Numerous faith communities, American Indian tribes and many others being encouraged to volunteer or participate in a large eight-state Earth Day 2008 project with events across the Great Lakes Basin through mid-May.
The new Earth Healing Initiative (EHI) is organizing faith communities. The EHI is one of numerous environment and Native American projects founded by the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute in Marquette, Michigan.
Collection sites will accept old/broken computers, cell phones, TVs and other electronics to be recycled, and old/unwanted medicines to be properly disposed during the Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge.
The EPA is awarding grants to some of the collection sites where residents can drop off e-waste and old/unwanted pharmaceuticals.
The Michigan Earth Keeper Initiative, co-founded by the Cedar Tree Institute, have alliances with ten faith traditions across the Upper Peninsula, and the EHI is coordinating the same relationships with religious communities across the Great Lakes and beyond. ---
The co-founder of the Michigan Earth Keepers, ELCA Lutheran Rev. Jon Magnuson created the Earth Healing Initiative in March 2008 to spread the word about interfaith and Native American environment projects.
The Earth Healing Initiative is sponsored by the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute in Marquette, MI and is collaborating with the EPA, cities, landfills, groups, state/local governments across the Great Lakes Basin to promote the Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge - and to help arrange interfaith and Native American volunteers and participants.
All faith traditions, religions, minorities, tribes and other Indigenous peoples are encouraged to volunteer for and/or participate in the projects in your area.
For Earth Day 2008 residents and communities around the Great Lakes are being challenged to collect and recycle electronic waste and to properly dispose of unwanted medicines.
Collections are being held in large cities and surrounding areas like Chicago, Milwaukee and Cleveland.
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sponsors Electronic Waste (E-Waste) and Pharmaceutical Collections across the Great Lakes
Earth Day 2008
Healing Initiative 2008
An Interfaith environmental project for the Great Lakes basin in cooperation with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA).
“Collect One Million Pounds of e-Waste and One Million Unwanted Pills”
For Earth Day 2008, US EPA challenges residents and communities around the Great Lakes to collect and recycle electronic waste and to properly dispose of unwanted medicines.
ELECTRONIC WASTE (E-Waste)
Above photo shows the 2006 Earth Keeper Clean Sweep in Michigan's Upper Peninsula during which residents turned in over 320 tons of electronic waste
Electronic waste includes all those old or broken TVs, cell phones, computer components and similar gadgets that are part of our lives. E-waste contains possibly hazardous materials that can harm human health and the Great Lakes environment if disposed of improperly.
In 2005 we discarded an estimated 2 million tons of TVs, computers and other electronic gear.
Proper disposal and recycling are necessary to avoid unwanted pollution.
When we reuse or recycle e-waste properly, we recover materials for re-use, save energy and reduce the environmental costs of raw material extraction and processing.
PHARMACEUTICALS:
Above photo shows some of the one ton of pharmaceuticals turned in by northern Michigan residents on Earth Day 2007 during the third annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep.
Traces of medicines have been found in streams and the Great Lakes where we get our drinking water and have also been detected near wastewater treatment outflows.
Some of these medicines can lead to reproductive and developmental problems in fish and other animals.
We often treat leftover medicine as a common household waste.
More than half of people surveyed throw their unused medicines in the trash while a third flush them down the drain.
In both cases, the medicines have the potential to be released into our rivers and lakes.
The EHI is offering free media assistance to environment projects including press releases, press contacts, internet and high definition digital videos, podcasts and vast internet postings.
Greater Cleveland area - Cuyahoga County - participates in EPA Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge
Thousands of residents in Greater Cleveland, Ohio are recycling unwanted computer electronics during the annual "Recycle Your Computer Month."
In the past 8 years, the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District has sponsored many collections that garnered over 1,900 tons of computer equipment.
"This is the 9th year that we have provided free computer recycling to Cuyahoga County residents," said Cristie A. Snyder, District Program Officer.
"In 2000, we started collecting computers with a one-day Round-Up twice a year," said Snyder, adding a couple years ago the opening of a local recycling facility allowed the District to switch "to a month-long promotion that allowed our municipalities to run their events as needed."
The e-Waste computer collections are sponsored by the District in collaboration with local city service departments.
Residents in 59 municipalities can drop-off their old and broken unused computer equipment at over 45 participating city service departments during the month of April, Snyder said.
All equipment collected will be taken to RET3 job corp, a non-profit computer recycling and refurbishing company based in Cleveland. Computer donations are tax-deductible.
Call for Proposals: NMU 2008 Indigenous Earth Day Summit
Northern Michigan University is seeking presentation proposals for the 2008 Indigenous Earth Day Summit to be held at NMU April 22-23. This summit is made possible by the Center for Native American Studies, the Environmental Science Program and the Office of International Programs.
This summit will function as a call to action on Indigenous environmental issues in the Great Lakes area, on Turtle Island and around the world.
An Aboriginal Australian delegation from the Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways project (see http://www.tkrp.com.au/) will be featured as keynote presenters and will provide musical entertainment.
Presentations should ultimately include ideas on how to address Indigenous environmental concerns. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following.
- Traditional Ecological Knowledge (T.E.K.)
- Education and Indigenous environmental concerns
- History of industrialism, industrial threats, Indigenous peoples and the Earth
- Economic globalization and Indigenous peoples
- Indigenous languages and the Earth
- Solutions in Indigenous cultures to environmental problems
- Indigenous subsistence rights and protection of sacred land
- Global poisoning and the impact on Indigenous peoples
- Climate change and its impact on Indigenous peoples
A variety of presentations are encouraged (music, art, films as well as papers and panels).
Activists, Native elders and Native community members are strongly encouraged to submit proposals.
Proposals should be 150-300 words in length.
Deadline for submissions has been extended to Monday, March 17, 2008.
Upper Peninsula Swan Song: As state continues its betrayal of the pristine northwoods, the Governor and Hollywood use song to promote Upper Peninsula mining
KBIC tribe & environment groups sue to stop "acid mine"
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and a Hollywood director are using her website to promote an official state song for Michigan - and the song's ONLY comment about the beautiful and pristine Upper Peninsula glorifies mining.
More on that in a moment.
As expected, the state of Michigan continues to betray the sacred trust it has to protect the Upper Peninsula environment.
According to media reports, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources is expected to approve permits for the first of dozens of sulfide mines that will soon pepper the northern Michigan landscape.
However, the MDNR decision on those permits has been delayed until at least the February meetings of the Natural Resources Commission.
Let's hope the media reports are not true and the MDNR will have the guts to say "no" to Kennecott Minerals at its Eagle Mine Project near lake Superior that is guaranteed to produce sulfuric acid as part of its unproven technology.
These "acid mines" are expected to be followed by uranium mining - effectively ruining the tourism industry here in Michigan's northwoods.
In December 2007, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality approved permits for the experimental technology for the Eagle Mine near Lake Superior.
If the MDNR follows suits, about the only hope left for stopping this mine is the EPA and a judge because several groups including the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community are suing in an effort to block this first "acid mine."
Here are great background stories on the acid mining future facing the U.P.
By the way, Indigenous groups are also fighting a nuclear nightmare out west at Yucca Mountain:
The Michigan Earth keepers believe everyone can make a difference and here's a list of ten easy ways to do your part to protect environment from Stop Global Warming group:
The Great State Song-gate in the Great Lakes?:
Are Michigan's governor - and a Hollywood director - engaged in subliminal advertising using a version of the state song for promoting a controversial acid mine that threatens the pristine northwoods?
I ask this question - tongue-in-cheek.
I doubt it's a super conspiracy but it definitely is dirty pool at a time when so many northern Michigan residents are preparing to take an acid bath and mourning the loss of our environmental innocence.
But it seems strange to me that these two - Governor Granholm and Hollywood director Jeff Daniels - are backing a song that only hails one thing about the Upper Peninsula - and that is mining.
Both have remained quiet about the deadly serious issue that will have lifelong impact on the pristine northwoods as these mines pop up everywhere followed by uranium mining.
I have long criticized Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and actor/director Jeff Daniels for not joining the thousands who oppose the proliferation of sulfide "acid" mines in the Upper Peninsula.
