June 17, 2025 • 39 mins
In this deeply personal episode, Harvard Divinity School student and BTS Center intern Jessica David hosts a heartfelt conversation with BTS Center leaders Rev. Nicole Diroff and Rev. Alison Cornish about lament's essential, uncomfortable, and ultimately connective role in our climate-changed world.
Together, they explore the collective practice of ecological grief — not as something to fix or diagnose, but as a sacred response to real, ongoing loss. They reflect on lament’s roots in ancestral spiritual traditions, its embodied and communal expressions, and its relevance for today’s spiritual leaders navigating climate breakdown.
GuestsRev. Nicole Diroff is Associate Director of The BTS Center. Ordained in the United Church of Christ, she is a Maine Master Naturalist, a facilitator, and a DEI leader. She brings heart and strategic insight to the Center’s public programming.
Rev. Alison Cornish coordinates The BTS Center’s Chaplaincy Initiative and has long practiced ecological theology and interfaith facilitation. She draws from traditions such as Joanna Macy’s The Work That Reconnects and community grief rituals to support climate spiritual care.
Main ThemesEcological Grief Is Real and Sacred Ecological grief encompasses present and anticipated losses from disappearing ice rinks to contaminated farmland. It's not a problem to be fixed, but a response rooted in love.
Lament Is Embodied, Collective, and Ancestral The guests draw on ancient practices—from ripped cloth and psalms to community rituals—to normalize grief and reclaim lament as a spiritually rich, communal act.
Grief Connects Across Time Grief opens connection channels: across communities, generations, species, and histories. When practiced communally, it fosters honesty, solidarity, and renewed purpose.
Lament Is an Act of Witness and Turning The movements of lament include naming harm, expressing sorrow, repenting of complicity, and stepping into something larger — sometimes praise, sometimes action.
"How will your heart break? Will it break into a thousand pieces, or will it break open?" — Shared by Alison, from a rabbi friend
Resources & ReflectionsReferenced in the episode:
- Words for a Dying World: Stories of Grief and Courage from the Global Church – edited by Hannah Malcolm
- Season 1, Episode 6 of Climate Changed featuring Hannah Malcolm
- The Work That Reconnects – from Joanna Macy
- The Many – “Is This How the World Ends?” (song featured in Lament with Earth)
- Lament with Earth – Seasonal online grief gatherings hosted by The BTS Center
- Earth Hospice Rites – A twice-monthly global grief space led by Alison Cornish
- Teachings from Vincent Harding, Johnson (unclear exact reference; likely Howard Thurman or Luke Powery-adjacent figures)
- Elizabeth Kübler-Ross – pioneer in grief studies
- “Terraforming” – discussed in context of climate manipulation and river systems, detailed in The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis by Amitav Ghosh
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Jessica David (00:04):
Is it okay to mourn for the damage we've done and continue
to do to our planet? What does it mean
to lament in today's world?
And what do I do with all of these feelings?
I'm Jessica David, a Harvard Divinity School student.
I'm an intern at the BTS center, which basically
(00:25):
means I ask a lot of questions. I'm really curious about the
BTS Center's mission to cultivate spirit spiritual
leadership for a climate changed world because
it seems so worthy and, uh, necessary. So I
asked a huge question. Can I take over the
podcast for a few months to learn more about what you do?
And, well, here we are.
Welcome to the Climate Change Podcast behind the Scenes
(00:48):
edition with me, Jessica David.
I am thrilled to be here today with two members of the
BTS Center's team.
>> Nicole Diroff (01:06):
Hello, listeners. I'm Nicole Deroff.
I serve as associate director at the BTS
Center. I am an ordained minister in
the United Church of Christ, an amateur
naturalist, a, um, mom,
and as you might know, I'm one of the
co hosts of the first three seasons
(01:26):
of the Climate Change Podcast.
>> Alison Cornish (01:29):
And I'm Allison Cornish. I'm the coordinator of the
BTS Center's chaplaincy initiative.
I've also worked in historic preservation
and architectural history, and I'm an
ordained minister in the Unitarian Universalist
tradition. Right now I live in Western
Massachusetts in the town of Buckland and the
Deerfield river watershed. And I also
(01:51):
work with my own town on issues of local
resilience.
>> Jessica David (01:56):
So happy to be here with you both.
So, Nicole and Allison, let's start with
an easy question. What is a fun
fact about you that most people might not know?
>> Nicole Diroff (02:08):
I am, um, loving on my fish tank.
Recently, I am a fish
tank mama. My practice
before going to bed is putting
in some food and then pulling over a chair
and sitting and watching. I
have four different species of fish in my tank.
(02:29):
It is my Zen moment for the day.
>> Alison Cornish (02:32):
I love that. And I've had a chance to visit
Nicole and her fish. A fun
fact about me is that I spent
a lot of years in my youth being a ice, uh, skater,
being a figure skater. Know the east
coast somewhat from going up and down it and
various competitions and visiting various
(02:52):
skating clubs. But now I look
for natural ice to be outside on the
ponds in Western Massachusetts and skating
with elements. Nothing makes me happier.
>> Nicole Diroff (03:08):
I love it. I am not a,
um, very natural ice skater.
So I would be out there with you, but kind of
clunking along.
>> Alison Cornish (03:17):
Oh, uh, we'll have to fix that, Nicole. No problem.
>> Jessica David (03:22):
I have memories of taking ice skating lessons when I
was very little. And the only thing I remember
about it is after the lesson, my
feet would be so cold, and they would be
defrosting and they would hurt, and I would cry in the car.
That's the extent of my ice skating.
>> Alison Cornish (03:40):
Oh, my goodness. No fun.
>> Jessica David (03:46):
Okay, so shifting gears a little bit, I'm gonna
dive right into today's topic. So I noticed that
the BTS center uses the term
ecological grief.
What is that?
>> Nicole Diroff (04:00):
So grief is
our response to loss m
sadness and sorrow.
Ecological grief is within the context
of the environment and
the ecological connections of
the systems of our bioregions.
(04:22):
And ice skating could be a space for
experiencing ecological grief
and loss. In the
town I live in, in Maine, there is a
community ice skating rink.
There are some winters where it's hardly open
these days because of climate change.
(04:44):
So ecological grief
can be in response to particular
moments or particular
situations.
Our state encouraged many farmers
to use municipal sludge as
fertilizer in the late 1900s.
(05:05):
And we have now discovered the ways in
which enduring PFAS
chemicals are in the soil
in ways that farmers are losing their
livelihoods. Our
ecosystem has become full
of toxins. So that's
(05:26):
a particular situation that we might experience
ecological grief around.
