Our September worship gathering focused on water-related themes. Water nourishes us, body and soul. Water cleans us. Water hydrates us. Water heals us. How do we treat water in return?

Amos 5:24 is a favourite verse of mine. 

This piece of found poetry (found from the introduction to Is a River Alive by Robert McFarlane) was also shared. 

This is a journey
into an idea
that changes the world:
A river is alive.
A forest might think.
A mountain might remember.
Headwaters, wounded creeks,
lagoons, estuaries, wild interiors;
water is speaking, 
but what is it saying?
This is an old-growth question, 
answers beautiful, cryptic, 
troubling, illuminating.
To go unheard is not the same
as to be speechless.
No landscape speaks
with a single tongue. 
A young river sings ceaselessly,
the ears of the river are listening.
Waterbodies flow 
in and through us.
Running, we are rivers.
Seated, we are pools.
Our fate flows with rivers
and always has.

- Wendy Janzen

We ended our gathering by praying with, and for, our local waters and waters around the world that are in need of justice and righteousness, and remembered that the All Nations Grand River Waterwalkers started walking their prayers for the river today. 

Today we gathered for our last evening service for the summer. All day rain threatened, and the rain started about 10 minutes before we were scheduled to begin. The temperature was warm, however, and the forest held a mystical quality as everything glistened in the rain. 
Our readings for the evening were a collection of quotes:

“Be still and know that I am God.” 
– Psalm 46:10 

“At the waning of the day, in the quiet of this hour, at the interplay of light and dark, we wait with the earth as it rests, that we may remember the ground from which we come.”
–John Philip Newell

“As the curtain of day falls away, the curtain of night is rising. In the falling and the rising the star of God’s face shines forth.”
– Macrina Wiederkehr

“Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light."
– Mary Oliver

“Stay awake, Holiness may spread its wings for you at any moment.”
– Patricia Lunetta

As you take time to wander and wonder, what is something that is killing you with delight? ​​

Today marks the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. It is a time of vibrance and growth. Psalm 85:12 says, “God gives Goodness and Beauty; our land responds with Bounty and Blessing.” This kind of green bounty and beauty can also be described by the Latin word Veriditas, a word associated with Hildegard von Bingen, a 11th century German abbess and theologian.

At our forest church gathering, before our wandering time, we listened to the words below, written by Hildegard, and then went off on our own to notice signs of the "Greening Force."

Where are you noticing the Greening Force around you in this summer season?

 This week I picked up a new book I had been waiting for, called Watch and Wonder: Birding as a Spiritual Practice, by Ragan Sutterfield. I’ve just barely started reading, but there were a few excerpts I shared in our worship gathering: 

• Spiritual practices, at their best, are activities that help us become the kinds of people the world needs right now. (ix)
  
• One of the formative realities of birding is the way it helps us to inhabit time. Paying attention to birds puts us in contact with the seasons in a world where so much of our life is disconnected from natural rhythms. (x)
  
• Birding is a way to enter the rhythm at the heart of the world. (20) 
• Learning to listen is an essential practice in a birder's life. It is a form of radical attention. When we pay attention to birds, we are not just listening to pleasant sounds. We are encountering an act of communication. Learning to understand, at least at some level, teaches us about the world around us, and leads to connection. (77)

Take time to wander and wonder, to pay attention and listen -- to birds if you can, or to plants, animals or fish -- and see what you hear. Listen as a prayerful act, as a means of connection. Listen for a theophany -- a sounding of God here in this place, on this day.

Earlier this week we stopped for a walk in a forest
just a bit north of here. The ferns were just
coming up, and they inspired this blessing.

This blessing is ancient.
This blessing began millennia 
before you or I and will 
continue long after we're gone.
This green blessing curls 
up from the soil among community 
of trees, ephemerals, decay.

This blessing uncurls 
fronds to the heavens,
catching the spring sunlight
spring after spring after spring,
holding space and keeping time
with grace and purpose.
Blessings of opening.
Blessings of beauty.
Blessings of life.
​
- Wendy Janzen

On March 6, 2026, we marked ten years since our first worship gathering at Breithaupt Park. Here's a timeline with a few highlights of the past decade (and a couple of years leading up to our first gathering).

These contributions are by participants in the Burning Bush Forest Church, 2026 book study. We read and shared reflections about the book, ‘Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In with Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power’ by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, published as a
revised edition, in 2022.
​
With reference to Chapter 6, ‘A Different Kind of Power,’ on pp. 112-13 we responded to these
lines. “Recognizing ourselves as part of the larger web of life expands our view. Just as we can
experience our pain for the world as the Earth crying within us, we can experience the earth
thinking within us as a guiding impulse pulling us in a particular direction. We can view this as
co-intelligence, an ability to think and feel with our world. Developing a partnership with the
Earth involves listening for guiding signals and taking them seriously when we hear them.”

