Rector's Note: Tending the land as an act of love and resistance-1.8.26

After Christmas, Jess and I spent a week in Moab, Utah, visiting his sister Liz and her husband. Liz is an ecologist with the National Park Service, coordinating programs that restore and strengthen habitats and promote natural diversity in the region’s national parks.

This part of the country stands in stunning contrast to the northeastern cities that I’ve called home. Where there would be streets and rowhouses and skyscrapers in my cityscape, there are riverbeds and washes, rock formations, and snow-capped mountains. The high desert seems untouched and unchangeable to my urban eyes; its red rock walls and arches are overwhelming in their scale. After a breathless season of Advent and Christmas, this took my breath away entirely.

The land there, of course, is not untouched and unchanging. Rather, it is constantly compromised by human agendas for mineral extraction and recreation, continuously marked by the presence of the indifferent to the curious. Keeping the ecology of the region healthy and whole requires the continuous and vigilant effort of biologists, geologists, animal behaviorists, and other specialists. On our many incredible hikes, Liz pointed out the evidence of their work in places where native species have replaced invasives and where desert animals were reappearing and changing local environments. I was deeply touched by the power of people to heal, tend, and nurture the earth.

It reminded me that this is one of the things we were made for, as our creation story in Genesis tells us: stewarding and tending the earth and its creatures. Seeing the response of the desert, with its stretches of healthy biocrust, its junipers and pinyon pines, gave me a bit of hope that healing continues even in the midst of destruction. Many of Liz’s colleagues have taken early retirement as part of the federal government’s efforts to drastically reduce the workforces that protect these lands. Her staff is small, but their work is effective and persistent—just doing their jobs is an act of resistance against malign forces.

And that gives me hope as I return to my own beloved city, with its familiar paths, its own gritty beauty, and its particular precarities. The attacks upon both our natural and human-formed spaces can seem so overwhelming right now; the work to protect people and places has become dangerous and heartbreaking. At the same time, I’m also reminded how effective and subversive this steady tending is that people are doing out of their love for the work at hand.

My visit to the high desert reminded me that most of this effort is invisible to me unless pointed out. And it can be small, incremental, and patient work, done with watchful care over time. Then there are these moments when we hear the story, or notice the healthy landscape, or take in the whole vista—and our breath is taken away.

And that is the case with the larger work of discipleship as well, and beyond that the ineffable work of God.

So I come back from vacation and into the New Year with hope and a vision of transformation at work, thanks to my sister-in-law. And also, I have pictures if you want to see them. Lots and lots of pictures.