Merry Lea to host Sept. 28-30 conference about connections between faith, soil and food

GOSHEN, Ind. – To “treat someone like dirt” is to be rude and disrespectful. “Getting the dirt” on political figures involves discovering their embarrassing secrets, and no one wants to be “dirt poor.” Yet our lives are totally dependent on dirt. Every meal we eat depends on healthy soil. Like the Banana Slugs song says, “dirt made my lunch.”

Participants at the annual Autumn Hope Conference at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College on Sept. 28-30 will reflect at length on the connection between “dirt” and “lunch.” The theme for this year’s event is “Sacred Soil: Reclaiming the Source of Our Food.”

“We hope to attract a broad spectrum of people of faith who care about the earth,” says public program coordinator Jennifer Schrock. “Gardeners, pastors, environmental professionals, people with a passion for local food or anyone with a naturalist bent would find this weekend intriguing. Food is a topic of universal interest: really, anyone who eats should be here.”

Autumn Hope Conferences are an annual event at Merry Lea and they always integrate theological and ecological reflection with fieldwork outdoors led by trained naturalists. This year, for example, participants will tramp Merry Lea’s trails observing the ways in which soils generate distinct plant communities. Later they’ll get their hands dirty learning ways to improve their own soil. Another hike will take the group around the acreage needed to produce one person’s food for a year.

Plenary speakers will be Jeff Hawkins and Luke Gascho. Hawkins operates a family farm in North Manchester, Ind., where he also mentors other pastors through Hands-On Pastoral Education using Clergy Sustaining Agriculture (HOPE CSA). Groups of pastors spend a day each month helping with farm work and reflecting on the relationship between care of a family farm and care for their congregations.

Hawkins is concerned that both U.S. churches and farms are frequently run using a model that emphasizes increasing production rather than the health of the whole. He challenges pastors to think of themselves as stewards of a household rather than as CEOs in charge of increasing production.

“The more we are removed from creation, the more we risk being removed from critical insights about God, the church and ourselves,” Hawkins said, alluding to Thomas Aquinas’ famous quote, “Any error about creation leads to an error about God.”

Gascho, Merry Lea’s executive director, will lead reflective sessions following the outdoor fieldwork. Part of his role is to enable participants to move beyond the negative statistical data about the environment that can be overwhelming and to focus on the resilience that undergirds creation.

“We began this conference working from the idea that ecosystems are regenerative,” Gascho said. “There is hope built into the way ecosystems function that can serve as a model for our own actions related to the environment.”

This year for the first time, Merry Lea’s Autumn Hope Conference is linked to a related course at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Ind., taught by Gascho and Professor of Ethics and Peace Studies Ted Koontz.

Staff members from Merry Lea will lead additional sessions during the weekend, and Registered Chef Greg Beachey of Bread and Chocolate, Goshen, Ind., will lead a cooking class. Guests also have the opportunity to stay at Rieth Village, Merry Lea’s “green” collegiate facility, designed to use less than half the energy a conventional building uses.

Registration for this conference costs $75 and includes meals. Lodging is available on site for $15/night. For more information on Merry Lea, see www.goshen.edu/merrylea, call (260) 799-5869 or e-mail jenniferhs@goshen.edu.

Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center is a 1,150-acre nature center located in central Noble County and owned and operated by Goshen College. This natural sanctuary for northern Indiana’s plants and animals provides environmental education for people of all ages and a setting to recreate opportunities that benefit the human body and spirit without exploiting the land. Merry Lea was created with the assistance of the Nature Conservancy and the generosity of Lee A. and Mary Jane Rieth. The preserve is located just south of Wolf Lake in central Noble County.

– by Jennifer Schrock

Editors: For more information about this release, to arrange an interview or request a photo, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

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Goshen College, established in 1894, is a residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron’s Best Buys in Education, “Colleges of Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide” and U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.