The other thing that's really unique
about ecological grief is the way in which
anticipated future losses
are very clearly a part of this as well.
(05:47):
My kiddo, who is now a fifth
grader, when he was young, we
had a encyclopedia
of animals with beautiful pictures
and descriptions of animals,
and he loved it. And
I remember showing him one day what the
different colored dots meant on the
(06:09):
different images. There was a key at
the front that said that
green dots meant those animals were thriving,
yellow meant they were threatened, and red
meant they were facing extinction.
We learned the key, and then we turned
the next page we turned to was the one with
(06:31):
the apes. And
my child burst into
tears. Just complete
sorrow, imagining that these
incredible creatures, all of
them on the page, were facing extinction.
>> Alison Cornish (06:51):
Oh, uh, Nicole, thank you for bringing
this really big, broad topic right
down to
such a tender story and such a personal one,
too. And I think that is,
um, something that I have learned in working with
ecological grief. It can be
(07:11):
very personal and it can be very
broad. But in our
understanding of grief in the past,
we've really looked at grief as a
loss that relates to people, first of
all, not ecosystems or
other species, and that
(07:32):
the proximity of the loss is important.
You lose a parent or a
sibling dies. But the idea that
we can have grief beyond
the very personal and
extend that beyond our, uh,
known universe is really,
really important. And normalizing that
(07:54):
sense. Just as Nicole was
talking about, I don't know, the farmers in
Maine, but I viscerally felt
what it is to think about losing your
livelihood because of a practice that was
normal, a heist, uh, and
destroyed something that we're trying to use today in a
(08:15):
healthy way. So honoring our
grief is really authentic.
It frees up something inside of us.
We do a lot of work at the BTS
center around, um, Joanna Macy and
the work that reconnects. And something that the
work that reconnects teaches us over and over again
is that if we
(08:37):
push down grief and don't acknowledge it,
it's still there and it's still a
powerful force in our lives. But if we
express it, if we allow it to
emerge, then it offers opportunities
for solidarity. Because if I'm feeling grief about
something, more than likely you too are
feeling grief about something. We can
(09:00):
meet in that place, in that space and
support one another. There's also something about
grief that underneath grief is love.
>> Nicole Diroff (09:09):
Mhm.
>> Alison Cornish (09:10):
There's something, when I was a minister in a congregation
that I would say at every single memorial service,
because I think every one of us needs to hear it over and
over again, that life means that loss
will come in time and love means
that grief will come in time.
All that we have in our world that
(09:30):
is so precious to us, if we open
ourselves up to the love, then we're opening ourselves
up to the grief as well.
>> Nicole Diroff (09:38):
Yeah. Amen.
>> Jessica David (09:41):
So I hear that. And of course it makes
so much sense. And I think. Yes, yes. And I've also
grown up like many people, I think, thinking of
grief as something that's very private and something that we
each process in our own ways and
we shouldn't interfere with other
people's grief and we shouldn't impose our grief on other
(10:03):
people. In other words, you don't talk about it.
>> Nicole Diroff (10:06):
Uh-huh.
>> Jessica David (10:06):
But I think the BTS center is
suggesting something very different, which is about
constructively processing grief. Well, first of
all, constructively processing grief, period. But also doing
it in a more collective way. Is that right?
>> Alison Cornish (10:21):
Oh, uh, that's. That's really true,
Jessica. And I think many of us had an upbringing
like the one that you describe. That grief was very
privatized something, if it
was even acknowledged, it was acknowledged in a very
small circle of a family or
very, very close knit family. But really, when
we look back at our spiritual ancestors, and I
(10:44):
use that term very, very broadly, because even
if we're not affiliated with a faith
tradition in our lives right now, there are
spiritual ancestors back eons and eons,
and they knew a lot about lament, they knew
a lot about grief. That's where we get our
psalms, um, in the scriptures. That's where
(11:04):
lamentations comes from. That is the
litanies that we experience in our, uh,
various faith homes. There were
public ceremonies and a liturgical calendar
and anniversaries that all sort of put
markers into people's
cyclical lives. That said, okay, now it's
(11:24):
time to acknowledge that there was a loss.
Maybe that loss was 2,000 years ago.
Um, it continues to live inside
of us because we're the descendants of real
people. Real people experienced
real loss and real grief. It's
really important to reflect on the rituals
(11:45):
that have been gifted to us
to remember that there are teachings,
there's wisdom, there's help
available from those rituals and
ceremonies and processes that we
don't have to reinvent. They're actually there for
our, for our engagement.
>> Nicole Diroff (12:07):
M. This is
so common in our society.
We, uh, keep things to
ourselves and
don't ask even when we're sensing
that someone else is holding a
grief. I have found, though,
(12:29):
being honest about what I'm holding
and sometimes just asking a gentle
question that someone can choose to
answer in whatever way they want, but
acknowledges something I know to be true about
their reality, leads to this
beautiful way of connecting
(12:52):
honesty around loss and grief
leads to really a special
type of connection and
relationship. What I just described would
be between two people, but there
is this incredible power
in communal, in
collective acknowledgement
(13:14):
of really that which is beyond
our understanding. For the
BTS center, touching that together builds the
sort of community we think our climate
changed world needs.
>> Jessica David (13:28):
Yeah,
um,
and what I hear really from both of you is it's about
connecting with other people and also, as Allison
said, connecting with our past and with
people and creatures and spirits
that were here before us. So really connecting
(13:49):
across time as well, which is not something I would have thought
about.
I love the word lament. I, uh, may be in, you know, a
minority there on that. But I think it's a great word. And
also I think part of the reason I love it is. Feels like an
old fashioned word. I imagine
that there are listeners like
me who, you know, might really not know what
(14:11):
that means or might have different ideas of what
it means. So what is lament
and what is it? What does it look like?
>> Alison Cornish (14:20):
Um, I'm really interested in how
Nicole and I might paint similar and slightly
different pictures in response to this. Jessica's. It's a
great, great question. So we
often think about lament as something that relates
to the past, that we're
have a sense of ruefulness or
(14:41):
sadness about something in the rear view mirror. But
I'm so glad that Nicole talked about
lament about something that hasn't yet happened. That
anticipatory loss that we know
given the climate crisis is baked in
to what's happening to our world.