At issue is a controversial sulfide mine near Lake Superior that will lead to dozens of similar nickel (and dime) projects and likely will ultimately open the ground to uranium mining in the pristine Michigan northwoods.
An unsubtle message in the Michigan state song or a minor mining coincidence?:
Is an old Hollywood trick the latest act being used by pro-mine supporters and directed by Michigan's Governor under the tutelage of famous director/actor Jeff Daniels?
Now I ask - is Governor Granholm - Michigan's top democrat - engaged in subliminal advertizing for this mine - or is one of her last official acts for 2007 - just a coincidence?
And why does the only line the in the "state song" that refers to the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) seem to glamorize mining?
Crazy you say?
Surely Michigan's Governor would not choose this time to sing praises of mining while ignoring the other attributes of the glorious U.P.
Well, I would agree if not for the fact that the governor's own website admits there is a "more suitable" version of the song for peacetime.
Maybe she's promoting the war version because of Iraq.
By deduction, that means the Governor is promoting a less "suitable" version - on her official state website - that is being sung by actor/director Jeff Daniels.
I wonder why this song - that Governor Granholm loves so much - only mentions the Upper Peninsula in passing - and why the only great thing about the U.P. that is mentioned is mining.
Surely there are prettier things in the Upper Peninsula to sing about than our mines - especially if it's the "unofficial state song."
So enamored with the U.P. mining song and with Jeff Daniel's version - Governor Granholm has posted a link to his version on the official state of Michigan website:
Governor Granholm - in a crescendo of praise - says of Mr. Daniels:
"As the temperature continues to drop and we prepare for another Michigan winter, there will be days when we look out of our windows and marvel at the beauty of this place we call home," says Governor Granholm apparently searching for her autograph book.
Swooning in Da Moonlight : Da Gov Goes GaGa over Dandy Daniel's Ballad:
"There will also be days when we look out of the same window and see a cold and gray place. To help you through those days, take a moment to listen to Jeff Daniels sing Michigan, My Michigan," proclaims Governor Granholm.
On the Governor's website - apparently posted just before Christmas - are the lyrics for three versions of "Michigan, My Michigan."
The lyrics in question are in the second line in the song (again the only line in entire state song that even hints that the Upper Peninsula exists) that describes mining in a shining good light and sung to a Christmas tune (O Tannenbaum/O Christmas Tree).
Here is the exact phrase - you judge:
From Saginaw's tall whispering pines
To Lake Superior's farthest mines,
Fair in the light of memory shines
Michigan, my Michigan.
An 1886 version of the same war song - again the second line - states:
"jewels glitter in thy mines" but without the Lake Superior U.P. reference.
Dat's the name of that tune:
Still swooning over Jeff Daniel's version - Governor Granholm tells the state's residents about his version of "Michigan, My Michigan."
"I find this song a helpful reminder of all of the many reasons we are so fortunate to live here," says the star struck governor.
Michigan State Song Debacle: Dissing a song - once voted upon
Governor Granholm weighs in on old debate - endorsing song she wants to represent the state
If those three versions of the song don't leave your toes tapping - the Governor's website describes yet another - different but similar - song that at one point at least captured the imagination of the then-Governor Frank D. Fitzgerald and the 1930s legislature.
The1933 song - entitled "My Michigan" - was officially described by state lawmakers "as an official song of the State of Michigan" but not "the" official state song.
"Note the care that the Senate took not to name it as "the" official song of Michigan," states Governor Granholm's state website - going the extra mile several times to proclaim it's not Michigan's official state song.
While Fitzgerald may have liked that version - Governor Granholm apparently prefers the version she promotes: "Michigan, My Michigan."
Granholm's website states:
QUOTE - "Michigan, My Michigan" has long been considered Michigan's unofficial state song. Another song, "My Michigan," has been all but forgotten except in the records of the Michigan Legislature. - END QUOTE.
By the way, Governor Frank D. Fitzgerald, not related to namesake of infamous Lake Superior iron ore boat that sank - was the first and only Michigan governor to die in office and one of only two Michigan governors to serve non-consecutive terms.
Both Governor Granholm and actor Daniels have proclaimed their undying love for their homestate, yet have not lifted a finger to rescue the U.P. at its more dire straits.
It seems we can't get them to join the fight against the mine - and that shall be their legacy here in the U.P. - but maybe - the pair could spend some quality time along Lake Superior and think up some lyrics for our state song that truly describe the beauty and attributes of the now-pristine Upper Peninsula.
I recommend they do this before the acid mining boom forever changes our landscape.
By the way - "Tuebor" is the biggest boldest word on the undisputed official Great Seal of Michigan - unchanged since 1911.
Please - Governor Granholm - there are thousands of us in the Upper Peninsula who could use some of that protection right about now as we fight for our way of life against a behemoth mining company.
Or do you have better things to do than oppose this acid mine?
Finally - the more research I did on the state of Michigan song and seal - the more insignificant the U.P. appears.
Quite a land deal for Michigan and future Secretary of State (SOS):
SOS outlines why we in da U.P. need help - and don't often find it below the bridge:
Here is what the Michigan Secretary of State (SOS) Terri Lynn Land has to say about us Yoopers (slang for an Upper Peninsula resident) - rather bluntly - on her website about the other words on the state's Great Seal:
QUOTE - "Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice" means, "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you."
It is believed this refers to the Lower Peninsula.
The Upper Peninsula was added in 1837, to pay for the loss of a strip of land on our southern border, given to Ohio when Congress made Michigan a state. - END QUOTE
It seems to me the Lower Peninsula for quite a deal for that "stip of land" - the entire Upper Peninsula that most anyone will tell you is by far the best part of Michigan.
Now I understand why some Yoopers have joked about seceding from the state of Michigan - and why those who live below the Mackinac Bridge are sometimes called "trolls."
How the Upper Peninsula became the ultimate spoils of a verbal war:
Wikipedia on "Toledo War" - a verbal fight that led to Michigan getting it's unappreciated Upper Peninsula in exchange for a "strip of land" that's now Ohio.
The Great Seal Act threatens jail for use of state symbols:
Would if I could - but I can't - so I won't:
For the record, in describing our state seal - and coat of arms - I wanted to include a a copy of the seal.
But I can't - under threat of arrest - from the SOS - who warns:
"No facsimile or reproduction of the Great Seal can be used in a manner unconnected with official functions of the state. (MCL 2.45)
A person who violates any provision of the Great Seal Act is guilty of a misdemeanor (MCL 2.46).
All this anti-Upper Peninsula stuff is way too "dark and dreary" for me, besides I'm too busy fighting this acid mine to worry about Michigan State Police "a rap tap tapping (or kicking in) at my chamber door."
"Whatcha gonna do?" - To quote the Bad Boys "official song" of the Cops TV show.
As the choir prepares the swan song to northern Michigan's beauty, tourism and innocence, we who love a natural northern Michigan will continue fighting the good fight.
Tho the last rites to northern Michigan tourism are not far away and funeral services are being planned.
I leave you with the appropriate lyrics and from original meanings of "Swan Song."
An Upper Peninsula American Indian tribe and several other groups are trying to stop the state-sanctioned rape and pillage of Michigan's northern wilderness by an uncaring mining company and it's minions
The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) strongly opposes the "acid mine" on the Yellow Dog Plains because sulfide mining tramples ceded territorial rights and the treaties of 1842 and 1856.
The mine is being built not far from the natural depiction of a Native American - that the winds and waves of Lake Superior carved into the cliffs of Presque Isle below the grave of northern Michigan's most famous American Indian Chief Charles Kawbawgam, last Chief of the Chippewa.
While sulfuric acid may soon drip like tears from the eyes of this mysterious carving, the real Chief Kawbawgam would undoubtedly be leading the fight against the mine if not for his death about 105 years ago.
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The state of Michigan gave the Upper Peninsula the worst of all possible Christmas gifts promising unimaginable environmental damage - in exchange for a handful of jobs and the threat of even more sulfide "acid" mining to be followed by uranium.
Continuing their valiant fight for northern Michigan's valuable wilderness, environmentalists and Native Americans have sued the state to prevent the mine from opening.
