March News & Views
IN THIS ISSUE
Top Story
Organizing News
Remembrance
Third Act Central News
News from Our Partners & Friends
Did You Know?
Resources
Upcoming Events
TOP STORY
Panel of Faith Leaders to Discuss our ‘Sacred Right to Vote’ at May 7 General Meeting
In his March “Going Deep” essay, Rev. Dr. Jim Antal wrote, “In a democracy, there is no more responsible way for a person of faith to show their faithfulness than to uphold our sacred right to vote….Voting is about what matters and who counts.”
Antal’s essay offers historical context and a thorough discussion of the concept of one’s “Sacred Right to Vote,” and how that relates to faith communities, following up on his January essay on preaching election sermons. These essays launched TAF’s year-long focus on the “Sacred Right to Vote.”
To further explore the idea, we are hosting a panel of faith leaders on May 7, 2024, 8pm EDT/5pm PDT. Led by Jim Antal, the panel will include Rev. Carol L Devine, Rabbi Stephanie Kolin, and Mubarak Elamin. These faith leaders will talk about the concept in general, and how people of faith can put it to work, specifically during this very important 2024 election season. Register here for this Zoom event.
Rev. Dr. Jim Antal serves as Special Advisor on Climate Justice to the General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ. Antal’s 2023 book, Climate Church, Climate World (Revised and Updated), is being read by hundreds of churches. From 2006-2018, Antal led the 350 UCC churches in Massachusetts as their Conference Minister and President. He has preached on climate change since 1988 in over 400 settings and has engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience on numerous occasions. Antal is a founding member of the Third Act Faith working group and a member of the Coordinating Committee.
Rev. Carol L Devine is the Director of Blessed Tomorrow, a coalition of diverse religious partners united as faithful stewards of creation. She is an ordained pastor in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She has pastored congregations in Kentucky and has been part of Disciples’ regional staff. She has recently worked at Lexington Theological Seminary where she earned her M.Div. She also holds degrees from the University of Kentucky and Transylvania University. Carol founded and directs Creation Care for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) as the Minister for Green Chalice and has partnered with ecoAmerica through Blessed Tomorrow since 2015.
Rabbi Stephanie Kolin is a rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim. She previously served as the rabbi of Union Temple, as a rabbi of Central Synagogue in Manhattan, and Associate Rabbi at Temple Israel in Boston. Before moving back to NYC, Rabbi Kolin was national Co-Director of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Just Congregations, then the community organizing arm of the Reform Movement, and lead organizer and a founder of Reform CA (now RAC-CA), a statewide campaign of Reform congregations to work for a more just and compassionate California. Rabbi Kolin is an Auburn Seminary Senior Fellow and is a contributing author to the Reform Movement’s book on social justice, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice.
Our fourth panelist, Mubarak Elamin, was confirmed as this newsletter was set to go out, so look for his bio on the website and in our April newsletter.
ORGANIZING NEWS
Third Act Cultivates Hope & Joy
Although TAF members come from many religious and spiritual traditions, we share the spiritual need for community and uplift, especially when engaging in the daunting work of activism. Our working group embraces Third Act’s larger aim to engage in sustainable — even joyful — activism and avoid burnout.
TA Central and TAF are both working to create spaces where we can share our struggles and feelings around the climate crisis and democracy — and through these, to nurture welcoming, supportive communities.
TA Central is planning various offerings to promote hope and joy in our work, including storytelling, book groups, conversational canvassing, and house parties. Vermont Third Actor Dan Quinlan is hosting monthly 90-minute interactive Hope & Joy sessions, each one featuring an author or thinker from neuroscience, psychology, faith traditions, sociology, philosophy, and more.
If you missed the first Hope & Joy session (scheduled March 12, but postponed to March 19), watch for the April gathering. You do not need to attend every session!
To complement the Hope & Joy sessions, TAF will be offering short monthly meditations beginning in April or May. These 30-minute online gatherings will be led by contemplative practitioners from a variety of traditions. Some of the sessions will be led by TAF members and friends. For other sessions we are piloting a partnership with the Pathways to Planetary Health initiative of the Garrison Institute, which recognizes the deep interconnection of planetary and human wellbeing.
