Women Religious, Wilderness and Writing

As an ordained woman in the Mennonite Church USA,a writer and a practical theologian in the congregation, I want to bring my voice to the table where nature and religion intersect. There are women ecological writers in the secular realm, and a few feminist theologians who have addressed the destruction of ecology within a culture of domination. Yet, In a time of global climate change, loss of habitat/species and the impacts on humans, there are very few women clergy writing about a pastoral imagination of earth justice or a new theology of human collaboration with God’s creation.

During this sabbatical, I will go into the wilderness with my husband, where we both find solace for the soul of our marriage and individually. As Jesus went into the desert places to grapple with his Abba, so I seek the natural world as a place of soulwork to face the sickness of busyness and alienation within me. During this sabbatical wilderness time, I want to begin to connect the themes of women, religion and nature. Writing has always been my first love, even as a child on a northeast Ohio family farm. There I found that nature sparked my creative writing voice and brought forth stories that were awarded and recognized in school. Throughout my careers as a student, social worker and minister, I have channeled my writing into papers, a thesis, documents and sermons. This grant will give me 3 months of uninterrupted time for my passions of creative writing at the intersection of my life as a woman in religious life, immersed in the natural world.