Curiosity as a Spiritual Practice

What does it mean to approach a climate-changed world with rigorous and reverent curiosity? In this special Behind the Scenes Edition of the Climate Changed Podcast, host Jessica David sits down with Ben Yosua-Davis and Rev. Ash Temin of The BTS Center. Together, they explore how curiosity—paired with imagination—can become a spiritual practice, a way of meaning-making, and a pathway toward more faithful responses in a climate-changed world.

From maple sap and chickens to contemplative practices and ecological grief, Ben and Ash share both the practical and the profound ways they cultivate curiosity in their own lives. They also reflect on how The BTS Center’s programs encourage spiritual leaders to slow down, pay attention, and imagine new ways of living and leading.

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Highlights from the Episode

  • Ash Temin: “Curiosity as a quiet, contemplative stance doesn’t make it any less alive. It might not be as visible, but it’s there fomenting the change that comes.”
  • Ben Yosua-Davis: “If you want to change, you have to slow down. You have to create spaciousness to ask big, open-ended questions that don’t have a one-to-one correspondence with your to-do list.”
  • Ash Temin: “Taking curiosity with rigor and reverence moves us out of selfishness and into an ecology of relationships, where growth and flourishing become possible.”

    Join the Conversation

    Share your experience with us:
    Email us: podcast@thebtscenter.org
    Leave a voice message: 207-200-6986

     

    About the Podcast

    Climate Changed is a project of The BTS Center, a spiritual leadership organization based in Portland, Maine.
    Produced by Peterson Toscano. Music by EpidemicSound.com.
    Find more episodes and transcripts at climatechangedpodcast.org

    Meet Our Host

    Jessica David is a Master of Divinity candidate at Harvard Divinity School, founder of Local Return, and President & CEO of Rhode Island Community Investment Cooperative. With 20 years of experience working at the intersection of people and place, Jessica focuses on the intersection of spirituality and money, supporting community wealth-building and strategic organizational development.

    Meet Our Guests

    Rev. Ash Temin is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who serves as the Staff Writer + Program Manager at The BTS Center. She also offers spiritual direction through her independent practice in Portland, Maine. Ash is a graduate of the University of Virginia (BA), the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin (MPhil) and Harvard Divinity School (MDiv). Her time at both the ISE and HDS sparked a passion for ecological theology and prompted her to begin delving more deeply into the experience of ecological grief. Prior to moving to Portland, she served as an Acting Associate Pastor at Hope Central Church, a UCC/DOC congregation in Boston.

    Before answering the call to ordination, Ash worked in various administrative roles at Harvard University. She also has worked as a hospital and hospice chaplain, an adjunct professor, and a freelance editor. After time spent living in Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Ireland, and Massachusetts, Ash is grateful to make her home in Maine, where she lives with her husband and two cats and spends part of most days walking on the shores of Casco Bay. When not absorbed in work, she can be found cooking with friends, laying in her garden hammock, hiking in the woods, playing in the ocean, or attempting to learn the Irish language with a cat on her lap.

    Ben Yosua-Davis serves on The BTS Center staff team as Director of Applied Research, where he shapes the organization’s posture of “rigorous and reverent curiosity,” focused on research that supports and shares the wisdom of on-the-ground practitioners working in a climate-changed world. He is a graduate of Drew Theological Seminary and Colby College.

    Previously, he lived in Haverhill, MA, where he co-planted a new church called The Vine, one of the earliest mainline missional church expressions in the country, and hosted a podcast entitled, “Reports From the Spiritual Frontier,” which chronicled the day-to-day lives of leaders innovating new forms of spiritual community.

    Ben is a Maine native and now lives on Chebeague Island, Maine with his wife, Melissa, his son Michael, and his daughters, Genevieve and Emeline; where he directs the community chorus and delivers tins of cookies to unsuspecting neighbors.