We're looking at things that will not be here. They will not
(15:03):
be our companions. An important part
of lament is that we also look at our role
in that loss. I mean, in what ways are, uh,
we complicit? We have to keep
ourselves in the grief and we have to keep ourselves in the
lament too, and say, this is not just about somebody
else's actions. I'm here too, and I'm,
(15:23):
uh, participating in these systems that
are causing these losses. I've sort
of combined some ideas from a couple of real
teachers. For me, there are different
movements to lament. If you think about it
as something that's active, not passive, and
that moves us through
a series of feelings, a series of
(15:46):
formal scenarios. First of all, lament
is usually addressed to someone or something
outside of ourselves. So, uh, that might
be a divine source, it might be the universe,
it might be the past and the ancestors,
but it involves as,
as Nicole said, it's, it's, it's
(16:06):
bigger than just us, right? And,
um, we have to recognize and name the
damage and the harm. And
really taking that good, hard look at
reality is incredibly important
because that helps open up
the space to feel deeply.
And obviously grief is an
(16:29):
emotion. But, but opening that space and
holding that space safely for emotions to
be expressed is part of the lament
process. So that the grief and
sorrow actually can be expressed that it's
not held inside. And that can take
lots of forms. It can take the form of movement, it can
(16:49):
take the form of wailing and a verbal
expression. It can take the form of writing and journaling. But
we have to get it sort of out there
and then there's an opportunity for
repentance or turning. That too is part of
lament that in
recognizing what has brought us here,
(17:11):
we make some sort of determination to do things
differently going forward, that there's
a change involved in that change
could be forgiveness, there could be
gratitude, there could be praise.
But there's a real spiritual
turning, um, that
(17:31):
allows us to move into
the future in some real way
and that praise that gratitude again.
Brings us out of ourselves and into
something larger, that we're stepping into
something larger, the larger stream of
history, et cetera. And I love this
(17:52):
quote from a rabbi friend that says,
how will your heart break?
Will it break in a thousand pieces or
will it break open?
Lament really offers the opportunity to do
that. It could be either one of those, depending on
the situation, depending on what it is that we're lamenting.
(18:13):
But to do that in company and in public
allows us to accompany one
another through these movements of
lamentation.
>> Nicole Diroff (18:23):
As you were sharing, Allison, the image
of our faith
ancestors wrenching, ripping
cloth and clothing came to
me really powerfully. There's something very
embodied, very physical
in the way that someone would engage in
(18:43):
lament, in wailing and
wrenching. One of the
people who actually has been on the climate change
podcast, uh, in season one,
who is a trusted guide for me in
these matters is Hannah Malcolm.
She's edited, pulled together a compilation
(19:04):
called Words for a Dying World with
pieces from people around the globe.
She says the difference between grief
and lamentation is two things.
Lament is directed to the divine
and that it's collective.
>> Alison Cornish (19:22):
Mhm.
>> Nicole Diroff (19:22):
And I go back to those two guideposts
again and again. And I love what you
added, Alison. In terms of being
very aware of our entanglement,
very aware that I feel like that's like the
depth of the wrenching is that
this is happening and I'm
a part of this. I'm a part of the harm.
(19:46):
I imagine rivers
flooding because of the ways that
humans have. We use this word
called terraforming, have turned the
landscape into something that we as
humans desired, but we are
truly not in control of.
>> Alison Cornish (20:05):
Exactly.
>> Nicole Diroff (20:05):
And so to watch a river
do something it maybe should not be doing, and just
to direct that to the divine, to
acknowledge our entanglement, to do it with others,
there is a real power in terms of the
ecological consequences of our actions and
bringing lament to bear.
>> Annie Patterson (20:26):
Mhm.
>> Nicole Diroff (20:27):
For the BTS center, where we're focused on spiritual
leadership for a climate changed world, this is
also a place where the role
of spiritual leaders and religious traditions
throughout history, this is a peace that
they have held for their communities,
honoring loss. Regardless of
(20:47):
whether or not you might be a member of that
tradition or go to that
church, this is spiritual
leadership at its best.
Spiritual leaders hold a deep well of wisdom
that I would argue is quite, quite unique.
And practices in this realm of communal living
(21:08):
which are needed now and will be in
the future in a climate changed world.
>> Alison Cornish (21:14):
I couldn't agree more.
>> Jessica David (21:17):
So how does an organization like the BTS center
encourage or practice Lament?
>> Nicole Diroff (21:23):
I'm happy to share about an initiative
that Allison actually was really
at the foreground of creating for the BTS
center and now has become, um,
quite a shared endeavor for our staff team.
And this is an offering called Lament with
Earth. It's the fourth year that
(21:44):
we are offering seasonal
online worship filled
gatherings. So five times a
year we bring people together.
And the many an incredible
group of musicians and liturgists have
created video productions. Each of them is
maybe 40 minutes long
(22:07):
that we witness together and
engage with together, uh, through chat,
communication. So we
gather, we say hello to one another, we bring our
grief to one another, to the community.
We watch this video production and
then afterwards we linger. We have some
conversation with partners about
(22:29):
what grief looks like and why it matters to do it
together. And
I wanted to share a few of the words from
one of the songs that's in
this public ritual, this Lament with Earth
offering. The song is called
Is this How the World Ends?
(22:50):
And you can find this by the many on
YouTube and we'll include it in the show notes.
So the beginning of the song says, what are we
doing? What have we done?
We can't say we didn't know.
(23:13):
And the music then brings us to a
place where the lyrics say,
healthy us. Love the way you do.
(23:38):
Uh, every time I watch
this video, I cry.
It's so powerful.
And so for us, Lament with Earth is
not just talking about engaging with
grief and Lament, but
experimenting with it in community and trying to
(23:58):
offer a sacred communal
experience.
>> Alison Cornish (24:03):
M m,
wow, Nicole, you brought me right, right into the
events that, um, that have been going on for, as you
say, four years, just with your description there.
And I would, um, just add, I've been
delighted to learn that some faith
communities have started using the videos from
(24:23):
Lament with Earth within their own congregations.
And we encourage that and we offer support for
that. So the idea that church,
a synagogue, um, a mosque, a meeting house
might want this in their own space,
with their own community, and to be
in person with the material
(24:43):
feels to me just like a huge step
towards, again, normalizing grief,
normalizing Lament as a practice.
I've also been involved in creating, uh, a
program called Earth Hospice Rites. And
we also will include that in the notes for this
podcast that happens every two weeks.
(25:04):
People from around the world come together for
just 20 minutes to
express their own,
um, sadness for what is happening
right here, right now. And
also recognizing the beauty that the
birth that Earth gives to us each
(25:24):
and every day. So we,
in a very hospice like way. Yes.
