Still on that hippy track.

Throughout the rest of my undergrad years, those Wednesday evening gatherings—and other events connected to the same group of people—went a long way in keeping me alive spiritually. I still attended my own home church, because that’s where my family was, and many of the friends I’d grown up with; I taught Sunday school; I took turns as the piano accompanist. But I always went to the Gathering. After college, I traveled overseas, bounced around a bit, and after a few years landed back in Marquette, returning to academia for a graduate program in creative writing. And when Pastor Jon, who knew me as a writer and learned that I was back in the area, asked if I would write a grant proposal for a project focused on creating a team of student environmentalists, I agreed. I’d been away from this spiritual community and welcomed the chance to reengage.

In the time that I’d been away, Jon had formed a group called EarthKeepers, an interfaith environmental coalition representing seven different faith traditions: Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist, Zen Buddhist, Baha’i, and Judaism. Jon had approached leaders in each of these traditions with an idea: Since we all believe that the Earth is a sacred gift from our Creator, and we have a responsibility to honor that gift, take care of it. We may not agree on a lot of other things, but this is something we can come together on. All seven leaders signed the EarthKeeper Covenant, pledging to work together as communities of faith on environmental initiatives.

This was a new concept for me. I had never considered that Christians and other people of faith really should, by definition, by doctrine, be concerned with the environment. But of course it made perfect sense. The grant proposal was successful, and the Lutheran Campus Ministry at NMU now had $100,000 to orchestrate the creation of a student EarthKeeper team to mimic the original one, and I would be the Project Coordinator.

For the next two years, I helped organize massive household hazardous and electronic waste collections, learned about the health of our local rivers and streams through collaboration with the Superior Watershed Council, and gave presentations at local churches, building the EarthKeeper community. I started noticing trash a lot more than I used to, picking it up from sidewalks and beaches even when it wasn’t mine. And somehow these things added up to me doing a whole lot more of my shopping at the co-op.