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April 18, 2024
Dear friends,
Spring is finally arriving here in Southern Maine, with budding leaves painting the tree branches bright green and magnolia and tulip blossoms swelling as they prepare to open to the sun. This time of year is full of life and promise, and we're feeling a sense of joyful expectation even as we hold close the many deep pains of the world. We are taking deep breaths of the sea air, raising our faces to the sun, and rejoicing in the moments of warmth after the chill of winter.
April has been a time of respite for at The BTS Center, with several of us taking time to be with family and travel. We're feeling renewed as we anticipate a rich set of programmatic offerings in the coming weeks, each with an incredible group of presenters and facilitators. Next week, in honor of Earth Day, our friends at Lexington Theological Seminary are offering a webinar on Preaching in a Climate-Changed World — we're proud to be partnering with LTS, along with Creation Justice Ministries, for this program. In May, we have another conversation from our Climate Conscious Chaplaincy Initiative, this one exploring Spiritual Caregiving and Ecological Grief.
We're thrilled to be offering a public conversation with renowned climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, author of Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, on May 22. We hope you'll join us for an evening of thoughtful conversation about Collective Honesty and Complicated Hope with Dr. Hayhoe and an incredible panel of conversationalists.
Also in May, we'll host a book study on the thoughtful work of T. Wilson Dickinson — Singing the Psalms with My Son: Praying and Parenting for a Healed Planet. And we'll be offering our first Green Teams Gathering, in person in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. If you're within reach of Southern Maine and are involved (or would like to be) in congregational climate work, this in-person offering might be for you!
We wish you opening toward warmth and wonder in these April days.
With best wishes,
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