The Earth as we know it is dying.
And from hospice we
know that we want to be with our beloveds,
and we want to be with our beloveds in particular ways,
even if they are facing,
(25:46):
um, some way
premature ends and, and the
ending of their role in our lives, um,
and, and us and theirs.
So I think all of this, what we're trying to say, Jessica, is
that the BTS center recognizes the need to make
and hold space for all our program
participants who are carrying grief and
(26:09):
to give opportunities to metabolize that
safely and to learn practices to
bring to others. And
we're continuing to do experiments with grief
rituals and our chaplains conversation circles. They
are so rich and so creative.
I feel like we're really on the beginning,
(26:29):
um, the beginning stages of a journey around
this work.
>> Jessica David (26:33):
And I have to say I've participated in Lament with
Earth and you
know, for myself, grief feels
uncomfortable. And I have to say, the first time I
logged in, I thought, oh, I'm not sure about this.
I don't know if I can do this with a group of people
on Zoom. And it was beautiful,
beautiful experience. And it has continued to be.
(26:56):
But how do people react to this area of your work? Am I
the only one who might have that
A little bit of standoffishness at first?
>> Alison Cornish (27:05):
Not at all, Jessica. Not one bit.
You know, it's really important to say we don't grieve
like on demand. You know, it's like,
turn it on. It's time to grieve now and turn it
back off. It's really important to
recognize that everyone grieves differently.
Everyone, Everyone. There is no formula.
(27:25):
There is no timeline. Grief can look like
so many different emotions. It's not always
sad. Sometimes grief shows up as
anger. Sometimes it shows up as
numbness. Sometimes it shows up as
distraction. The research that's been
going on in grief since Elizabeth Klubor
Ross did her work is just really,
(27:47):
really expanded. And we know so much more
about the human experience of grief.
I will say that most people who come to BTS
center programs are looking for affirmation of
something they're feeling, but they also
feel very lonely with that feeling.
Mhm. And I'm just one of the
words, the words of one participant,
(28:09):
um, who came to our Navigating Climate
Spiritual Care, wrote to us, I'm not
hearing from people around me that they are grieving the
climate. So where
we spend our time, with our families, in our
friendship Circles, maybe even in our colleague and co
worker circles, people may not
be expressing this, and it can really increase the
(28:32):
sense of loneliness. So I feel like the BTS
center is always creating spaces where
people can feel less alone and more in
solidarity with others.
Uh-huh.
>> Jessica David (28:44):
Yeah, the solidarity aspect again.
So, Nicole, paint a picture for us
of a society that respects and makes
space for grief and lament what is different than
what we have now.
>> Nicole Diroff (28:58):
We've talked maybe about the uncomfort
or the tendency to avoid grief, but
there's also a way in which our society has
said it's something sort of diagnosable and
a problem and something. Something to be
fixed as compared to a honest
response to a real situation
(29:18):
of loss. The
ecological grief that is here and is
coming. We don't have enough
physicians and therapists for
that trauma and that
loss, but this may
not be a diagnosis. This
(29:38):
may be the appropriate
response to harm that's being
done to people and to planet.
So the BTS center, we believe in
creating caring communities
where mourning is respected m
Where possibilities are imagined.
(30:00):
And if you've ever had the experience of
a really honest conversation
or a really honest setting
leading to connection and compassion
and then real meaning and
purpose and courage and action,
those are the kinds of communities we
(30:22):
are hoping to create.
We m hope that someone suffering from
asthma because of air pollution might
attend church and hear a
prayer specifically targeted to
that challenge, that loss,
that situation. We
(30:42):
imagine that young people, as they move
through the natural world, they might
greet their fellow beings,
they might ask permission of an
insect before they try, uh, and learn from it.
And if they happen to squish something
that they say, I'm so sorry and my
(31:03):
heart breaks that I hurt you.
That's the sort of world we're trying
to create.
>> Jessica David (31:11):
Beautiful Lane, then
also, what I hear there, Nicole, is in the
same way that Allison said, we don't turn grief on.
There's no switch. There's also no off switch. Uh, we
don't just turn it off, uh, all of a sudden when
our three days of bereavement time
are done or. Yeah, according to some
(31:32):
schedule that.
Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Nicole and Allison, for this
beautiful and really, really important
conversation. I am just so grateful to
learn from both of you about this topic and
for all the work that you're doing here.
(31:56):
So, listeners, it's your turn now.
How do you practice lament?
I hope you'll share with us by emailing us, uh,
podcast@thebtscenter.org
or calling and leaving a message at
207-200-6986.
(32:18):
Thank you for listening to the Climate Change
Podcast behind the Scenes Edition with
me, Jessica David.
Many thanks to my guests today, Nicole Dehroff
and Allison Cornish. Thanks to to producer
Peterson Toscano for producing this episode
and to Nicole again for your support of the
entire series. Woohoo.
>> Annie Patterson (32:39):
Mhm.
>> Jessica David (32:40):
Climate Changed Podcast is a project of the
BTS center in beautiful Portland,
Maine. Please contact us about
this episode or any other questions
or thoughts that you might have. You can call,
text or email us. Leave a voice
message
207-200-6986
(33:03):
that's
207-200-6986
and of course plus one if you are calling from outside the
US and you can also text that number
207-200-6986.
If you prefer, you can email us. The email
address is podcast@the
(33:26):
btscenter.org
that's
podcastabtscenter.org
visit
climate
changepodcast.org
for show notes, a, uh, transcript, and
more. That website again is
(33:46):
climate changepodcast.org
learn about the many resources we offer along with
our in person and online programs
by visiting our website
thebtscenter.org
that's
thebtscenter.org
(34:08):
and PS listeners, my note to self
on today's topic, don't be afraid to share your
grief and don't rush it even, and maybe especially
if it feels awkward because you might be
surprised at how people respond.
Goodbye for now.
>> Annie Patterson (34:32):
The sky is filled with fire tonight
the smoke fills our lungs
what are we doing? What have we done?
What are we doing? What have we done?
Water's running dark tonight
we drinking a ruin
(34:55):
what are we doing? What have we done?
What are we doing? What have we done?
We can't say we didn't know
oh
we can't say we didn't see
(35:17):
Our tears don't mean nothing
if we turn away
again
Is this how the world ends?
Uh,
Is this how the world
ends?
(35:41):
The city's washed in tears
tonight Hope is on the
run what are we doing?
What have we done? What are we doing?
What have we done?
We can't say we we didn't know
(36:04):
we can't say we didn't see
Our tears don't mean nothing
if we turn away
again Is
this how the world
ends?
