{"id":12481,"date":"2026-03-18T11:06:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/?page_id=12481"},"modified":"2026-04-24T13:12:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T17:12:49","slug":"earth-day-2026","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/earth-day-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth Day 2026: “Sentience Surrounds Us”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Join Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth in the spirit of reverence and renewal as we honor that “Sentience Surrounds Us” this Earth Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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UUMFE\u2019s annual Earth Day Worship Service is our most anticipated and attended event of the year. This year our featured speakers include members of our UU Ministry for Earth community as well as special guests from UU Animal Ministry.<\/a> Our 2026 Earth Day Worship Service happened on Wednesday, April 22nd at 5 pm PT\/ 6 pm MT\/ 7 pm CT\/ 8 pm ET on Zoom. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human beings often believe that our emotions and intelligence uniquely set us apart from nature, yet this could not be further from the truth. In fact, it is because we are part of nature that we sense, feel, and think. The natural world is alive, vibrant, and buzzing with multiple intelligences – some of them different or beyond our human capabilities. Science confirms what ancient wisdom already knew: Earth is full of creatures who are both sentient (capable of deep feeling) and sapient (capable of complex thinking). Come join UU Ministry for Earth for an Earth Day worship ritual that celebrates the sentience (and sapience) that surrounds us, in loving memory of Dr. Jane Goodall. Click here to view the Order of Service.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Click here to watch the recording.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Join UU Ministry for Earth and other partners to honor Earth Day and celebrate this international day of protest and praise, as we use our love for Earth and all beings to ignite our passion for protecting and preserving our planetary home, for the sake of all beings and future generations. Click here to give to support this worship service and other UU Ministry for Earth programming.<\/a> Thank you for your generosity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re grateful to our sponsors for helping make this service possible:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Share with your congregation!<\/h2>\n
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If you’re as excited about our Earth Day as we are, we invite you to share the event information in your congregation’s newsletter and bulletins. Below, you’ll find a link to graphics we’ve created for this event that are perfectly sized for social media and web use.<\/p>\n\n\nAccess graphics here.<\/a>\n\n\n\n

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Did you know? UU Ministry for Earth offers Climate Justice Worship Resources<\/a> to help with planning for church services and small group gatherings. We have created a special Earth Day Worship Resource<\/a> inspired by this year's theme of \"sentience surrounds us.\" Please click here to view and download the resource.<\/a> <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
About our speakers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Rev. Lauren Spivey Levwood<\/div>\n    
Acting Director, UU Ministry for Earth<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Rev. Lauren Spivey Levwood<\/span><\/strong>, Acting Director of UU Ministry for Earth, is a long-time member of the UU Ministry for Earth community. She also serves as a part-time Minister for two UU congregations in the beautiful western Virginia mountains: the UU Church of the Shenandoah Valley and the UU\u2019s of the Blue Ridge. Rev. Levwood\u2019s vocational life has included working as a massage therapist, birth and postpartum doula, Birthing From Within childbirth mentor, modern dancer, and trauma-informed somatics practitioner. A religious naturalist, she is spiritually nourished by embodied experiences of awe and wonder arising from our natural world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Li Kynvi<\/div>\n    
Chaplain & Music Therapist<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Li Kynvi<\/span><\/strong> is currently a Massachusetts-based chaplain, music therapist, and mental health counselor in hospice and pediatric palliative care. In 2024, they received their MDiv from Starr King School for the Ministry, and have been enthusiastically singing with others & celebrating the solstices since 1990.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Swamini Adityananda Saraswati<\/div>\n    
Board Chair, UU Ministry for Earth<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Swamini Adityananda Saraswati<\/span><\/strong>, UUMFE Board Chair, has worked with national and international nonprofit and interfaith organizations from the ground level to the United Nations and World Bank levels, working on climate change, hunger, water scarcity, violence, global poverty, interfaith harmony, and other crucial issues. Swamini Adityananda served as the Interim Executive Director of the world\u2019s largest interfaith organization, United Religions Initiative, which has a presence in 112 nations. She also served as the Associate Executive Director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute, which works closely with faith leaders, including the Pope and Dalai Lama, to build friendship and mutual understanding across faiths. She is certified as a Mindfulness Meditation teacher through the University of California, Berkeley\u2019s Center for Greater Good and the Awareness Training Institute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Irene Kaye<\/div>\n    
Board Secretary, UU Animal Ministry<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Irene Kaye<\/strong><\/span> is a member of the Climate Action Team at her congregation, the First Unitarian Church of Hamilton, Ontario. She is a longtime supporter of the UU Animal Ministry<\/a> and currently serves on the Board of Directors as Secretary. Irene supports all efforts to bring Earth’s systems into ecological balance, especially by reducing the degradation of soil, air and water from industrial agriculture. 
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Rev. Dr. Joel Tishken<\/div>\n    
Board Member, UU Animal Ministry<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Rev. Dr. Joel Tishken<\/span><\/strong> is Minister for the UU Church of Muncie in Indiana. He is a board member of UU Animal Ministry<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Chelsea McCoy<\/div>\n    
Intern Chaplain, UU Ministry for Earth<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Chelsea McCoy<\/span><\/strong>, UUMFE Intern Chaplain, is a first-lineage college student born and raised in St. Louis, MO. She completed her bachelor\u2019s degree in World Literature and Sociology at Truman State University in 2017. She is graduating from Naropa University in May 2026 with a Master\u2019s in Divinity with emphasis in Mindfulness Coaching. She is passionate about helping others reconnect (or more deeply connect) with spiritual ancestry in hopes of bridging their spiritual and activist values to create their own unique relationship with sacred activism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Jessica Cloud<\/div>\n    
Fundraising Consultant, UU Ministry for Earth<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Jessica Cloud<\/span><\/strong>, UUMFE’s fundraising consultant, partners with mission-driven organizations to grow generosity, deepen relationships, and build confident, capable fundraising teams. During her time at Starr King School for the Ministry, she led a decade of expansion in giving that more than doubled overall fundraising totals, with significant growth in unrestricted support. As the founder of Real Deal Fundraising, Jessica is known for her candid, practical approach. Outside of her work, she writes poetry, enjoys documentaries, and spends time traveling with her husband and two children. She is a longtime member of Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church in Ellisville, MS and a current member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia, SC. The family resides in Hartsville, SC. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Audrey McCann<\/div>\n    
Communications Coordinator, UU Ministry for Earth<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Audrey McCann<\/span><\/strong>, UUMFE’s Communications Coordinator, is a UU minister-in-formation, religious educator, and community organizer in Minneapolis. As a religious naturalist and relational pluralist, she holds relationship in general\u2014between people, between communities, between humans and the more-than-human world\u2014to be the sacred embodiment of Love. Audrey also serves as the Director of Children and Family Ministries at the UU Fellowship of Northfield, MN.
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Click here to read the bios of all of our service speakers. <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Join Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth in the spirit of reverence and renewal as we honor that “Sentience Surrounds Us” this Earth Day. UUMFE\u2019s annual Earth Day Worship Service is our most anticipated and attended event of the year. This year our featured speakers include members of our UU Ministry for Earth community as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":12486,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12481","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12481"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12599,"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12481\/revisions\/12599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}