UUMFE chose Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures (2024) as its first Community Read. The inaugural discussion took place September 30. Over sixty people from the United States and Canada participated.
Community Read organizers sought to choose a book that not only recognizes the urgency of climate change but more importantly, focuses on what we—as people of faith who care about life on this planet—can do about it. Johnson’s book is filled with interviews with climate-solution advocates, poetry, illustrations, and photographs. The audio version (available on LibroFM) contains the recorded discussions with Johnson and her guests.
The Rev. Lauren Levwood, Board Chair for UU Ministry for Earth, hosted the virtual gathering. She was joined by discussion leaders Cheyenne Herlandstein (UU Community Church of Washington County, Oregon) and Dr. Anne-Marie McCartan (First UU Church of Richmond, Virginia).
The discussion leaders engaged participants with reflections on the theme of “possibilities.” For example, they were asked to share a core memory or moment that shaped their connection with the natural world and informed their own sense of what E.O. Wilson called “biophilia”—our innate love for the natural world.
Building upon those memories, attendees discussed how their love for the natural world could be cultivated and serve as a foundation for climate action, broadly in their own communities. In breakout groups, they shared examples of how climate change impacts where they live and how they see the community addressing those challenges.
Johnson wrote in the book’s introduction that taking little to no action in the face of “potential doom is an indisputably absurd choice, especially given that we already have most of the climate solutions we need—heaps of them.” To make this point, the author provided a resource that was explored live by attendees. The tool drawdown.org/explorer contains a vast Solutions Library, edited by Paul Lawken and other experts.
The discussion leaders acknowledged that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the challenge of the climate crisis. So using Johnson’s notion of an “effervescent sense of possibility,” attendees were given time to explore the sweet spot between what we’re good at, what brings us joy, and the work in the world that needs to be done.
To help attendees explore what they can do to address the climate crisis, they spent time drawing their Climate Action Venn Diagram. Click here to view the resource for worksheet and mesepore. Rev. Lauren closed the gathering by thanking everyone who had come together for an evening of sharing, reflecting, and cultivating new vision and hope.
The next discussion is set for the evening of October 28th, which will focus on the second section, “Replenish and Re-Green.” Rev. Lauren invites people to bring a stone as a talisman with which to ground ourselves as we dive into some of the challenging work ahead.
We hope you can join us even if you were not able to attend the first session. If you’d like to join us for future sessions, please click here to learn more and to register. You only need to register once to attend all remaining sessions. Click here to print a poster for your congregation’s bulletin board.
