Upwelling

Welcome to Upwelling, The BTS Center’s occasional print newsletter. We are delighted to connect with you in this way, and we hope that when you are finished reading, you might pass your copy along to someone else who might be interested.

We’ve chosen to name this publication Upwelling, which is quite a specific ecological term in coastal ecosystems such as our own, where winds blow strongly and frequently across the surface of the ocean near where it meets the land. These winds push the warmer surface waters further out to sea, allowing space for deep, colder, nutrient-rich water to rise to the surface, in turn providing sustenance for a multitude of small creatures and allowing for a complex, diverse ecosystem to thrive. This process is known as upwelling.

For those of us awake to spiritual metaphor, upwelling speaks of the Spirit which moves across our own beings — agitating, provoking, inviting — preventing us from stagnating and pushing us to make room for new life to arise. That life comes from the mysterious Deep, a life source that is both sustaining and not fully known. As in the creative process of Genesis, upwelling evokes the movement of the Divine who lives and breathes through creation. This process is a constant dance of creative movement, one which offers a nourishing agitation and imaginative disturbance.

At The BTS Center, we think of the work we are offering as a kind of upwelling, existing at the confluence of spirituality and ecology, catalyzing spiritual imagination with enduring wisdom for transformative faith leadership. We hope that you will join us in this journey, adding your own holy movement to this spiritual ecosystem.