Watch our website, social media, and email for the first contemplative practice.
We have a new website!
By Rev. Jane Ellen Nickell
TAF Communications and Membership Chair
Third Act Faith has a new website! After months of planning, Third Act Central has unveiled pages for each TA working group where we can post news, events, resources, and other thoughts. We look forward to having the most current information available in one central location.
TAF pages, which go live March 25, include a Home page, which has space to feature upcoming events and the latest news, and an “About" page that gives an introduction to TAF. We also have a News page for announcement, resources, essays, and other items, and a page that lists all upcoming TAF events. TA Central will feature items from the working groups on their pages as well.
The website will be our primary hub for information. So now our monthly emails will feature brief previews and offer links to the full content, making it easier to scan the newsletter and read items that interest you.
We will still post to Facebook and Instagram when there is a new story or resource online, and we’ll continue to send emails about TAF events, so you won’t miss anything.
We hope you’ll browse our web pages often and send us ideas for content.
REMEMBRANCE
Remembering Ellen Bernstein
By Dr. Adriane Leveen
Coordinating Committee member, Third Act Faith
Rabbi Ellen Bernstein died on February 27. Ellen was a passionate and committed Jew and climate activist. She was also a friend.
Here is Ellen’s vision for her work (and ours) in her own words:
The climate crisis is a spiritual crisis, a crisis in how we think and what we value. For decades, I have been wondering and wandering through the texts of my tradition, endeavoring to illuminate the deep ecological culture at the heart of Judaism and the Hebrew Bible.
Ellen was very proud of having founded the first national Jewish environmental organization in 1988, Shomrei Adamah, Keepers of the Earth. Two years ago she played an instrumental role in imagining Third Act Faith and getting it started.
Her beautiful and compelling book, Toward A Holy Ecology: Reading the Song of Songs in the Age of Climate Crisis, literally just came out. In late January Ellen was interviewed by Rev. Dr. Trisha Tull about her new book at a meeting of Third Act Faith. Find a transcript of the interview here.
You can learn more about Ellen’s remarkable career and life in this New York Times obituary. And visit her website, ellenbernstein.org, for more about her work.
We have lost an inspiring, loving, fiercely committed climate colleague and friend. May Ellen’s memory be for a blessing.
THIRD ACT CENTRAL NEWS
Summer Outreach Opportunities
By Melanie Griffin, Third Act Network Campaigns Lead
Mark your calendars for July 11-14 and join other Third Actors at the best party of the summer! Third Act is again sponsoring the Wild Goose Festival in Union Grove, North Carolina, and you are invited! The festival is an annual celebration of spirit, justice, music and art grounded in faith-inspired social justice. Last year, we brought climate issues to the festival in a big way, sponsoring a day-long Climate Justice workshop featuring Third Act founder Bill McKibben and staffing an information booth to bring our issues of climate and democracy to over 2,000 progressive Christians and friends.
This year, we hope to organize some climate storytelling workshops and voter registration activities.
Everyone is welcome! We hope that members of our Faith Working Group will take turns greeting festival attendees at the Third Act tent, where we will hand out materials and invite other elders to join us. Stay tuned for more information and if you are interested in finding out more, contact melanie@thirdact.org.
Storytelling will also be front and center at the beautiful Chautauqua Institution in western New York July 22-26 when Third Actors take part in a week of intergenerational storytelling. Leaders from the Faith and Upstate New York working groups will join with student climate organizers to explore how storytelling can help build intergenerational climate collaboration.
One of Third Act’s foundational working principles is to “back up youth,” recognizing that one of our most important jobs as elders is to support younger people who lead movements for environmental and social justice. For intergenerational climate collaboration to succeed, it should be grounded in understanding and empathy for those different from us. Sharing personal stories of our experiences with climate change is a great way to build trust and empathy.
The week will kick off July 22 with a conversation between Third Act founder Bill McKibben and Frank Sesno, who founded Planet Forward at George Washington University. Planet Forward is a diverse group of students from across the country using stories, media, and educational events to move our planet forward.