Northern Michigan trout, salmon, deer, bear and other wildlife can not speak for themselves, so it's up to the people to save the woods, streams and lakes of northern Michigan.
Upper Peninsula turned into Land of Kennecott - short-timers who will pillage our minerals, leave behind an enviro-graveyard - and move their shovels from county to county until most remaining pristine areas of the U.P. are reminiscent of Love Canal or the mining ruins of West Virginia.
It's pockets full of cash from other environmental savagery, Kennecott Minerals successfully lured the state down a road of environmental ruin.
At issue is a controversial nickel-copper mine between Marquette and Big Bay with six new mine sites proposed within 50 miles of the Eagle Project - and that's just the beginning.
Those who oppose the "acid mine" protested on Dec. 17, 2007 in front of the federal courthouse in Marquette, MI.
(Marquette Mine Protest Rally Photos by Earth Keeper Gail Griffith, Save the Wild UP (SWUP) board member)
You see, the international mining giant will be long gone in 7 years or less - after creating less than 100 short-term jobs - and local residents will be left with a huge stain (at best) - and possibly a ruined trout stream feeding a soiled Lake Superior.
The ink was barely dry on the promised suit when the owners of the "acid mine" admitted what had been feared all along: similar mines will be popping up like mushrooms in all corners of the U.P. - again trading short-term gain for tourism and recreation.
Many residents call the project an "acid" mine because one of its nasty byproducts is sulfuric acid.
Just as our railroads and other areas are covered in iron ore pellets - much of the Yellow Dogs Plains near Lake Superior will be covered with acid tainted pollution.
At least our iron ore mines are open for a century or more and create thousands of jobs.
Acid, Uranium Mines to spring up like mushrooms across northern Michigan wilderness
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality - and democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm - betrayed the people of the Upper Peninsula in mid-December by issuing three permits that will allow the opening of an "acid" mine by the Kennecott Minerals Company.
This time next year northern Michigan's pristine snow will be mixed with sulfuric acid.
The state's top environmental watchdog - the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality - bit the hand that feeds her - tourism!
"Environmental quality" is in the name of the MDEQ - the top state watchdog for Michigan's gorgeous Upper Pensinula. The agency should be stripped of that name.
How about - MDEQ - Michigan Department of Environmental Quitters?
That way the MDEQ wouldn't have to change the towels that will soak up the lifeblood of the U.P. - tourism.
Protect the Upper Peninsula and our:
Fighting the good fight: KBIC and environmental groups joined by descendants of America's Industrial Revolution
The lawsuit was filed by National Wildlife Federation, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), the Huron Mountain Club and the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve.
Thank you to these groups for taking this fight to a judge.
I recently criticized the ultra-exclusive, pro-business and secretive Huron Mountain Club for not joining the fight as the "acid mine" will lay at its doorsteps.
For joining the lawsuit - I must now say kudos to the Huron Mountain Club (circa 1890) - a private retreat built by those who led America's Industrial Revolution - that owns 13,000 protected acres including one of the largest tracts of primeval forest in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Thank you to these groups for taking this fight to a judge.
Anatomy of a Murder: Part Two - Site of famous northern Michigan film will be site of mass murder of environment
"Have you left no sense of decency?"
A movie filmed near the location of the planned "acid mine" even has ties to this country's fight against tyranny
We hope the Michigan judge, who could stop this "acid mine," has the common sense of another jurist - Joseph N. Welch - a judge on the screen and in real life - who was portrayed in the famous 1959 movie by Otto Preminger entitled "Anatomy of a Murder" filmed near the site of this mine.
The movie was based on a best selling novel written by Michigan Supreme Court Justice and avid trout fisherman John D. Voelker using the pen name Robert Traver.
A fisherman's fisherman, Voelker spent most of his life wandering the pristine trout streams of the Upper Peninsula.
In a sad irony this mine will dig beneath one of Voelker’s beloved prime trout streams that feeds Lake Superior. And some experts fear the stream will collapse into the mine releasing a flood of acid and other pollution that will be pouring into Lake Superior in a flash and then the rest of the Great Lakes.
Welch - who was a judge in real life and portrayed an outspoken judge in "An Anatomy of a Murder" - was the lawyer who defended the U.S. Army against Senator Joseph McCarthy during his 1954 anti-communist witch hunt.
Welch uttered the following famous words - that could be used today to describe the people who are allowing this "acid mine" to proceed at lightening speed:
Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
You can bet the late Judges Voelker and Welch would not let this mine open - and would note its tyranny upon the U.P. wildlife, forests and streams is not unlike the scourage of the McCarthy hearings.
Amen !
Native Americans and the environment groups are livid that Rio Tinto, the parent company of Kennecott, is now targeting six other U.P. sites for mines.
"We had long suspected that this was merely the first in a series of new mines, but hiding that information until after the MDEQ approval was announced is certainly contrary to the 'good neighbor' image Kennecott has sought to portray," said Michelle Halley, an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation and the other co-petitioners
"Whether they knew it or not, the MDEQ and the Governor have egg on their faces,' Halley said.
MDEQ, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm lay with mongrels whose plans will ruin Yellow Dog Plains and tourism
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality could also stop the project - but right now those who care about the future of the U.P. are hoping a judge will have more common sense that the state of Michigan and our illustrious governor who did nothing to fight the project.
Shame on the MDEQ and Governor Granholm - but there is still time for the state's top democrat to be a hero.
Kennecott Minerals is hoping to start construction on the mine in January 2008 - but it's awaiting approval of two permits from the Department of Natural Resources.
Disturbing questions:
Why has Governor Granholm kept quiet on the project?
At best, the answer is she is leading a state in the midst of a severe financial crisis - but common sense dictates the effects of these acid and uranium mines will far outweigh any short term gain.
The mine will dig below the Salmon-Trout River - a prstine fishing stream - and some think it will collapse - mixing acid, other pollution, and clean water.
That pollution will then quickly end up in Lake Superior - and down the chain of Great lakes.
Photo by Jackie Donoho, Northwoods Wilderness Recovery
So I ask again - why is Governor Granholm keeping tight lipped when we need her the most?
Green money means more to the government and media watchdogs than the lush green forests
Why is many members of the northern Michigan media not doing investigative reports on the company, it's history and the effects of other Kennecott operations across the globe. And why is the majority of the media not writing strong editorials opposing the ill-advised project.
Could it be the tons of advertising dollars?
Most of U.P. media fail as watchdogs: Editors of good heart - please take a firm stance against this sulfide mine and join this fight against our acidic future
Why have Marquette's business leaders gone along with the project betraying their forefathers who founded the U.P. and are undoubtedly spinning in their soon-to-be acid soaked graves? Again, could the green of money be outweighing the burnt orange color that the rivers will turn?
It boggles the mind that U.P. business leaders can betray their own grandchildren - and that Michigan Governor is willing to leave a legacy of destroying the Upper Peninsula.
Marquette Mine Protest Rally Photos by Earth Keeper Gail Griffith, Save the Wild UP (SWUP) board member
Unless we are saved by the MDNR, the EPA, a judge - in the next few months northern Michigan will become the West Virginia of the Great White North.
"Cowboys and Angels": A free northern Michigan benefit concert to battle domestic violence and teen suicides on one of the nation’s poorest American Indian reservations
Plea for counselors falls on deaf ears - Public support needed to stem teen suicide crisis
(Munising, Michigan) - For the second time in four months, a free benefit concert will be held for the nation's first Native American domestic violence shelter to help battle an alarming increase in teen suicides on the Rosebud reservation.
The "Cowboys and Angels" concert will be held on December 15 in the tiny northern Michigan town of Munising.
Three more Rosebud Teens have killed themselves since the first concert in mid-August.
The Turtle Island Project (TIP) in Munising is organizing the concert to benefit the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society (WBCWS) in Mission, South Dakota.
The WBCWS battles domestic violence, sexual assault and an alarming increase in teen suicides on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, the home of the Sicangu Lakota people.
Performing on Saturday, Dec. 15 from 7 - 9 p.m. at the Falling Rock Cafe and Bookstore in downtown Munising, Michigan will be Pastor Lynn Hubbard with John Evans on guitar.