(36:26):
Is this how the world
ends?
For the, uh, beauty
of the earth,
for all life that
lives on it.
(36:48):
Forgive us. Help
us speak the truth.
Help us love the
way you do.
Help m us love
Help us love
(37:09):
Help us love the
way you do
Help, help us love
Help us love
Help us love the
way you do
(37:29):
Help us love
Help us love
Help us love the
way you do.
>> Jessica David (37:43):
Help.
>> Annie Patterson (37:44):
Us love the way
you do.
>> Tim (38:03):
Uh, my name is Tim. That was a very interesting,
uh, discussion today. And I wanted to
thank, uh, everyone for put
that on. Uh, one question I had was,
um. What about my granddaughter?
She's only 8, and I want her to have a
world to live in. I don't want to just kind
(38:24):
of figure out a way for myself to accept. You
know, Aron, uh, I'm
probably exaggerating there, but, uh, I
don't want to just get used to the idea that,
uh, we're going to have to learn to just live and
love, no matter what happens. I want a
world for my granddaughter that
(38:44):
was at least as good as the one I've had.
Maybe we've already given up on leaving the world a
little better than we found it.
But I'd like at least for her to have a
safe world where she has hope and
opportunity to live. But, uh, again,
let me say it was a great discussion. I'm glad I
(39:04):
happened upon it. Thank you.
Is it okay to mourn for the damage we've done and continue
to do to our planet? What does it mean
to lament in today's world?
And what do I do with all of these feelings?
I'm Jessica David, a Harvard Divinity School student.
I'm an intern at the BTS center, which basically
(00:25):
means I ask a lot of questions. I'm really curious about the
BTS Center's mission to cultivate spirit spiritual
leadership for a climate changed world because
it seems so worthy and, uh, necessary. So I
asked a huge question. Can I take over the
podcast for a few months to learn more about what you do?
And, well, here we are.
Welcome to the Climate Change Podcast behind the Scenes
(00:48):
edition with me, Jessica David.
I am thrilled to be here today with two members of the
BTS Center's team.
>> Nicole Diroff (01:06):
Hello, listeners. I'm Nicole Deroff.
I serve as associate director at the BTS
Center. I am an ordained minister in
the United Church of Christ, an amateur
naturalist, a, um, mom,
and as you might know, I'm one of the
co hosts of the first three seasons
(01:26):
of the Climate Change Podcast.
>> Alison Cornish (01:29):
And I'm Allison Cornish. I'm the coordinator of the
BTS Center's chaplaincy initiative.
I've also worked in historic preservation
and architectural history, and I'm an
ordained minister in the Unitarian Universalist
tradition. Right now I live in Western
Massachusetts in the town of Buckland and the
Deerfield river watershed. And I also
(01:51):
work with my own town on issues of local
resilience.
>> Jessica David (01:56):
So happy to be here with you both.
So, Nicole and Allison, let's start with
an easy question. What is a fun
fact about you that most people might not know?
>> Nicole Diroff (02:08):
I am, um, loving on my fish tank.
Recently, I am a fish
tank mama. My practice
before going to bed is putting
in some food and then pulling over a chair
and sitting and watching. I
have four different species of fish in my tank.
(02:29):
It is my Zen moment for the day.
>> Alison Cornish (02:32):
I love that. And I've had a chance to visit
Nicole and her fish. A fun
fact about me is that I spent
a lot of years in my youth being a ice, uh, skater,
being a figure skater. Know the east
coast somewhat from going up and down it and
various competitions and visiting various
(02:52):
skating clubs. But now I look
for natural ice to be outside on the
ponds in Western Massachusetts and skating
with elements. Nothing makes me happier.
>> Nicole Diroff (03:08):
I love it. I am not a,
um, very natural ice skater.
So I would be out there with you, but kind of
clunking along.
>> Alison Cornish (03:17):
Oh, uh, we'll have to fix that, Nicole. No problem.
>> Jessica David (03:22):
I have memories of taking ice skating lessons when I
was very little. And the only thing I remember
about it is after the lesson, my
feet would be so cold, and they would be
defrosting and they would hurt, and I would cry in the car.
That's the extent of my ice skating.
>> Alison Cornish (03:40):
Oh, my goodness. No fun.
>> Jessica David (03:46):
Okay, so shifting gears a little bit, I'm gonna
dive right into today's topic. So I noticed that
the BTS center uses the term
ecological grief.
What is that?
>> Nicole Diroff (04:00):
So grief is
our response to loss m
sadness and sorrow.
Ecological grief is within the context
of the environment and
the ecological connections of
the systems of our bioregions.
(04:22):
And ice skating could be a space for
experiencing ecological grief
and loss. In the
town I live in, in Maine, there is a
community ice skating rink.
There are some winters where it's hardly open
these days because of climate change.
(04:44):
So ecological grief
can be in response to particular
moments or particular
situations.
Our state encouraged many farmers
to use municipal sludge as
fertilizer in the late 1900s.
(05:05):
And we have now discovered the ways in
which enduring PFAS
chemicals are in the soil
in ways that farmers are losing their
livelihoods. Our
ecosystem has become full
of toxins. So that's
(05:26):
a particular situation that we might experience
ecological grief around.
The other thing that's really unique
about ecological grief is the way in which
anticipated future losses
are very clearly a part of this as well.
(05:47):
My kiddo, who is now a fifth
grader, when he was young, we
had a encyclopedia
of animals with beautiful pictures
and descriptions of animals,
and he loved it. And
I remember showing him one day what the
different colored dots meant on the
(06:09):
different images. There was a key at
the front that said that
green dots meant those animals were thriving,
yellow meant they were threatened, and red
meant they were facing extinction.
We learned the key, and then we turned
the next page we turned to was the one with
(06:31):
the apes. And
my child burst into
tears. Just complete
sorrow, imagining that these
incredible creatures, all of
them on the page, were facing extinction.
>> Alison Cornish (06:51):
Oh, uh, Nicole, thank you for bringing
this really big, broad topic right
down to
such a tender story and such a personal one,
too. And I think that is,
um, something that I have learned in working with
ecological grief. It can be
(07:11):
very personal and it can be very
broad. But in our
understanding of grief in the past,
we've really looked at grief as a
loss that relates to people, first of
all, not ecosystems or
other species, and that
(07:32):
the proximity of the loss is important.