Third Act Faith and the Upstate NY Working Group may be organizing some other events at Chautauqua. If you plan to be there this summer, email us at thirdactfaith@gmail.com and we’ll keep you posted on our plans.
NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS & FRIENDS
TAF Partners with GreenFaith for “Faiths for Climate Justice” Week of Action
Third Act Faith is partnering with the global organization GreenFaith for “Faiths for Climate Justice”— the global faith climate justice week of action in May. “GreenFaith asked us to partner with them to help bring attention to this important work, and we, of course, said ‘yes,’” TAF member Kathleen Dickson said.
The event, subtitled “No Faith in Fossil Fuels,” is slated for the week of May 3-12, 2024. Organizers anticipate that faith activists worldwide will use the week to call for an end to fossil fuels, a sustainable future, and a fossil-fuel non-proliferation treaty. “People of faith want a livable future for all and universal access to clean energy, but have no faith in fossil fuels,” says a GreenFaith spokesperson.
GreenFaith says that while their global demand will be for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, local events will also focus on fossil fuel issues most pertinent to local regions.
For more information, or to sign up for an action near you, visit Greenfaith.org/faiths for climate justice 2024.
DID YOU KNOW?
Plant Hardiness Zones changed — What It Means
In November 2023, the U. S. Department of Agriculture released its updated USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. The first update since 2012, the map has been eagerly awaited by growers and gardeners across the U.S, some 80 million of whom rely on the map to tell them which plants are most likely to thrive in the zone.
To create the map, the USDA averages growing-season low temperatures for the last 30 years. Knowing the lowest annual winter temperature is particularly important for growers because it is the lowest temperature at which overwintering plants are likely to survive.
The map “has undergone a dramatic shift, thanks in large part to climate change,” says the University of Washington’s College of the Environment. About half of the country is now experiencing warmer winters and has moved into a warmer hardiness zone. “This is a big jump,” said Ray Larson, associate director and curator of the UW Botanic Gardens. NOAA says the summer of 2023 was the hottest meteorological summer on record for the northern hemisphere.
Warmer winters let destructive insects survive year-round — the bronze birch borer, western pine beetle and marmorated stink bug are just a few. Fruit trees require a number of consistently cold days to set fruit, so warmer winters hurt the vast apple, cherry and blueberry industries. Streets and buildings in burgeoning cities create bigger “heat islands.” As one Florida gardener told NPR: “It’s so much hotter, the tomatoes burn.”
“All of us who work with living things outside every day are seeing the impacts,” Larson said. “And it’s happening quicker than we would have expected even 10 years ago.”
As people of faith, we are concerned about what this means for the creation itself, as well as for people whose lives and livelihood are impacted by these changes.
RESOURCES
Gardeners who need to adjust their crops for a warmer climate may want to look at TheOld Farmer’s Almanac or the HGTV cable channel’s suggestions for growing vegetables that do well in the heat.
Your state’s cooperative extension service is one of the best how-to sources for what plants do well where you live — and how to grow them. Read more about these state services here. The University of Arkansas offers an easy-to-access list of state extension service contacts.
This USDA news release explains the science behind the updated Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
NOAA has a geeky page of maps showing how temperatures have shifted in the U. S. in recent years.
For an in-depth discussion of the impact of these changes, visit this page on ClimateCentral.com
UPCOMING EVENTS
Apr. 4: Senior-to-Senior Spring 2024 Voter Registration Ambassador Training (Zoom), 4 p.m. EDT (1 p.m. PST). Register here.
Apr. 8: Welcome to Third Act: Let’s Get Started (Zoom), 7:30 pm EDT (4:30 p.m. PST). Register here.
May 7: TAF General Meeting with ‘Sacred Right to Vote’ panel (Zoom), 8 p.m. EDT (5 p.m. PST). Register here.
May 3-12: “Faiths for Climate Justice” week of action More info here.
Send Us Your Photos and Stories
Please send us news items, reflections, story ideas and photos that we can use on our web pages and include in our monthly email. Send the submissions to thirdactfaith@gmail.com.
