Mary Evelyn Tucker sees a clear path toward healing the planet, our relationship with nature, and with each other. She suggests that spiritual ecology—the field that explores how spirituality and the environment are interwoven—is the way finder.

For this article, she brought together three other scholars to explore this promise. She begins by zooming out. She reminds us that humans are recent arrivals in a universe that has been unfolding for billions of years. Stars and galaxies formed more than 10 billion years ago, and life began on Earth around 4 billion years ago. Seeing ourselves as part of this vast story, she says, can help us reconnect spirituality with nature—from exploding stars to living forests. It challenges the belief that humans are separate from the rest of life.

Her colleagues take up this larger perspective. They draw our attention not only to the sun and moon but to the rich ecosystems that surround us. They describe our true home as one that includes people, animals, rivers, and forests—all part of an ongoing cycle of birth, death, and renewal. Honoring these connections, they argue, can help us live with greater respect and care.

Their discussion ties directly to the theme of radical hope that I often explore in these letters. The scholars suggest that a deep transformation is possible, and that it can awakened by sharing the spiritual energy that is grounded in relationship, wonder, and love for all life. Such a shared understanding, they say, can better equip us to face the challenges of our time with strength, compassion, and purpose.

Many ancient spiritual traditions—Indigenous, Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, and Hindu—have long understood this way of seeing. Now, Tucker and her cohorts suggest, these perspectives have a new relevance. At a time when many feel overwhelmed or disconnected, these renewed spiritual paths offer an invitation to return to a world filled with wonder and meaning. Trees communicate. Animals migrate with intention. Many life forms express kinds of intelligence we are just beginning to recognize.

This is my kind of church.

"If we are to end the era of hyperindividualism, we will need new ways to reform, reshape, and reinvent community. Spiritual ecology is part of this re-creation of being and belonging in a world that is unraveling. It involves processes of recognizing our embodiment in matter through the process of evolution across deep time, our resonance with kin across species, and our reweaving of awe into our mind-body being. Does this upset or reset our sense of place and purpose? Let’s hope so. Otherwise, we risk the steady slump into meaninglessness and ennui."

ARTICLE: Why the World Needs Spiritual Ecology

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