You lose a parent or a
sibling dies. But the idea that
we can have grief beyond
the very personal and
extend that beyond our, uh,
known universe is really,
really important. And normalizing that
(07:54):
sense. Just as Nicole was
talking about, I don't know, the farmers in
Maine, but I viscerally felt
what it is to think about losing your
livelihood because of a practice that was
normal, a heist, uh, and
destroyed something that we're trying to use today in a
(08:15):
healthy way. So honoring our
grief is really authentic.
It frees up something inside of us.
We do a lot of work at the BTS
center around, um, Joanna Macy and
the work that reconnects. And something that the
work that reconnects teaches us over and over again
is that if we
(08:37):
push down grief and don't acknowledge it,
it's still there and it's still a
powerful force in our lives. But if we
express it, if we allow it to
emerge, then it offers opportunities
for solidarity. Because if I'm feeling grief about
something, more than likely you too are
feeling grief about something. We can
(09:00):
meet in that place, in that space and
support one another. There's also something about
grief that underneath grief is love.
>> Nicole Diroff (09:09):
Mhm.
>> Alison Cornish (09:10):
There's something, when I was a minister in a congregation
that I would say at every single memorial service,
because I think every one of us needs to hear it over and
over again, that life means that loss
will come in time and love means
that grief will come in time.
All that we have in our world that
(09:30):
is so precious to us, if we open
ourselves up to the love, then we're opening ourselves
up to the grief as well.
>> Nicole Diroff (09:38):
Yeah. Amen.
>> Jessica David (09:41):
So I hear that. And of course it makes
so much sense. And I think. Yes, yes. And I've also
grown up like many people, I think, thinking of
grief as something that's very private and something that we
each process in our own ways and
we shouldn't interfere with other
people's grief and we shouldn't impose our grief on other
(10:03):
people. In other words, you don't talk about it.
>> Nicole Diroff (10:06):
Uh-huh.
>> Jessica David (10:06):
But I think the BTS center is
suggesting something very different, which is about
constructively processing grief. Well, first of
all, constructively processing grief, period. But also doing
it in a more collective way. Is that right?
>> Alison Cornish (10:21):
Oh, uh, that's. That's really true,
Jessica. And I think many of us had an upbringing
like the one that you describe. That grief was very
privatized something, if it
was even acknowledged, it was acknowledged in a very
small circle of a family or
very, very close knit family. But really, when
we look back at our spiritual ancestors, and I
(10:44):
use that term very, very broadly, because even
if we're not affiliated with a faith
tradition in our lives right now, there are
spiritual ancestors back eons and eons,
and they knew a lot about lament, they knew
a lot about grief. That's where we get our
psalms, um, in the scriptures. That's where
(11:04):
lamentations comes from. That is the
litanies that we experience in our, uh,
various faith homes. There were
public ceremonies and a liturgical calendar
and anniversaries that all sort of put
markers into people's
cyclical lives. That said, okay, now it's
(11:24):
time to acknowledge that there was a loss.
Maybe that loss was 2,000 years ago.
Um, it continues to live inside
of us because we're the descendants of real
people. Real people experienced
real loss and real grief. It's
really important to reflect on the rituals
(11:45):
that have been gifted to us
to remember that there are teachings,
there's wisdom, there's help
available from those rituals and
ceremonies and processes that we
don't have to reinvent. They're actually there for
our, for our engagement.
>> Nicole Diroff (12:07):
M. This is
so common in our society.
We, uh, keep things to
ourselves and
don't ask even when we're sensing
that someone else is holding a
grief. I have found, though,
(12:29):
being honest about what I'm holding
and sometimes just asking a gentle
question that someone can choose to
answer in whatever way they want, but
acknowledges something I know to be true about
their reality, leads to this
beautiful way of connecting
(12:52):
honesty around loss and grief
leads to really a special
type of connection and
relationship. What I just described would
be between two people, but there
is this incredible power
in communal, in
collective acknowledgement
(13:14):
of really that which is beyond
our understanding. For the
BTS center, touching that together builds the
sort of community we think our climate
changed world needs.
>> Jessica David (13:28):
Yeah,
um,
and what I hear really from both of you is it's about
connecting with other people and also, as Allison
said, connecting with our past and with
people and creatures and spirits
that were here before us. So really connecting
(13:49):
across time as well, which is not something I would have thought
about.
I love the word lament. I, uh, may be in, you know, a
minority there on that. But I think it's a great word. And
also I think part of the reason I love it is. Feels like an
old fashioned word. I imagine
that there are listeners like
me who, you know, might really not know what
(14:11):
that means or might have different ideas of what
it means. So what is lament
and what is it? What does it look like?
>> Alison Cornish (14:20):
Um, I'm really interested in how
Nicole and I might paint similar and slightly
different pictures in response to this. Jessica's. It's a
great, great question. So we
often think about lament as something that relates
to the past, that we're
have a sense of ruefulness or
(14:41):
sadness about something in the rear view mirror. But
I'm so glad that Nicole talked about
lament about something that hasn't yet happened. That
anticipatory loss that we know
given the climate crisis is baked in
to what's happening to our world.
We're looking at things that will not be here. They will not
(15:03):
be our companions. An important part
of lament is that we also look at our role
in that loss. I mean, in what ways are, uh,
we complicit? We have to keep
ourselves in the grief and we have to keep ourselves in the
lament too, and say, this is not just about somebody
else's actions. I'm here too, and I'm,
(15:23):
uh, participating in these systems that
are causing these losses. I've sort
of combined some ideas from a couple of real
teachers. For me, there are different
movements to lament. If you think about it
as something that's active, not passive, and
that moves us through
a series of feelings, a series of
(15:46):
formal scenarios. First of all, lament
is usually addressed to someone or something
outside of ourselves. So, uh, that might
be a divine source, it might be the universe,
it might be the past and the ancestors,
but it involves as,
as Nicole said, it's, it's, it's
(16:06):
bigger than just us, right? And,
um, we have to recognize and name the
damage and the harm. And
really taking that good, hard look at
reality is incredibly important
because that helps open up
the space to feel deeply.
And obviously grief is an
(16:29):
emotion. But, but opening that space and
holding that space safely for emotions to
be expressed is part of the lament
process. So that the grief and
sorrow actually can be expressed that it's
not held inside. And that can take
lots of forms. It can take the form of movement, it can
(16:49):
take the form of wailing and a verbal
expression. It can take the form of writing and journaling. But
we have to get it sort of out there
and then there's an opportunity for
repentance or turning. That too is part of
lament that in
recognizing what has brought us here,
(17:11):
we make some sort of determination to do things
differently going forward, that there's
a change involved in that change
could be forgiveness, there could be
gratitude, there could be praise.
