WAVE FLOWS INTO WAVE BY REV. AC CHURCHILL
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n 1988, two bunker oil tankers were traveling from Cherry Point in Northeast Washington toward Aberdeen when the towline between the vessels broke. The tankers drifted toward land, spilling over 230,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil that covered over 110 miles of Washington’s coastal beaches. The spill harmed the shores of the Quinault Indian Nation and the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Nation in Canada as well as Olympic National Park and multiple wildlife refuges. Teams of volunteers flocked to the shorelines to try and rescue birds trapped in the tar that had washed ashore. The founders of Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power and Light, Rev. Carla Pryne and Ruth and Jim Mulligan, joined the efforts to wash waste from the birds’ wings. As they worked, they wondered: “Where are all the other people of faith? Why are they not here?” What started off as one simple question has become more than 31 years of faith-rooted, conscience-led communities of curiosity, care, and action that come together to prevent and mitigate the harm of environmental injustice on both the planet and people who call Washington home. Today, Earth Ministry/WA IPL is a multifaith environmental justice organization working with sacred communities across Washington State. We work with over 400 sacred communities throughout Washington to educate, mobilize, and connect people who put their faith into action for the well-being of their communities and the environment. Our work is done in collaboration with other environmental organizations and includes groups working toward Indigenous rights, disability rights, health care rights, labor rights, racial justice, housing rights, and queer rights. We know that, at its core, environmental justice is connected to every other movement for wholeness. And we believe our sacred traditions call us to participate in work that acknowledges the fullness of our community and expands our understandings of who our neighbors are. It is from this background and these values that we engage in river recovery and salmon restoration work. Our organization believes that it is critical to follow the lead of Northwest Native Nations in campaigning and advocating for a just transition toward free-flowing rivers. For more than a decade, we have worked with sacred communities to support Indigenousled campaigns protecting treaty rights, fishing areas, and sacred sites. Following their leadership, we have mobilized people of faith and conscience to successfully oppose climate-damaging fossil fuel projects and support tribal efforts to recover salmon
and orca populations through river restoration and prevention of further pollution in the Salish Sea.
GROUNDED IN FAITH
We are part of the natural world, and it is part of us. When Earth Ministry/WA IPL began in the early 1990s, much of our work centered around validating care for creation as part of the work of the church. Our founders and early staff met with sacred communities to help them reconnect with these justice priorities, which have always been part of people of faith’s commitments. Abrahamic scriptural traditions start with the story of how the Divine formed and fashioned the beauty of celestial beings, the natural world, and all who call this planet home. In the Genesis 2 creation story, the author writes that God pulled dust and dirt up from the Earth to shape humankind. We are quite literally earthlings, earth creatures, made of dust. To dust we will return. Yet, for many reasons, our white Western versions of Christianity have spent generations disconnected from the very creation that forms us. This disconnect has led to patterns that not only devalue the non-human world, but also justify practices such as greed, colonialization, extractivism, and subjugation. If we hope to be part of the healing process and members of communities that embody God’s love for all creation beyond A M AT T E R O F S P I R I T
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