Lament with Earth
Five seasonal events honoring the pain of loss through the liturgical year
Wednesdays 7:30 - 8.30pm (Eastern) • Online
November 2023 - June 2024
“We know and feel in our bones that something primal is amiss. Our extended home is being eroded. It is essential that we stop and recognize these losses...to respond with sorrow, outrage and apology at these places touched by so much loss.”
— Francis Weller
So many of us know this truth voiced by Francis Weller. And yet, we have so few opportunities to express our sorrow, fear, sadness and yes, even despair about a future of life in a climate-changed world. It takes courage to touch the places inside ourselves where these truths live — those thoughts and feelings that likely keep many of us up at night, but are too often held inside us, in a space both alone, and lonely.
To create space for these feelings, The BTS Center — together with The Many, an extraordinary group of songwriters, spoken word artists and liturgists — has created Lament with Earth — five seasonal events featuring original music, poetry, rituals, images, scripture and videos to reflect different seasons of loss through the liturgical year. These events are interactive, inviting you to pray and sing along. You are invited to bring your own sense of loss and sadness. We lament together, and also share that which has been a balm to our grief, strengthening us for the work we know awaits us.
Dates:
Wednesday, November 1, 2023 • Video recording
Wednesday, December 6, 2023 • Video recording
Wednesday, February 21, 2024 • Video recording
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Upcoming events:
Wednesday, May 8, 2023:
Spring Event: Via Transformativa, with the Element of Water
Co-hosted by Waterspirit
The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
— Robert Frost, Once by the Pacific
Spring in the northern hemisphere is filled with holidays that draw us into the forces of transformation: the resurrection of Easter, the liberation of Passover, and Beltane, the ancient springtime festival of optimism and fertility. In Matthew Fox's words, "these are the prophetic moments in our lives when we are called to use our talents and gifts with the hurting, fractured, dysfunctional aspects of our society." What better element to guide us through the themes of transformation than water, itself a shape-shifter? Water, in all its varied forms, stirs our imaginations even as it gives — and takes away — life. Water is intimately connected to our climate-changed world — as storm and drought, as acidification of the ocean and rain, as sea level rise and rising saline levels of fresh water sources. And, water moves turbines, grows food hydroponically, cools desert-like air, and bears life into the future.
Together, we lament, and celebrate, the transformative power of water, holding space for mourning and discovery, sorrow and inspiration.
Wednesday, June 12, 2023:
The Season of Via Positiva, featuring All Beings
Co-hosted by Radical Joy for Hard Times
“In a healthy environment, our first spiritual moments are moments of awe and wonder, and delight. The mystics call this the Via Positiva. When we allow these gifts to penetrate our souls the organic response includes: gratitude, reverence, and joy.”
— Matthew Fox
As days lengthen and temperatures warm, many of us are drawn outside to first-hand experiences of awe and wonder, and delight — the characteristics of creation spirituality's via positiva. Our creatureliness awakens and is enlivened by the blooming, burgeoning, bountiful world. Yet the more we are aware and alive, the more keenly we feel the threats to our fellow beings — the extinction of species, their loss of habitat, and the despoiling of dwelling places by powerful forces which threaten the extraordinarily diverse and resplendent world which we share with all that lives and breathes along with us. We welcomed you to join us as we celebrated and mourned, awakened and grieved, loved and despaired. Coming to be together, to share these feelings, thoughts, and sadnesses is the key to moving towards life.
Meet our Co-Creators:
The Many is a creative collective making music and new kinds of inclusive, justice-building gatherings that offer space for faith and doubt, lament and gratitude. The feet-on-the-ground, heart-in-hands songs and liturgies they create remind us we aren’t alone and that all belong here. And they help us find the courage to authentically love God, love ourselves, love others and this whole, aching planet. The Many includes Darren Calhoun, Hannah Rand, Christa Sangster Monroe, Jonathan Ulanday, Kristina Sinks, Gary Rand and Lenora Rand. 
With roots dating back to 1814, The BTS Center is a private foundation in Portland, Maine, building on the legacy of the former Bangor Theological Seminary.
Today The BTS Center seeks to catalyze spiritual imagination, with enduring wisdom, for transformative faith leadership by offering theologically grounded programs of continuing education and spiritual formation, including workshops and retreats, learning cohorts, public conversations, and projects of applied research, all focused around spiritual leadership in a climate-changed world.
Meet our Co-Hosts:
Co-Host for November:
Center for Spirituality in Nature
Co-Host for December:
Good Grief Network
Co-Host for February:
Creation Care Alliance
Co-Host for May:
Waterspirit
Co-Host for June:
Radical Joy for Hard Times
An Offering from Radical Joy for Hard Times, one of our Lament with Earth Co-Hosts
Earth Hospice Rites is an online, ongoing gathering place to lament, celebrate, share, and offer mindful attention to the places and species we love that are endangered by climate change. We meet on Zoom every other Wednesday for 20 minutes. Hosted by Trebbe Johnson and Alison Cornish, Chaplaincy Initiative Coordinator at The BTS Center. Learn more here.