Pictured on guitar is Turtle Island Project director/concert organizer Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard of Munising, MI.
The concert will include original songs written by Rev. Hubbard and traditional songs of the season.
The WBCWS was founded 30 years ago by a group of courageous Native American women including current executive director Tillie Black Bear. Rev. Hubbard said women around the world continue to be beaten and murdered every day and the WBCWS "is a beacon of hope in that raging sea of violence."
"The White Buffalo Calf Woman's Society and its domestic violence shelter serve a critical mission on the Rosebud reservation," said Dr. Hubbard, pastor of the Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising, MI.
"The shelter aids women and children with dignity and is trying to get more depression counselors for the teens."
"Violence against women and children is prevalent in all segments of society," said Rev. Hubbard, co-founder of the Turtle Island Project that addresses Native American and environment issues.
"This violence crosses all lines - without regard for social, economic, race, and creed of the victims."
"Generations to come are affected each and every time a child or woman is murdered," said Tillie Black Bear, WBCWS director.
"Tribal people have a sacred responsibility to make sure that we create a world that our future generations of relatives will want to be born in to without fear for their safety.”
Figures from the Rosebud reservation alone are shocking: 21 rapes in the past 18 months; 462 attempted teen suicides and 18 deaths during the past two years - most teenage boys - caused tribal officials to declare a "state of emergency" in March 2007.
Poverty, depression, a lack of jobs, drugs, alcohol and other social problems are among the reasons behind Rosebud teen suicides.
The August 2007 TIP concert in Custer, SD raised money for the WBCWS
This is the second TIP benefit concert this year for the the WBCWS.
Two Upper Peninsula folk groups, White Water and Duo Borealis, held a free concert on August 12, 2007 for the WBCWS at the Custer Lutheran Fellowship church in Custer, S.D.
November is National Family Caregivers Appreciation month
Unsung Heroes Project founder John Argeropoulos, left, and registered nurse Trina Johnson, director of employee health and education at the Norlite Nursing Center in Marquette; accepts a check recently (Nov. 5, 2007) from Jim Lori, right, manager of the Marquette Community Federal Credit Union.
The $500 check was donated to the Cedar Tree Institute, a Marquette non-profit, that coordinates a wide-range of stress and other training for northern Michigan nursing home staff and healthcare workers who treat elderly and hospice patients. (Photo courtesy the Cedar Tree Institute/Unsung Heroes Project)
The Unsung Heroes Fund: Donations help
train nursing home staff to deal with the
stress of loving caring for the elderly & hospice patients
(Marquette, Michigan) - November is National Family Caregivers Appreciation month and the Unsung Heroes project in northern Michigan is sponsoring free workshops to help healthcare workers provide loving care for the elderly and hospice patients.
The Unsung Heroes project in Michigan's Upper Peninsula recently began its second round of stress and resiliency training for northern Michigan nursing home staff.
Donations help underwrite costs for numerous caregiver workshops in Michigan's Upper Peninsula during November and December.
A recent donation from the Marquette Community Federal Credit Union is part of the funding for the workshops at the Norlite Nursing Center in Marquette and the Marquette County Medical Care Facility in Ishpeming.
Organizers say caring for the elderly and hospice patients is stressful for the family and for healthcare workers who often become extremely close to the person undergoing treatment.
“The next Unsung Heroes training will be helping us learn what our stressors are and how to take care of ourselves - with our health concerns - because it is such a vastly increasing and very strenuous job,” said registered nurse Trina Johnson, director of employee health and education at the Norlite Nursing Center in Marquette. “We need to know how to take care of ourselves - it is a good benefit to our staff.”
Cedar Tree Institute (CTI) Director Rev. Jon Magnuson, standing, listens to CTI volunteer Paul Olson, left, during the first round of Unsung Heroes Fund training in February 2007 training for staff at the Norlite Nursing Center in Marquette, MI.
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The Unsung Heroes Fund provides stress management and resiliency training for nursing home employees who sometimes become secondary family members to both the patient and their loved ones.
"It's like taking care of your grandmother or your grandfather - you do get close - it's very personal - they learn to trust you," Johnson said.
Training is provided by Dr. Michael Grossman, Twin Cities Medical Clinic (Bell Memorial Hospital); Dr. Larry Skendzel, FamilyCare Doctors (Marquette General Health System); and Dr. Ann Constance, Upper Peninsula Diabetes Outreach Network.
The Unsung Heroes Fund is a collaborative project between the Cedar Tree Institute and the Marquette Community Foundation. It was established in 2005 through an endowment by John and Mary Argeropoulos of Marquette.
Cedar Tree Institute volunteer Paul Olson, who also counsels youth, spends on-on-one time with a couple employees of the Mather Nursing Home in west Ishpeming, MI during the first round of Unsung Heroes Fund training in February 2007.
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The project relies on financial support from businesses, community organizations, and individual donors.
Argeropoulos created scholarships and training for northern Michigan nursing home staff after his mother received ten years of quality care at the Mather Nursing Center in west Ishpeming where he witnessed the related stress and other effects on the staff.
“We found out about the effects on caregivers from personal experience with my mother being in the nursing home for ten years where she received loving care,” Argeropoulos said.
An Unsung Heroes scholarship fund has been set up at the Marquette Community Foundation for healthcare workers to receive continuing education grants . The scholarships will be awarded once the project is fully funded by donations. The recipients will be selected by each of five Marquette County nursing homes..
The project has been supported by public donations and most recently by a $500 check from the Marquette Community Federal Credit Union.
“I have some personal experience with concerns about properly being taken care of in a nursing home with my mother and understanding how difficult it is on employees of nursing homes who go out of there way to be involved and provide proper care,” said Jim Lori, manager of the Marquette Community Federal Credit Union.
CTI director Rev. Jon Magnuson, top right, and CTI counselor/trainer Paul Olson listen to employees of the Eastwood Nursing Home in Negaunee, MI during February 2007 training provided by the Unsung Heroes Fund.
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“The training sounded like a great idea and a way the credit union could help out the community - I know how important it is,” Lori said.
Johnson said caring for the elderly and hospice patients is “very hard and a struggle for their families - so we deal with the families and some of our staff actually become an extra extended family member for that resident.”
“The Cedar Tree Institute and the Unsung Heroes Project is helping us at the nursing home deal with our stress and finding out what our triggers are for the stress,” Johnson said. “It’s very high stress for some of them as the different disease processes take over their bodies.”
Unsung Heroes offers a wide-range of spiritual support, stress and technique training, and grants for rural healthcare workers including often overlooked patient-care staff like nurses, aides, housekeeping, cooks and custodians.
The project involves doctors, clergy, relaxation techniques, money management, diet experts and others to help overworked healthcare/hospice aids and support staff.
“The training assists healthcare workers with the compassionate care of patients and their own stress-related issues in a rural health system that is stretched to the breaking point due to shrinking budgets that often don't address additional training needs,” said Rev. Jon Magnuson, director of the Cedar Tree Institute (CTI) in Marquette.
Magnuson said continuing education grants recipients report back on what they have learned and how it applies to their medical jobs.
“Financing for the additional training is not readily available from their own employers due to the economic hard times facing northern Michigan due to the highest unemployment and lowest household income in the state,” Magnuson said.
Staff at three Marquette County nursing homes - Eastwood, Norlite and Mather - received self-awareness and resiliency training in February 2007.
“Unsung Heroes is a support and renewal training program for nursing home, hospice and home health care workers,” Magnuson said.
“Physicians, nutritionists, and psychotherapists work together as a team to provide one-of-a kind training for the staff who are doing the overlooked real hands-on work for the elderly and patients in these care settings,” Magnuson said. “They teach coping skills and provide spiritual education that the participants use to provide better patient care and an improve relationship with co-workers.”
For more information on the Unsung Heroes Fund call 906-225-0504.
The Unsung Heroes Fund thanks and honors all employees of U.S. nursing homes for the loving care they provide to the elderly and hospice patients.
