we can’t just keep ignoring our causation of climate change thinking that the plants and animals will adapt. But it is a sign of hope that some species may be able to adapt…to a point.
My knowledge about all this stuff might be able to fill a thimble, but I find it exciting and intriguing and hopeful and spiritual. I encourage you to listen to this Podcast along with others that are available. If there are some folks out there who know more about this, come teach us on Sunday morning at Wisdom at Westwood.
Jesus often referred to the wisdom of nature as he taught his followers. Matthew 6:25ff:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns…Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”
The wisdom of nature is a gift and a sign of hope. I encourage all of us to open up our senses and slow down and listen and watch and sense and smell and learn. God is teeming everywhere.
Rev. Dr. Sharon Rhodes-Wickett
Rev. Dr. Sharon Rhodes-Wickett is a retired Elder in the California-Pacific Annual Conference of the UMC. During her 36 years in ministry she served congregations include Claremont UMC, Westwood UMC (from 1994-2006), Santa Clarita UMC, and Northridge UMC; she also served as the District Superintendent for the Long Beach District, and as an adjunct faculty at the Claremont School of Theology. In her retirement, she continues to serve in leadership in many ways, including as an active participant, teacher, and regular guest preacher here at Westwood, and as a Trustee of the Claremont School of Theology.