“If Earth could speak to us, what would she say? We can take a step toward finding out by
imagining Earth leaving a voice mail for us. Start a voice mail to yourself. ‘This is your
mother Gaia ...’”

1)
This is your mother Gaia. I delight in the delight you take in me, which fills you at times with
wonder;

• our early morning visits while you sit in your bedroom window alcove, greeting the dawn
• the early signs of budding trees in Spring
• your regular walks in the nearby forest to check in on Spring flowers appearing
• the dazzling sunlight through frost-coated trees
• the beauty of freshly fallen snow –
• your eagerly awaited return of the hummingbirds

I notice that you become more child-like in your eagerness to witness these signs.
I also see your efforts to live with a smaller footprint. The steps you have taken are not merely
"ethical checkmarks" on a scoresheet; they are expressions of the mutual relationship we enjoy.
Yet, there is more work to be done. I am in crisis, as are future generations. I want you to know
that you are not alone in this work; you are part of a much larger and deeper web of global
interconnections than you can see beyond your personal actions. Thank you for taking the time to read and learn. And don't give up! Future generations will be grateful for these actions on behalf of your shared habitat.

2)
This is your mother, Gaia, writing. Don’t worry about how, but the when is now. Some work /
play / connection is already started. For millennia, your Relations – the tree people, water, four
legged, flying, two legged and swimming siblings - have been in Conversation - mostly with the
original Turtle Island part of the human relatives. But there is room and you will figure it out.
Don’t get distracted! The distractions have their own power. Resist Empire and all the extracted loot! Remember who you are and that you belong to me. Connect and practice wisely! With Love, G.

3)
Dear one, this is your mother Gaia. Remember to breathe. You don’t need to accomplish too
much. You can spend more time with people, with yourself, and with me. All will be well.

4)
There is no time to waste. I am feeling humans' destructive steps walking toward my tipping
point. My tipping point means humans cannot survive as part of me. I am resilient. I will survive.
Humans, define your success by honouring your interconnectedness with me, your Mother, Gaia. Work collaboratively. Connect deeply to the web of life.

5)
Dear Child,
This is your mother, Gaia, calling. I haven’t heard from you much lately – really not consistently
since you were a kid. In fact, I don’t hear from many of my children of your species anymore.
Try spending more time in nature --- that might help remind you to call.
The real reason I am calling is to offer a warning. The beautiful gifts I have provided your
species have, for the most part, been misused and exploited. Humans have taken far more than their share, and even among themselves, many have taken more than others. This is not
sustainable and the great web of life, in all of its inter-connections is being harmed, in many
cases irrevocably.
In light of what some of you are calling The Great Turning, my advice is to build your resilience
– learn how to grow food and save seeds for next year’s harvest; build things with your hands;
gather with like-minded people and create strong communities; learn how to mediate conflict and make healthy community decisions; teach those who come after you to love and respect the earth; and practice gratitude, daily.
If your species is lucky it may survive – other species have not faired so well. Use wisely the
gifts I have given you. You will need creativity to innovate, love to build community, and 
resilience to weather the hardships. You will experience grief but also love. You will face
tremendous challenges but also successes.
Go forth and forge a new way of being human, as one species among many in our web of life.
Good luck, call soon, call often.
Mother Gaia

6)
This is your mother Gaia calling. You know we’ve crossed 7 of 9 planetary boundaries and that I am in poor health. The excess of novel entities such as micro- and nano plastics, PFAS and other chemicals are making me sick and as GHGs increase, my fever is worsening. I grieve that I can no longer be a mother to so many species and individuals of those species who have disappeared.
As tipping points approach and I lose ecosystem functioning, I fear the loss of more, including
many human individuals and perhaps the human species. I appreciate that you keep trying to
connect with my creatures and to see beauty. You are aware that hope means being active with your gifts and to keep contributing, regardless of outcome, even knowing the outcome may be dire. We persist with patience as long as we can.

7)
This is your mother, Gaia. Times are tough, I know, for you and me both. There is so much
hubris among humans, so much greed, indifference, and blindness. It breaks my heart. I notice, though, what you all are up to with forest church, and I love spending time with you there on holy ground. Keep your eyes and heart open and pay attention to the beauty and the brokenness around you. Look for acts and signs of hope, and join in. Come alongside the ways that lead to life. You'll find me there. Gaia.