Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, November 8, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My name is Lori Milner. I live in Chelsea, I attend UUCC, the Unitarian Universalist Community Church in Augusta, and I know Leslie Manning and Shelley Randall from our mutual affiliation with the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine, or ChIME.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My opening words are those of Chief Seattle from the book Prayers for Healing, edited by Maggie Oman<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teach your children This we know. Whatever befalls the earth It\u2019s my pleasure and honor to be with you again. When I spoke Now I\u2019ll just say that, even for all my enthusiasm about being This fall I enrolled in a grief companion certification program, so When I first read \u201csorrows of the world\u201d I was thinking about In Church of the Wild<\/em>, Victoria Loorz tells us: \u201cYou can \u2018love the But falling in love with Earth? That\u2019s different. You are allured to pay Michele Bakacs, a natural resource professional in New Jersey, What can we do about and with our grief? As I was researching, Michele also recommends taking action. She says: \u201cIn addition I will leave us with this question from Debra Renstra in her book Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, November 8, 2026 My name is Lori Milner. I live in Chelsea, I attend UUCC, the Unitarian Universalist Community Church in Augusta, and I know Leslie Manning and Shelley Randall from our mutual affiliation … Continue reading
what we have taught our children \u2014
that the earth is our mother.
Whatever befalls the earth
befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.
If men spit upon the ground,
they spit upon themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The earth does not belong to us;
we belong to the earth.
This we know.
All things are connected
like the blood which unites one family.
All things are connected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.
We do not weave the web of life;
We are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web.
we do to ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
here last April, I told you how I was finding solace in nature from the
human created chaos that is the daily news cycle. At that time, I was
in the early stages of starting an outdoor gathering based on the work
of Victoria Loorz and her sister Valerie Luna Serrels, co-founders of
The Wild Church Network following the release of Victoria\u2019s book
Church of the Wild. To my own amazement, I did it. The Kennebec
Wild Wanderers is registered on the Wild Church Network website.
We started in May and our monthly gatherings will end for the season
later this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
restored by nature, I don\u2019t like winter. And this year I\u2019m not looking
forward to the shorter days, the cold and dark. So I\u2019m taking Mother
Nature\u2019s hand and walking through it with her, because she goes
through it every season. My friends, the trees, stand there patiently
year after year, surrendering their leaves each autumn and resting in
the winter so they can joyously rebound in the spring. Like them, I
can use the quiet season for my inner work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the topic of grief has been following me around for awhile. The texts
we\u2019re using have us learning, among other things: 11 tenets of
companioning, 10 touchstones to seek out on the grief journey, and
five gates of grief. Grief by the numbers! I\u2019m especially interested in
the five gates, and the gate I want to talk about today is the one
called \u201cthe sorrows of the world\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
people affected by the current wars, the people being hunted down
and deported by ICE, those whose income doesn\u2019t stretch far enough
to cover the basic necessities. Turns out it\u2019s all that, and more. We\u2019re
also talking about the sorrows of the natural world, which some call
eco-grief, that sorrow we feel when we see the environment
damaged, species lost because of changes in weather patterns, and
other environmental changes. And is it possible that some of the grief
we feel is also coming from the land itself, and its creatures? We are
connected, after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
earth\u2019 by taking care of it: by getting involved with advocacy
campaigns to remove dams and protect forests, by living simply and
adding nutrients to the soil, by limiting fossil fuels and eating local
foods.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
attention and enter into conversation with a particular being, a
particular place. And then, through fidelity and time and a thousand
small acts of kindness and reciprocal giving and receiving, you fall in
love.\u201d (Victoria Loorz, Church of the Wild<\/em>, Broadleaf Books, 2021, p 128). And having fallen in love, we grieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
gives us some key causes of eco-grief in her article \u201cEco-Grief Got
You Down? Here\u2019s What You Can Do About It\u201d. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
landscape or species, for example a migratory bird or butterfly
that returns to your area each season.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
example a hurricane or wildfire.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
strong ties, such as the sense of loss felt by a lake that used to
freeze regularly in the winter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
community mourning the loss of hunting and fishing grounds.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
the planet and how it will affect them as they learn about the
impacts of climate change.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
environmental changes are out of your control.
And to that I would add that people who work in nature
(environmental professionals) are especially susceptible to eco-grief.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
it seems that there are universal practices regardless of the source of
our grief. Here are a few:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
yourselves to feel all the feels, and to mourn.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
to engage it again. Dr. Alan Wolfelt<\/a> calls this “dosing your pain.”<\/li>\n\n\n\n
to helping professionals if needed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
order to allow people to mourn. There are suggestions on the
internet.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
to talking, individuals need to be doing. This means taking steps to
improve an environmental condition. When deciding where to start,
think about what you value, what you are passionate about, and what
is within your ability to accomplish\u2026start with your own home or your
community. Research local organizations taking on issues of
importance to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Refugia Faith<\/em><\/a>: \u201cWhat can we give back through a pattern of
reciprocity to a planet that gives us so much? What will make the
more-than-human creation glad that we are here?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"