NPR: A new kind of ‘eco-chaplain’ is helping people deal with ‘climate grief’ – ‘Grief, anger & depression’ from ‘feeling that it may be too late to save a planet in deep peril’ – ‘Trump’s election freaked everyone out’
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/06/nx-s1-5092402/eco-chaplains-helping-people-deal-with-climate-grief
TALENT, Ore. — When Diane Ware’s home state of Oregon proposed a natural gas pipeline that threatened local waterways, she sprang into action — leading workshops on lobbying state lawmakers, mentoring student activists and organizing lectures at her church.
But when plans for the pipeline were canceled, Ware, 78, found little pleasure in the victory. The retired elementary school teacher couldn’t shake the feeling that it may be too late to save a planet in deep peril — a prospect tinged with grief, anger and depression. Ware realized she had a case of “climate grief” — and needed help.
Ware is one of a growing number of people using the services of an eco-chaplain, a new kind of spiritual adviser rising among clergy trained in handling grief and other difficult emotions.
Each month, at the Talent Public Library, Ware attends Sustaining Climate Activists, a gathering of mostly retired adults led by an eco-chaplain. She went to her first meeting shortly after a wildfire swept through Lahaina, Hawaii, in 2023. She was upset by a report that claimed news organizations had failed to link the wildfire to climate change.
“I just thought how on Earth are we ever going to get this problem solved if we can’t even talk about it and get good information from the newspapers that we think are the guardians of truth?” she said. “And then I just thought, ‘Wow, I am fried.’”
The roots of eco-chaplaincy
The eco-chaplain is a 21st century invention, and while no one knows exactly how many there are, chaplaincy experts agree that the number is likely less than 100. There is no universally recognized eco-chaplaincy training, as there is for other kinds of chaplaincy, but a number of organizations offer training from Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and secular perspectives.
Today, there are chaplains working at the intersection of climate, grief and spirituality in the United States, Great Britain, Australia and Canada. Most develop their own ways of addressing the issue, from one-on-one therapy sessions to online climate grief circles and in-person support groups.
The demand to address climate grief, anxiety and burnout is growing, according to the Rev. Alison Cornish, the chaplaincy coordinator at The BTS Center, a non-profit in Portland, Maine that looks at climate change through a spiritual lens.
In 2017, the American Psychological Association defined climate anxiety as “a chronic fear of environmental doom.” Three years later, a survey by the association found that as many as two-thirds of Americans have suffered from it.
When BTS launched its first “conversation circle” for chaplains on the subject of climate in 2023, they were stunned by the response. They had expected 10 people to join; 80 applied. They came from disaster chaplaincy, spiritual care, hospital chaplaincy and university chaplaincy.
“They are asking how do we deal with regret, with complicity, with lament, with saying goodbye to species,” Cornish said. “They are creating rituals that honor all of those.”
The first eco-chaplain may have been Sarah Vekasi, who says she invented the role and title while a student at Naropa University, a Buddhist school.
Vekasi worked in coal mining communities ravaged by mountaintop removal mining. She was inspired by the activist, author and Buddhist philosopher Joanna Macy, whose “The Work That Reconnects” workshops focus on healing the environment.
In 2015, Rabbi Katy Z. Allen wrote “A Call for a New Kind of Chaplain” in the newsletter of the Association of Professional Chaplains.
“We are stuck here on our shrinking, warming planet that we love so much and depend on so totally,” Allen wrote. “We are all in the sort of place where a chaplain’s presence is needed.”
Eco-chaplains serve multiple generations of people. One consists of older adults dealing with personal losses of careers, aging friends and declining health and abilities. Many may also be mourning decades of environmental advocacy they feel has, for the most part, failed.
A second group is young adults frightened about the prospect of inheriting a planet beset by wildfires, floods and other cataclysmic effects of climate change.
“In one generation we have understandable idealism which is getting dashed on the rocks,” said Cornish. “And on the other end of the spectrum we have a generation of age and wisdom which is also experiencing a lot of loss.”
An eco-chaplain at work
On a chilly morning in January, Sustaining Climate Activists gathered in a library conference room.
“Just breathe normally,” the group’s co-facilitator, the Rev. Liz Olson, a certified hospital chaplain, said in a soothing yet commanding voice to the dozen people sitting with her.
“You can use this breathing any time you are panicking or worrying, knowing that we have this symbiotic relationship with the plants and the trees, and that as you are exhaling they are inhaling, and as you are inhaling, they are exhaling. We are always connected to the plants and the trees.”
A few seats to Olson’s right, Ware held her head erect and eyes closed.
Over the next 90 minutes, Olson guided the group as they shared whatever was troubling them. The ensuing conversation, which was confidential, included discussion of current events, personal health issues and relationships with family and friends.
Participants sipped coffee, nibbled homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, passed around a box of Kleenex and examined a color wheel with the names of hues replaced by emotions — fear, anger, loneliness and anxiety. They were a band of people committed not only to the same sweeping environmental issues, but also bonded by the pain of realizing their decades-long work to protect the planet had apparently made minimal impact.
In this meeting, no one mentioned climate change by name. But that did not seem to matter. When the meeting was over, Ware and others said the free, monthly meeting was a critical resource that helped buoy them in the long fight for clean water, habitat preservation, and a move away from fossil fuels.
“I need support in my grief process,” Ware said as she helped restack library chairs.
A judgment-free zone
Sustaining Climate Activists arose out of a sense of being overwhelmed. In 2016, several activists affiliated with Southern Oregon Climate Action Now, a non-profit advocacy group based in Medford, Ore., came together after the presidential election of Donald Trump.
“Trump’s election freaked everyone out,” said Alan Journet, who co-founded the Medford advocacy group with his wife, Kathy Conway. “Group members wanted a way to deal with fears and anxieties about climate and politics.”
By 2017, the support group was in place with Olson as the facilitator. Now, both Olson and another member who is not a chaplain take turns at the helm.
Conway and Journet — both retired educators — did not think a chaplain was required for the job. Neither is traditionally religious, but they knew Olson and thought her compassionate personality and passion for the environment would make a good fit.
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This story was supported by a grant from the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab at Brandeis University in partnership with Templeton Religion Trust.