But there's a real spiritual
turning, um, that
(17:31):
allows us to move into
the future in some real way
and that praise that gratitude again.
Brings us out of ourselves and into
something larger, that we're stepping into
something larger, the larger stream of
history, et cetera. And I love this
(17:52):
quote from a rabbi friend that says,
how will your heart break?
Will it break in a thousand pieces or
will it break open?
Lament really offers the opportunity to do
that. It could be either one of those, depending on
the situation, depending on what it is that we're lamenting.
(18:13):
But to do that in company and in public
allows us to accompany one
another through these movements of
lamentation.
>> Nicole Diroff (18:23):
As you were sharing, Allison, the image
of our faith
ancestors wrenching, ripping
cloth and clothing came to
me really powerfully. There's something very
embodied, very physical
in the way that someone would engage in
(18:43):
lament, in wailing and
wrenching. One of the
people who actually has been on the climate change
podcast, uh, in season one,
who is a trusted guide for me in
these matters is Hannah Malcolm.
She's edited, pulled together a compilation
(19:04):
called Words for a Dying World with
pieces from people around the globe.
She says the difference between grief
and lamentation is two things.
Lament is directed to the divine
and that it's collective.
>> Alison Cornish (19:22):
Mhm.
>> Nicole Diroff (19:22):
And I go back to those two guideposts
again and again. And I love what you
added, Alison. In terms of being
very aware of our entanglement,
very aware that I feel like that's like the
depth of the wrenching is that
this is happening and I'm
a part of this. I'm a part of the harm.
(19:46):
I imagine rivers
flooding because of the ways that
humans have. We use this word
called terraforming, have turned the
landscape into something that we as
humans desired, but we are
truly not in control of.
>> Alison Cornish (20:05):
Exactly.
>> Nicole Diroff (20:05):
And so to watch a river
do something it maybe should not be doing, and just
to direct that to the divine, to
acknowledge our entanglement, to do it with others,
there is a real power in terms of the
ecological consequences of our actions and
bringing lament to bear.
>> Annie Patterson (20:26):
Mhm.
>> Nicole Diroff (20:27):
For the BTS center, where we're focused on spiritual
leadership for a climate changed world, this is
also a place where the role
of spiritual leaders and religious traditions
throughout history, this is a peace that
they have held for their communities,
honoring loss. Regardless of
(20:47):
whether or not you might be a member of that
tradition or go to that
church, this is spiritual
leadership at its best.
Spiritual leaders hold a deep well of wisdom
that I would argue is quite, quite unique.
And practices in this realm of communal living
(21:08):
which are needed now and will be in
the future in a climate changed world.
>> Alison Cornish (21:14):
I couldn't agree more.
>> Jessica David (21:17):
So how does an organization like the BTS center
encourage or practice Lament?
>> Nicole Diroff (21:23):
I'm happy to share about an initiative
that Allison actually was really
at the foreground of creating for the BTS
center and now has become, um,
quite a shared endeavor for our staff team.
And this is an offering called Lament with
Earth. It's the fourth year that
(21:44):
we are offering seasonal
online worship filled
gatherings. So five times a
year we bring people together.
And the many an incredible
group of musicians and liturgists have
created video productions. Each of them is
maybe 40 minutes long
(22:07):
that we witness together and
engage with together, uh, through chat,
communication. So we
gather, we say hello to one another, we bring our
grief to one another, to the community.
We watch this video production and
then afterwards we linger. We have some
conversation with partners about
(22:29):
what grief looks like and why it matters to do it
together. And
I wanted to share a few of the words from
one of the songs that's in
this public ritual, this Lament with Earth
offering. The song is called
Is this How the World Ends?
(22:50):
And you can find this by the many on
YouTube and we'll include it in the show notes.
So the beginning of the song says, what are we
doing? What have we done?
We can't say we didn't know.
(23:13):
And the music then brings us to a
place where the lyrics say,
healthy us. Love the way you do.
(23:38):
Uh, every time I watch
this video, I cry.
It's so powerful.
And so for us, Lament with Earth is
not just talking about engaging with
grief and Lament, but
experimenting with it in community and trying to
(23:58):
offer a sacred communal
experience.
>> Alison Cornish (24:03):
M m,
wow, Nicole, you brought me right, right into the
events that, um, that have been going on for, as you
say, four years, just with your description there.
And I would, um, just add, I've been
delighted to learn that some faith
communities have started using the videos from
(24:23):
Lament with Earth within their own congregations.
And we encourage that and we offer support for
that. So the idea that church,
a synagogue, um, a mosque, a meeting house
might want this in their own space,
with their own community, and to be
in person with the material
(24:43):
feels to me just like a huge step
towards, again, normalizing grief,
normalizing Lament as a practice.
I've also been involved in creating, uh, a
program called Earth Hospice Rites. And
we also will include that in the notes for this
podcast that happens every two weeks.
(25:04):
People from around the world come together for
just 20 minutes to
express their own,
um, sadness for what is happening
right here, right now. And
also recognizing the beauty that the
birth that Earth gives to us each
(25:24):
and every day. So we,
in a very hospice like way. Yes.
The Earth as we know it is dying.
And from hospice we
know that we want to be with our beloveds,
and we want to be with our beloveds in particular ways,
even if they are facing,
(25:46):
um, some way
premature ends and, and the
ending of their role in our lives, um,
and, and us and theirs.
So I think all of this, what we're trying to say, Jessica, is
that the BTS center recognizes the need to make
and hold space for all our program
participants who are carrying grief and
(26:09):
to give opportunities to metabolize that
safely and to learn practices to
bring to others. And
we're continuing to do experiments with grief
rituals and our chaplains conversation circles. They
are so rich and so creative.
I feel like we're really on the beginning,
(26:29):
um, the beginning stages of a journey around
this work.
>> Jessica David (26:33):
And I have to say I've participated in Lament with
Earth and you
know, for myself, grief feels
uncomfortable. And I have to say, the first time I
logged in, I thought, oh, I'm not sure about this.
I don't know if I can do this with a group of people
on Zoom. And it was beautiful,
beautiful experience. And it has continued to be.
(26:56):
But how do people react to this area of your work? Am I
the only one who might have that
A little bit of standoffishness at first?
>> Alison Cornish (27:05):
Not at all, Jessica. Not one bit.
You know, it's really important to say we don't grieve
like on demand. You know, it's like,
turn it on. It's time to grieve now and turn it
back off. It's really important to
recognize that everyone grieves differently.