The Turtle Island Project: Centering prayer, jubilation, fighting for the environment, and clergy standing up for social change were all part of ecumenical retreat in northern Michigan
(Munising, Michigan) - A Chicago theology professor told northern Michigan clergy, church leaders, and the public "we live in a kyros moment" involving the environment and other social issues during a recent ecumenical retreat sponsored by the Turtle Island Project in Munising.
"We as human beings have not been good stewards of creation," said Rev. Dr. George Cairns, co-founder and board chair of the Turtle Island Project (TIP). "Native American peoples are the best living teachers of how to respect the environment."
The environment and the gifts of nature "are not something to simply be consumed," said Rev. Cairns, research professor theology for the Chicago Theological Seminary and an ordained United Church of Christ minister.
"The children of a generation or two from now are going to face a very very difficult time," said Cairns of Chesterton, Indiana.
The TIP project promotes respect for the environment and Earth-based cultures like Native Americans, Celts and others.
The TIP plans including national conferences and Native American roundtables providing a platform for American Indians to speak out on issues of concern to themselves or tribes without interference from whites.
Quoting internet research by several environment groups, Cairns said nearly 15,600 species are threatened with extinction and over the past 500 years humans have forced 844 species into extinction with the exception of a few from some of those groups who remain alive only in zoos, preserves and other manmade facilities.
Cairns noted several 2007 United Nations reports stating that almost one-third of the world's species of animals and plants are expected to be at risk of extinction by climate change within 50 years.
The U.N. studies were reported widely in Europe but received little attention in the U.S. news media. The TIP encourages clergy to become beacons for social change by speaking out about civil rights, environment and other issues.
"The Inconvenient Truth is good news compared to what I read on species extinction," warned Cairns, referring to the controversial global warming film by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore who shared a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"It's not that people are evil necessarily - it’s just that there are a lot of us and we are pushing for places to live," Cairns said.
One person attending the conference noted that the environmental problem is heightened by the fact people are living longer due to new drugs and better healthcare.
Cairns said it can be disheartening for the average person who wants to respect nature but witnesses some countries and corporations causing more pollution in a minute than a human can prevent in a lifetime.
"They are building new coal-fired power plants in China every week," Cairns said.
"What’s going on are there are really huge corporations who are trying to hoist off the environmental responsibility to individuals," Cairns said.
"We need to treat the Earth like we would treat a beloved spouse or friend," Cairns said.
An event of the TIP's Grand Island Grand Island Conference and Retreat Program, "Quest for Harmony: The Contemplation of Nature in the Christian Tradition" was held on Friday, November 9, 2007 at Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising.
Cairns demonstrated "centering prayer" that is a method of silent and contemplative prayer.
Clearing the mind of extraneous thought and choosing a word to help focus thoughts are among ways to silently pray for twenty minutes two times daily.
"There is no wrong way to do centering prayer," said Cairns, who learned the art from Father Thomas Keating, one of three Trappist monks considered to be the founders of the technique.
"Centering prayer helps us develop a deeper intimacy with God," Cairns said. "We open ourselves to God’s movement within."
Centering prayer creates a "little more compassion and kindness" Cairns' said.
All the world’s religions have some form of silent prayer, Cairns said.
The daily silent prayer, Cairns said, enables him to better face the evil in the world and to strive for social change with a clear mind.
"We can’t do this (fight evil) with just our brains," Cairns said. "It allows one to engage more fully - we are re-empowered for engagement."
The calming of entering prayer allows people to become a "full human being" and be "more efficient and effective in our lives," Cairns said. "You free yourself from blinders. It reveals the dark spaces in the heart that restricts what you are doing."
TIP co-founder and director Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard said centering prayer revitalizes "individuals like us who spend so much time in our rational brains."
"You retreat to recharge your batteries to fight another day," said Hubbard, pastor of Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising.
Those attending retreat were introduced to "jubilation" a former of chanted prayer or singing that creates unique sounds. During jubilation, people create music through emitting more than one sound or pitch at the same time using a form of humming.
A group of people performing jubilation sometimes creates sounds that no one individual has made because the sound waves collide with each other and the objects in the room, Cairns said.
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Related websites:
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Stories on U.N. reports prepared by about 400 of the world’s scientists on global environment, global warming, and other issues since June 2007:
The non-profit Turtle Island Project (TIP) in northern Michigan promotes respect for the environment and Native Americans.
The project was founded in July 2007 and battles exploitation of the environment, racism, and religious imperialism.
The TIP tackles numerous environment and social issues including learning to protect the planet from Earth-based cultures.
Founders are Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard., the pastor of Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising, Michigan who has worked extensively with the Lakota tribe in South Dakota; and Rev. Dr. George Cairns, United Church of Christ minister, an expert in Celtic spirituality and a research professor of Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary.
in rebirth of 1960s student environmental activism
The Emanuel Lutheran Youth group protects environment through projects, education and donations
Youth wing of Emanuel Lutheran Church of Skandia donates to NMU Lutheran Campus Ministry, support NMU EK student projects
A successful fundraiser was recently held for the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper (NMU EK) Student Team and NMU Lutheran Campus Ministry (LCM) to support environment related projects in northern Michigan.
The Emanuel Lutheran Youth group of the Emanuel Lutheran Church of Skandia gave a check to the groups from money raised during recycling and cleanup projects.
Pictured left to right are Johnny Bergdahl, Jon Berglund, Pastor Chad Christensen, Sammy and Breanna Bahrman (hidden), Sammy Bergdahl, Kendra Heikkila, and Elizabeth McCarthy.
(All photos by Greg Peterson)
Rev. John Magnuson addresses the hundreds of people who attended the free October 2007 benefit concert for the NMU EK Student Team and Lutheran Campus Ministry.
Led by Pastor Chad Christensen, the ELY are the youth arm of the Emanuel Lutheran Church of Skandia.
"This year we were learning about the environment," Rev. Christensen said.
The youth group has learned how "in our day-to-day lives, we can best care for the Earth and our surroundings," Christensen said.
Formed in 2002, the ELY is comprised of youth ranging in age from 11 to 18.
The ELY learned this summer what they can do at home like creating a compost pile and the best use of household hazardous waste - everyday items that can have a negative effect on the environment if not properly handled, disposed or recycled.
"They learned about reading labels on cleaning agents and herbicides used for gardening," Christensen said. "Why we should not flush pharmaceuticals so they don’t get in groundwater."
The Emanuel Lutheran Youth group of the Emanuel Lutheran Church of Skandia. Pictured Left to right are Kendra Heikkila, Elizabeth McCarthy, Andy Bahrman, Breanna Bahrman, Johnny Bergdahl, Jon Berglund, Sammy Bergdahl, and Pastor Chad Christensen.
The Munising Band Greg LaCombe and Loose Ends played music that inspired lots of people to dance at the free benefit concert for the NMU EK Student team and LCM.
Greg LaCombe of Munising and his band Loose Ends perform in Marquette, Michigan
The ELY presented a check to the NMU Lutheran Campus Ministry (LCM) during an October 2007 benefit concert for its environmental wing, the NMU EK Student Team in Marquette.
The student EarthKeepers, who are attempting to start student chapters at three other universities, are part of the overall Michigan Earth Keeper Initiative that was recently declared one of America’s 15 hardest working faith-based non-profits for the second year in a row by a national magazine.
Reminiscent of student environmental activism 40 years ago, the youths are being noticed in an area where some adult business leaders are supporting a controversial sulfide mining proposal.
The ELY members "are learning to protect the earth and they are concerned about the state of the planet that my generation is leaving them," said Rev. Jon Magnuson, director of LCM and the NMU EK Student Team.
During the presentation of the check, Magnuson thanked the Skandia youths for raising the money one dime at a time.
The ELY group "have the same environmental goals as the Earth Keeper students they are helping," said Magnuson, who dreamed of creating the interfaith Earth Keepers ten years ago.
Hundreds attended the free NMU EK benefit concert featuring the Munising band "Greg LaCombe and Loose Ends."
The annual NMU EK benefit concert is sponsored by the non-profit Turtle Island Project, its founder/director Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard , and Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church, all of Munising. Other benefit concert sponsors include Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and the public.
Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard, left, founder/director of the Turtle Island Project and organizes the annual benefit concert, holds a paper with a list of upcoming events while Rev. Jon Magnuson talks to the audience. Magnuson is director of Lutheran Campus Ministry and founded the NMU EK Student Team, a vital part of the Michigan Earth Keepers.
Hubbard said he organizes the annual concert because "the student Earth Keepers are doing important work to protect the environment that deserves to be supported."
The ELY group pick a different theme each year for their October lock-in retreat and in 2007 it’s learning how to protect the environment and putting those lessons to work.
"Prior to concert, we had come from (LCM) Lothlorien house and the NMU students talked to us about climate control and pollution," Christensen said "We also toured the Marquette Food Co-op."
The university students and the Skandia area youths both participated in the 2006 and 2007 Earth Keeper Clean Sweep that collected old/unwanted drugs and old/broken electronics like computers and cells phones. All items in the Earth Day collections were either recycled or properly disposed
Pastor Christensen said the ELY "wanted to give the donation to Lutheran Campus Ministry for their work in environmental care."
"We are learning in confirmation classes about the environment in the scriptures," Christensen said. "In Genesis the Bible explains God’s creative hand is forming the world."
"We learned from the NMU students that it does make a difference on how we dispose of oil, and where our trash may end up if we are littering," Christensen said.
During October’s "lock-in" the ELY group "played games and trivia on bible and environment issues and held Saturday morning worship," Rev. Christensen said.
The "lock-in" part is spending a night at their church, but the youth are very active for several weeks surrounding the event including collecting bottles and cans to raise money - one dime at a time - for organizations that help the community.
The ELY have raised money for the Nifty Thrifty Food Pantry, Inc. in Eben Junction and collected canned food from the Emanuel Lutheran Church congregation.
"Last year the youth had a fasting retreat so we learned about world hunger themes," said Rev. Christensen.
The numerous ELY service projects include cleaning road ditches and caroling at Christmas time for people who are shut in for most of the winter.
Christian education is a big part of the ELY program including a retreat at the Fortune Lake Lutheran Camp in Crystal Falls, MI that examined "participation in church life and what that will mean when they get older," Christensen said.
In the spring of 2008, the ELY will take a field trip to Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota that is named after Martin Luther, the founder of Lutheranism and the Protestant (and German) Reformation.
Christensen joined the Emanuel Lutheran Church of Skandia in 2000 as his first calling after studying at Luther Seminary. Christensen hails from the Rockwellian town of Walnut Grove, MN - home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the celebrated author of the "Little House" Books - a series of novels that inspired the Little House on the Prairie TV show.
The numerous ELY service projects include cleaning road ditches and caroling at Christmas time for people who are shut in.
NMU President meets for an hour with students trying to save environment research project; Dr. Les Wong given ongoing petition with nearly 900 signatures to stop Native Plants Project from being uprooted to build dorms
Dr. Wong impressed with students knowledge, preparation: NMU is "producing young scholars who want us to do the right thing"
(Marquette, Michigan) - Students presented an ongoing petition with nearly 900 signatures to Northern Michigan University President Les Wong during a one-hour meeting today and left his offices with renewed hope to save an environment research project from being uprooted to build dorms.
The Native Plants Project will be destroyed to build dorms if the proposed NMU Master Plan is not changed.
NMU student Michael Rotter, a senior biology major spearheading the petition drive, and representatives of three other student environment organizations attended the meeting with NMU President Les Wong that lasted about an hour on Thursday (Oct. 25, 2007).
NMU Student Michael Rotter is leading the fight to protect the Native Plants Project that has involved the blood, sweat and tears of hundreds of students
"I found the meeting encouraging," said Rotter, adding the students presented Dr. Wong with petitions signed by nearly 900 NMU students who hope to save the Native Plants Project from being destroyed to build dorms.
Five students met with Dr. Wong including Amber Masters, social chair for the Environmental Science Organization; Cory Howes, president of the Students Against Sulfide Mining; Eric Miller, president of the Superior Geography Club; and NMU senior Emily Wessels, an NMU senior and environmental science major.
"Dr. Wong seemed very supportive and open to our opinions - but no promises were made," said Rotter, a member of the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper Student Team.
"We showed him maps of the area and we talked to him about future ideas for the study area," Rotter said.
The five-acre Native Plants Project is located on the northside of the Northern Michigan University campus. (NMU Native Plant Project Photos by Professor Dr. Ronald Sundell)
NMU President Wong has stressed the master plan is a proposal and a final decision has not been made.
Dr. Wong said he "was thoroughly impressed with the students' knowledge and preparation."
"Their ideas have merit and their proactive manner in helping me think through the issues was deeply appreciated," Dr. Wong said. "I'm proud of the role NMU played not only in their education but in producing young scholars who want us to do the right thing."
"I look forward to future meetings with them," Dr. Wong said.
Students are learning a great deal about the environment as the work inside and out on the Native Plants Project at NMU
Dr. Wong was presented with future plans for the Native Plants Project including planting white pine and red oak trees to protect students from bitter winter weather in an area of the five acre Native Plants Project that Rotter described as "a wind tunnel that channels the wind through the buildings."
"He really liked some of ours ideas to reduce the winds in the area during the winter and to rearrange the sidewalks for students to have better access to classes and other areas of campus," Rotter said.
Rotter said some of the white pine trees will be 10-feet tall when planted so there is an immediate effect that will provide increasing protection with the growth of branches.
Northern Michigan University students are trying to save their four-year-old Native Plants project that will be a valuable seed tool for other northern Michigan environment efforts and help attract students to the campus along Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula if its not destroyed to make dorms
"Dr. Wong gave us some advice on who we can talk to in the administration about keeping out native plants study area intact," Rotter said.
"Dr. Wong was very open and very inviting to our ideas on the native plants area," Rotter said. "He could not guarantee us anything but it was very encouraging none-the-less."
Rotter said the students were given information on how to be put on the agenda of the December NMU Board of Trustees meeting to make a presentation about the native plants.
The students will continue the petition drive and other efforts to spare the Native Plants Project from being uprooted.
"Our next step is to continue to meet with members of administration and talk to the Board of Trustees and to continue collecting signatures on our petitions," Rotter said.
Students have gathered about 900 signatures in an attempt to stop NMU from removing the Native Plants Project that has received $24,000 in state and federal funding, said Rotter, who spent many hours protecting the plants from this summer’s drought and is spearheading the petition drive with help from other students.
Thousands of students hours have gone into making the project a success and it includes The project includes field sampling of vegetation, insects, birds, small mammals, and is expected to attract reptiles and amphibians
NMU President Wong said that "there is no clear consensus on the location of the residence halls and there is considerable opinion that any structure that impinges on the Native Plant Project would not have campus-wide support."
If the native plants project is taken off the chopping block, President Wong and other members of the NMU administration will prove the university is sincere when it uses the slogan "Northern Naturally" to promote the campus, Rotter said.
The native plants outdoor classroom will include a northern open pine barrens, a retention pond/wetland area, upland mesic forest and shrub types representing various northern Michigan habitats. The project has attracted insects, birds, and small mammals and is expected to attract amphibians and reptiles.
Over the past four years, hundreds of NMU students have worked hard to build the Native Plants Project that will soon become a beautiful part of campus if it's not destroyed by NMU dorm planners
The outdoor classroom is used to study ecological modeling, plant identification, native plant propagation, restoration techniques and water quality.
Dr. Sundell said that campus planners have other areas to build dorms instead of destroying the native plants area.
"We understand the work that has gone into the planting project, and that some of the plants may not do well if moved," said Dr. Wong, who has toured the project. "We want feedback on the big ideas."
Rotter is receiving support from student organizations including the NMU Environmental Science Organization, Superior Geography Club, Sustainable Agriculture club, and the Students Against Sulfide Mining.
Native plants help keep waterways clean, build habitat for animals and other organisms, Rotter said.
The student founders of the project hope to be able to show to their children what they helped start.
"I have always told my students that the project they started is part of a long term green-scaping of the campus," Sundell said. "The university has started an environmental sustainability committee to make our campus greener and address other issues like reducing our energy requirements, and less pesticide and fertilizer use."
