{"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":"2026-04-10T12:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:43:12","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. Our 2026 Earth Day Worship Service happens on Wednesday, April 22nd at 5 pm PT\/ 6 pm MT\/ 7 pm CT\/ 8 pm ET on Zoom. <\/strong>Click here if you want help translating to your time zone.<\/a><\/em><\/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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Click here to register.<\/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 donate to support this worship service and other UU Ministry for Earth programming.<\/a> Thank you for your generosity!<\/p>\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    
Service Leader<\/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    
Music Leader<\/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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Chelsea McCoy<\/div>\n    
Meditation Leader<\/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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Audrey McCann<\/div>\n    
Storyteller<\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Audrey McCann<\/span><\/strong>, UUMFE Communications Coordinator, is a UU minister-in-formation, religious educator, and community organizer from Texas who now lives 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\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":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12546,"href":"https:\/\/www.uumfe.org\/uumfe-wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12481\/revisions\/12546"}],"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}]}}