Everyone, Everyone. There is no formula.
(27:25):
There is no timeline. Grief can look like
so many different emotions. It's not always
sad. Sometimes grief shows up as
anger. Sometimes it shows up as
numbness. Sometimes it shows up as
distraction. The research that's been
going on in grief since Elizabeth Klubor
Ross did her work is just really,
(27:47):
really expanded. And we know so much more
about the human experience of grief.
I will say that most people who come to BTS
center programs are looking for affirmation of
something they're feeling, but they also
feel very lonely with that feeling.
Mhm. And I'm just one of the
words, the words of one participant,
(28:09):
um, who came to our Navigating Climate
Spiritual Care, wrote to us, I'm not
hearing from people around me that they are grieving the
climate. So where
we spend our time, with our families, in our
friendship Circles, maybe even in our colleague and co
worker circles, people may not
be expressing this, and it can really increase the
(28:32):
sense of loneliness. So I feel like the BTS
center is always creating spaces where
people can feel less alone and more in
solidarity with others.
Uh-huh.
>> Jessica David (28:44):
Yeah, the solidarity aspect again.
So, Nicole, paint a picture for us
of a society that respects and makes
space for grief and lament what is different than
what we have now.
>> Nicole Diroff (28:58):
We've talked maybe about the uncomfort
or the tendency to avoid grief, but
there's also a way in which our society has
said it's something sort of diagnosable and
a problem and something. Something to be
fixed as compared to a honest
response to a real situation
(29:18):
of loss. The
ecological grief that is here and is
coming. We don't have enough
physicians and therapists for
that trauma and that
loss, but this may
not be a diagnosis. This
(29:38):
may be the appropriate
response to harm that's being
done to people and to planet.
So the BTS center, we believe in
creating caring communities
where mourning is respected m
Where possibilities are imagined.
(30:00):
And if you've ever had the experience of
a really honest conversation
or a really honest setting
leading to connection and compassion
and then real meaning and
purpose and courage and action,
those are the kinds of communities we
(30:22):
are hoping to create.
We m hope that someone suffering from
asthma because of air pollution might
attend church and hear a
prayer specifically targeted to
that challenge, that loss,
that situation. We
(30:42):
imagine that young people, as they move
through the natural world, they might
greet their fellow beings,
they might ask permission of an
insect before they try, uh, and learn from it.
And if they happen to squish something
that they say, I'm so sorry and my
(31:03):
heart breaks that I hurt you.
That's the sort of world we're trying
to create.
>> Jessica David (31:11):
Beautiful Lane, then
also, what I hear there, Nicole, is in the
same way that Allison said, we don't turn grief on.
There's no switch. There's also no off switch. Uh, we
don't just turn it off, uh, all of a sudden when
our three days of bereavement time
are done or. Yeah, according to some
(31:32):
schedule that.
Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Nicole and Allison, for this
beautiful and really, really important
conversation. I am just so grateful to
learn from both of you about this topic and
for all the work that you're doing here.
(31:56):
So, listeners, it's your turn now.
How do you practice lament?
I hope you'll share with us by emailing us, uh,
podcast@thebtscenter.org
or calling and leaving a message at
207-200-6986.
(32:18):
Thank you for listening to the Climate Change
Podcast behind the Scenes Edition with
me, Jessica David.
Many thanks to my guests today, Nicole Dehroff
and Allison Cornish. Thanks to to producer
Peterson Toscano for producing this episode
and to Nicole again for your support of the
entire series. Woohoo.
>> Annie Patterson (32:39):
Mhm.
>> Jessica David (32:40):
Climate Changed Podcast is a project of the
BTS center in beautiful Portland,
Maine. Please contact us about
this episode or any other questions
or thoughts that you might have. You can call,
text or email us. Leave a voice
message
207-200-6986
(33:03):
that's
207-200-6986
and of course plus one if you are calling from outside the
US and you can also text that number
207-200-6986.
If you prefer, you can email us. The email
address is podcast@the
(33:26):
btscenter.org
that's
podcastabtscenter.org
visit
climate
changepodcast.org
for show notes, a, uh, transcript, and
more. That website again is
(33:46):
climate changepodcast.org
learn about the many resources we offer along with
our in person and online programs
by visiting our website
thebtscenter.org
that's
thebtscenter.org
(34:08):
and PS listeners, my note to self
on today's topic, don't be afraid to share your
grief and don't rush it even, and maybe especially
if it feels awkward because you might be
surprised at how people respond.
Goodbye for now.
>> Annie Patterson (34:32):
The sky is filled with fire tonight
the smoke fills our lungs
what are we doing? What have we done?
What are we doing? What have we done?
Water's running dark tonight
we drinking a ruin
(34:55):
what are we doing? What have we done?
What are we doing? What have we done?
We can't say we didn't know
oh
we can't say we didn't see
(35:17):
Our tears don't mean nothing
if we turn away
again
Is this how the world ends?
Uh,
Is this how the world
ends?
(35:41):
The city's washed in tears
tonight Hope is on the
run what are we doing?
What have we done? What are we doing?
What have we done?
We can't say we we didn't know
(36:04):
we can't say we didn't see
Our tears don't mean nothing
if we turn away
again Is
this how the world
ends?
(36:26):
Is this how the world
ends?
For the, uh, beauty
of the earth,
for all life that
lives on it.
(36:48):
Forgive us. Help
us speak the truth.
Help us love the
way you do.
Help m us love
Help us love
(37:09):
Help us love the
way you do
Help, help us love
Help us love
Help us love the
way you do
(37:29):
Help us love
Help us love
Help us love the
way you do.
>> Jessica David (37:43):
Help.
>> Annie Patterson (37:44):
Us love the way
you do.
>> Tim (38:03):
Uh, my name is Tim. That was a very interesting,
uh, discussion today. And I wanted to
thank, uh, everyone for put
that on. Uh, one question I had was,
um. What about my granddaughter?
She's only 8, and I want her to have a
world to live in. I don't want to just kind
(38:24):
of figure out a way for myself to accept. You
know, Aron, uh, I'm
probably exaggerating there, but, uh, I
don't want to just get used to the idea that,
uh, we're going to have to learn to just live and
love, no matter what happens. I want a
world for my granddaughter that
(38:44):
was at least as good as the one I've had.
Maybe we've already given up on leaving the world a
little better than we found it.
But I'd like at least for her to have a
safe world where she has hope and
opportunity to live. But, uh, again,
let me say it was a great discussion. I'm glad I
(39:04):
happened upon it. Thank you.
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