Beautiful flowers are part of the project that is coming of age and will soon have many flowering plants in brilliant colors
"Our Native Plants Project is a prime example to the university committee and the general community on how to develop more sustainable systems on campus and the U.P.," Sundell said.
"In the plan they state this a would be a green corridor - this is already a green corridor," Sundell said. "If they carry through with the plan they have a building that would block that green corridor.
"The native plants are part of a current green corridor that stretches north from classrooms in the new science building to the existing dorms," Sundell said.
Hundreds of students from the student environmental science organization and NMU classes have assisted in development of the Native Plants Project site, Sundell said.
NMU students who have helped Professor Sundell develop and manage the Native Plant Project over the past four years are Mike Stefancic, Jason Woodhull and Michael Rotter. The three students each spent a summer managing the native plants including planting, maintaining and developing of the site Sundell said.
This map shows the five acre project at NMU that is growing each year but now faces destruction to make way for dorms and other student housing.
Despite the worst drought in U.P. history the student volunteers added about 11,000 native plants to the project this summer, Sundell said.
"This Native Plants Project is valuable as an educational and research site and a native seed bank for future environmental restoration project in the central U.P.," said Sundell. "As the project moves forward NMU will become a major seed source for environmental restoration projects in the central U.P."
The Native Plants Project is coming of age and will add beauty to the campus including flowering plants and grasses in various shades of white, yellow, pink and purple, Sundell said.
NMU students put loving care into the five-acre Native Plants Project on the north side of campus (NMU Native Plant Project Photos by Professor Dr. Ronald Sundell)
Student Michael Rotter can be reached by calling 231-250-3061
email: mrotter@nmu.edu
The NMU EK Student team can be reached by calling 906-475-5068
email: earthkeeper@charter.net
Project Prof. Dr. Ronald Sundell can be reached at 906-227-1359
NMU President meets for an hour with students trying to save environment research project; Dr. Les Wong given ongoing petition with nearly 900 signatures to stop Native Plants Project from being uprooted to build dorms
Dr. Wong impressed with students knowledge, preparation: NMU is "producing young scholars who want us to do the right thing"
Students to explain effort to save the Native Plants Project at Lake Superior environment conference
(Marquette, Michigan) - Students presented an ongoing petition with nearly 900 signatures to Northern Michigan University President Les Wong during a one-hour meeting today and left his offices with renewed hope to save an environment research project from being uprooted to build dorms.
The Native Plants Project will be destroyed to build dorms if the proposed NMU Master Plan is not changed.
NMU student Michael Rotter, a senior biology major spearheading the petition drive, and representatives of three other student environment organizations attended the meeting with NMU President Les Wong that lasted about an hour on Thursday (Oct. 25, 2007).
NMU Student Michael Rotter is leading the fight to protect the Native Plants Project that has involved the blood, sweat and tears of hundreds of students
"I found the meeting encouraging," said Rotter, adding the students presented Dr. Wong with petitions signed by nearly 900 NMU students who hope to save the Native Plants Project from being destroyed to build dorms.
Five students met with Dr. Wong including Amber Masters, social chair for the Environmental Science Organization; Cory Howes, president of the Students Against Sulfide Mining; Eric Miller, president of the Superior Geography Club; and NMU senior Emily Wessels, an NMU senior and environmental science major.
"Dr. Wong seemed very supportive and open to our opinions - but no promises were made," said Rotter, a member of the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper Student Team.
"We showed him maps of the area and we talked to him about future ideas for the study area," Rotter said.
The five-acre Native Plants Project is located on the northside of the Northern Michigan University campus. (NMU Native Plant Project Photos by Professor Dr. Ronald Sundell)
NMU President Wong has stressed the master plan is a proposal and a final decision has not been made.
Dr. Wong said he "was thoroughly impressed with the students' knowledge and preparation."
"Their ideas have merit and their proactive manner in helping me think through the issues was deeply appreciated," Dr. Wong said. "I'm proud of the role NMU played not only in their education but in producing young scholars who want us to do the right thing."
"I look forward to future meetings with them," Dr. Wong said.
Students are learning a great deal about the environment as the work inside and out on the Native Plants Project at NMU
Dr. Wong was presented with future plans for the Native Plants Project including planting white pine and red oak trees to protect students from bitter winter weather in an area of the five acre Native Plants Project that Rotter described as "a wind tunnel that channels the wind through the buildings."
"He really liked some of ours ideas to reduce the winds in the area during the winter and to rearrange the sidewalks for students to have better access to classes and other areas of campus," Rotter said.
Rotter said some of the white pine trees will be 10-feet tall when planted so there is an immediate effect that will provide increasing protection with the growth of branches.
Northern Michigan University students are trying to save their four-year-old Native Plants project that will be a valuable seed tool for other northern Michigan environment efforts and help attract students to the campus along Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula if its not destroyed to make dorms
"Dr. Wong gave us some advice on who we can talk to in the administration about keeping out native plants study area intact," Rotter said.
"Dr. Wong was very open and very inviting to our ideas on the native plants area," Rotter said. "He could not guarantee us anything but it was very encouraging none-the-less."
Rotter said the students were given information on how to be put on the agenda of the December NMU Board of Trustees meeting to make a presentation about the native plants.
The students will continue the petition drive and other efforts to spare the Native Plants Project from being uprooted.
"Our next step is to continue to meet with members of administration and talk to the Board of Trustees and to continue collecting signatures on our petitions," Rotter said.
Students have gathered about 900 signatures in an attempt to stop NMU from removing the Native Plants Project that has received $24,000 in state and federal funding, said Rotter, who spent many hours protecting the plants from this summer’s drought and is spearheading the petition drive with help from other students.
Thousands of students hours have gone into making the project a success and it includes The project includes field sampling of vegetation, insects, birds, small mammals, and is expected to attract reptiles and amphibians
NMU President Wong said that "there is no clear consensus on the location of the residence halls and there is considerable opinion that any structure that impinges on the Native Plant Project would not have campus-wide support."
If the native plants project is taken off the chopping block, President Wong and other members of the NMU administration will prove the university is sincere when it uses the slogan "Northern Naturally" to promote the campus, Rotter said.
The native plants outdoor classroom will include a northern open pine barrens, a retention pond/wetland area, upland mesic forest and shrub types representing various northern Michigan habitats. The project has attracted insects, birds, and small mammals and is expected to attract amphibians and reptiles.
Over the past four years, hundreds of NMU students have worked hard to build the Native Plants Project that will soon become a beautiful part of campus if it's not destroyed by NMU dorm planners
The outdoor classroom is used to study ecological modeling, plant identification, native plant propagation, restoration techniques and water quality.
Dr. Sundell said that campus planners have other areas to build dorms instead of destroying the native plants area.
"We understand the work that has gone into the planting project, and that some of the plants may not do well if moved," said Dr. Wong, who has toured the project. "We want feedback on the big ideas."
Rotter is receiving support from student organizations including the NMU Environmental Science Organization, Superior Geography Club, Sustainable Agriculture club, and the Students Against Sulfide Mining.
Native plants help keep waterways clean, build habitat for animals and other organisms, Rotter said.
The student founders of the project hope to be able to show to their children what they helped start.
"I have always told my students that the project they started is part of a long term green-scaping of the campus," Sundell said. "The university has started an environmental sustainability committee to make our campus greener and address other issues like reducing our energy requirements, and less pesticide and fertilizer use."
Beautiful flowers are part of the project that is coming of age and will soon have many flowering plants in brilliant colors
"Our Native Plants Project is a prime example to the university committee and the general community on how to develop more sustainable systems on campus and the U.P.," Sundell said.
"In the plan they state this a would be a green corridor - this is already a green corridor," Sundell said. "If they carry through with the plan they have a building that would block that green corridor.
"The native plants are part of a current green corridor that stretches north from classrooms in the new science building to the existing dorms," Sundell said.
Hundreds of students from the student environmental science organization and NMU classes have assisted in development of the Native Plants Project site, Sundell said.
NMU students who have helped Professor Sundell develop and manage the Native Plant Project over the past four years are Mike Stefancic, Jason Woodhull and Michael Rotter. The three students each spent a summer managing the native plants including planting, maintaining and developing of the site Sundell said.
