Our Task Force has submitted four pieces of climate justice legislation to this year’s Annual Conference Session. The Recommendation to Spend 10 Minutes a Day in Nature encourages all congregants to spend time daily outside in mindful connection with Creation.
The full text of the resolution is as follows:
Recommendation to Spend Ten Minutes a Day in Nature
Recommendation:
Be it resolved that every participant in every congregation of the California-Nevada Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church shall spend at least ten minutes of every day in mindful connection with Creation – outdoors if possible.
Background:
“Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet our God in heaven feeds them…. Learn a lesson from the way the wildflowers grow…” — Matthew 6:26a, 28b, The Inclusive Bible
“The great lesson that our blessed Lord inculcates here…is that God is in all things, and that we are to see the Creator in the glass of every creature; that we should use and look upon nothing as separate from God…who pervades and actuates the whole created frame, and is, in a true sense, the soul of the universe.” – John Wesley, “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount”
“We affirm that all creation belongs to God and is a manifestation of God’s goodness and providential care. Human beings, nonhuman animals, plants, and other sentient and non-sentient beings participate in the community of creation, and their flourishing depends on the care of all God’s creation.” – UM Social Principles (2024), “Community of All Creation,” preface
“Simply being in a context of awe leads to a ‘small self.’ We can quiet that nagging voice of the interfering neurotic simply by locating ourselves in contexts of more awe.” – Dr. Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley
“I invite you to honor your own experiences of falling in love with the world … with particular beings: those trees who live on your block, a certain crow who frequents your street, the shoreline on the edge of the village. Our neighbors. The spiritual transformation that both scientists and spiritual people are calling for is not about bring nature inside for the church to remember that God’s love covers everything. It’s not about having churches play nature sounds on cassette tapes. It’s about going outside and spending time with other beloved ones of Earth and offering out tender, gracious attention to their needs as well as our own. That’s what you do when you fall in love. This connection will give us the courage and the energy and even the ideas we need to challenge our prevailing consumerist mindset for the healing and restoration of our world…. Only love is strong enough to bring about the change we need.” – Victoria Loorz, Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred
- Such a practice will benefit mental wellbeing, especially in difficult times – and it is immediately available to us as a gift from God.
- Love of Creation empowers our work for the wellbeing of the planet.
- This practice will contribute to our Conference mission of “Thriving in Community,” expanding our definition of community to include both our human and “more-than-human” neighbors.
- Suggestions for those who have physical limitations: observe the weather and watch birds from your window; cultivate a relationship with a houseplant; listen to recordings of bird or whale song; focus on your five senses and the natural source behind what you see, hear, taste, touch or smell.
- The Sacred Ground project – an audio guide to scenic parks, vistas and trails around our Annual Conference, with photos, information on ecological and indigenous history, calls to climate action, and guidance in mindfulness practices – is available on the free Otocast smartphone app as an outreach ministry of the Church and this Task Force, and is a helpful tool for education and sparking connection in your own backyard.