Prophetic Witness of Place
For our August 10, 2021 Climate Cafe Multifaith, Rev. Michael Anthony Howard joined the conversation, sharing his experience and insights as the Minister of Faith in Action for the Livingwater Fellowship in Northeast Ohio. (Scroll for a video of his presentation. Scroll to the bottom for recommended reading and other resources.)
“Climate change may be a global phenomenon—but the work we do in the place where we are is perhaps as important or maybe even more important.”
Rev. Howard is a trained organizer and his focus this past Tuesday was to invite us to look to, and be guided by, the ‘place’ where we live. Our communities may face any number of challenges from environmental degradation, economic & industry changes, and every community is dealing with homelessness, poverty, as well as climate change, and its affects.
In his presentation, and the conversation following, Rev. Howard invited us to look at community organizing as a way of entering into a relationship. Advocacy can be a good thing, but it can also be a strategy of ‘speaking for’ someone instead of ‘listening to’ someone. Many of the communities where we live, work, and worship already have groups of folks who are speaking about what the need, and what they have to share. When a faith group speaks ‘for’ people, they often do so because they want to do a good thing. Yet there is a danger that speaking for someone actually takes that person’s voice away. Instead, faith groups and community groups are invited to learn and listen to people inside the community. Then, when you hear of something happening, you can approach organizing as a way of participating with those who are already leading from the ground up.
“Parker Palmer talks about thinking of a community not as a leader who is the expert who gets information on high and then dispenses it out to people, but rather a community who gathers around the truth to learn it, to speak it, to share it with each other. ”
When an organizer can listen to the community, then come alongside to support that community, that can be an effort to build strong relationships that can lead to lasting change. Listening allows organizers to get to know a place better—even a place where they have lived their whole life and thought they knew. And, when you get to know a place—when you get to love a place—you can begin to imagine what is possible. As people of faith, we can take that imagination one step further, and tell the stories of our witness—what we ourselves have seen!—that testify to what is real, what is possible, and what can be imagined for a strong, resilient future.
Rev. Howard serves as the Minister of Faith in Action for the Living Water Association (Ohio NorthEast) in the Heartland Conference of the United Church of Christ. He is a cofounder of Friends of Elizabeth Park and serves as a chief catalyst for the Akron Area Food Forest Initiative, a local inter-organizational collaboration that actively works to undo environmental racism and systemic racist city planning by building community, educating and inspiring neighborhoods, establish food security, and increase bio-diversity.
Usually, we create a one-sheet with basic links and explainers for the Climate Cafe topic that week. This time, however, we have started a recommended reading list. These are resources Rev. Howard and others recommend.
No Shortcuts by Jane McAlevey
The Futility of Global Thinking by Wendell Berry, Harper Magazine Archive
The Power of Place: How our surroundings shape our thoughts, emotions, actions by Winifred Gallager.
The City Repair Project and placemaking
Can Participatory Design Save the World? By Paul Keskeys, Architectural Digest, 2018
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is here for the friendship and conversations about climate, community, and connection. She organizes the Climate Cafe Multifaith as a co-leader of Faiths4Future. Find her in real life in Southern Oregon, working as Steward of Climate with the nonprofit Circle Faith Future.