This map shows the five acre project at NMU that is growing each year but now faces destruction to make way for dorms and other student housing.
Despite the worst drought in U.P. history the student volunteers added about 11,000 native plants to the project this summer, Sundell said.
"This Native Plants Project is valuable as an educational and research site and a native seed bank for future environmental restoration project in the central U.P.," said Sundell. "As the project moves forward NMU will become a major seed source for environmental restoration projects in the central U.P."
The Native Plants Project is coming of age and will add beauty to the campus including flowering plants and grasses in various shades of white, yellow, pink and purple, Sundell said.
NMU students put loving care into the five-acre Native Plants Project on the north side of campus (NMU Native Plant Project Photos by Professor Dr. Ronald Sundell)
Student Michael Rotter can be reached by calling 231-250-3061email: mrotter@nmu.edu
The NMU EK Student team can be reached by calling 906-475-5068
email: earthkeeper@charter.net
Project Prof. Dr. Ronald Sundell can be reached at 906-227-1359
Students convert Lutheran Campus Ministry lawn into eco-friendly Native Plants Garden
Rainstorm ends briefly for Blessing of the Garden ceremony
(Marquette, Michigan) - A "Blessing of the Garden" ceremony was held recently at Lothlorien - the Northern Michigan University Lutheran Campus Ministry house near Lake Superior.
Performing the ceremony was Rev. Jon Magnuson, director of Lutheran Campus Ministry (LCM) at Northern Michigan University (NMU) in Marquette, MI; and Rev. Tesshin Paul Lehmberg, head priest of Lake Superior Zendo, a Marquette Zen Buddhist temple.
The Lothlorien lawn has been turned into a native plants garden that includes rocks from three of the Great lakes and a solar fountain.
A heavy rain poured the entire day almost causing the ceremony to be moved inside, but the sun came out for 20 minutes and the rain resumed just as the blessing and a tour were completed.
The LCM house name, Lothlorien, comes from Lords of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The garden includes numerous different plants from Michigan and others from the Boreal border regions of the northern United States including Black Eye Susan and aster, dogbane, bluestem, and Sensitive fern.
Prayers, incense, bells, and chants were part of the ceremony that included a tour of the garden by NMU Student Michael Joko Rotter, who is a member of Lake Superior Zendo.
"Lothlorien is a magical kingdom part of what Tolkien called Middle-earth - where time passes differently," said Rev. Jon Magnuson, a Lutheran pastor, who founded the NMU EarthKeeper Student Team. Many of the campus ministry students belong to the interfaith NMU EK Student Team.
"One of the first images of the Old Testament around the beauty of God's creation is a garden," Rev. Magnuson said.
"Our natural native plants landscaping - our Lothlorien garden - is a sign of a new way of living with the world," Magnuson said. "It honors the indigenous and native plants of our region."
The garden and the name of the LCM house reflect the way the students feel about nature.
"Lothlorien came into being first as a song," Rev. Magnuson said. "The garden will need little - if no artificial watering - no fertilizers and will be a haven for birds and other small creatures."
"There is going to be a solar fountain - the fountain represents the water of Lake Superior and the waters of our baptism," Magnuson said.
A fountain in the garden is going to be converted to solar power in the spring of 2008 and the sun will charge a battery allowing the water to flow in cloudy weather.
"In the back of the house there are rocks from the Lake Superior watershed," Rev. Magnuson said. "The pebbles represent the different worlds of the individuals who make up the region - and the people in the Great Lakes basin," Magnuson said.
Rotter, who manages the garden, said the students hope neighbors will enjoy the beauty of the native plants and use it as an example for their lawns.
"We hope this will allow people to learn about the amazing diversity of out native plant communities and inspire people to learn the benefits that native plants have, such as requiring a third less water, and no pesticides or fertilizers," said Rotter, a Zen Buddhist member of the NMU EK Student Team.
"The Zen garden represents our interconnected lives in nature,: Rotter said. "The stones from each of the great lake watersheds represent the flow of water, the substance that gives us life, and shows us how all of us are ‘downstream' and depend on our connection to the earth for life."
Rotter said the "garden represents the hope of the future."
"It's a powerful symbol of the future of people living in the environment," Rotter said. "Hopefully as the garden grows the area near the house will help us return to our original nature and realize the dynamics of nature and the role we play."
"Native plants are important parts of the ecosystem but because we have introduced new horticulture and many different types of plants, and sprayed our lawns with chemicals and destroyed areas with lawn mowers - we have lost our sense of being part of nature," Rotter explained.
The October 5, 2007 blessing happened a couple hours after Rotter received the bad news about the nearby five-acre Native Plants Project that he manages on campus with other students.
NMU planners are proposing that the four-year-old Outdoor Classroom and Native Plants Research Area be uprooted to build dorms, however the university president says final decisions have not been made.
--- related links: --- Lutheran Campus Ministry at Northern Michigan University: Lothlorien House Marquette, Michigan http://www.lakesuperiorinterfaith.com http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,207119.shtml http://www.elca.org/campusministry/celebrate100/pdf/essays.pdf --- The Cedar Tree Institute: http://www.CedarTreeInstitute.org 906-228-5494 --- Thrivent Financial for Lutherans: http://www.thrivent.com/ Michigan Chapters: https://service.thrivent.com/apps/FraternalOnline/public/RegionalFinancialOffice?action=GetChapters&RegionalFinancialOfficeId=283 --- The Central Upper Peninsula Chapter of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans: http://www.lutheransonline.com/servlet/lo_ProcServ/dbpage=page&gid=00018000001064232660724081&newsletter_id=20071078409678118401111555&mode=display&expanded=1 http://www.lutheransonline.com/servlet/lo_ProcServ/dbpage=page&mode=display&gid=00018000001064232660724081 Judith Ann Quirk, president Marquette, MI 49855-3335 906-228-6729 juqu@charter.net --- Victory Lutheran Church at K.I. Sawyer: Victory Lutheran Church 315 Explorer K.I. Sawyer, Michigan Church: 906-346-7405 Pastor: 906-346-3407 Cell: 906-360-6623 --- Lutheran World Relief: http://www.lwr.org/ --- Greater Ishpeming Pioneer Kiwanis Club wheelchair ramps project: http://www.kdfonline.org/kdf-board.htm http://www.co.marquette.mi.us/humanservices/COA%20Manual/community_organizations.pdf --- Michigan Kiwanis Club: www.michigankiwanis.org --- Find a Kiwanis club: http://www.kiwanis.org/FindaClub/tabid/84/Default.aspx/
Northern Michigan University President to meet with students who have collected nearly 900 signatures to save an environment research project from being uprooted to build dorms
Students will explain effort to save the Native Plants Project at Lake Superior environment conference
(Marquette, Michigan) - Students have collected nearly 900 signatures on petitions they will present to the Northern Michigan University president during a meeting Thursday in hopes of saving an environment research project from being uprooted to build dorms.
Meanwhile, the Northern Michigan University (NMU) students will travel to the western edge of Lake Superior next week to make a presentation on the four-year-old Outdoor Classroom and Native Plants Research Area during a conference of international environmental professionals. The Native Plants Project will be destroyed to build dorms if the proposed NMU Master Plan is not changed.
NMU student Michael Rotter, a senior biology major, said he and other students leaders will meet with Northern Michigan University (NMU) President Les Wong at 1 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 25, 2007).
NMU Student Michael Rotter is leading the fight to protect the Native Plants Project that has involved the blood, sweat and tears of hundreds of students
NMU President Wong stressed the master plan is a proposal and a final decision has not been made.
Students have gathered over 860 signatures in an attempt to stop NMU from removing the Native Plants Project that has received $24,000 in state and federal funding, said Rotter, who spent many hours protecting the plants from this summer's drought and is spearheading the petition drive with help from other students.
The five-acre Native Plants Project is located on the northside of the Northern Michigan University campus. (NMU Native Plant Project Photos by Professor Dr. Ronald Sundell)
NMU President Wong said that "there is no clear consensus on the location of the residence halls and there is considerable opinion that any structure that impinges on the Native Plant Project would not have campus-wide support."
Rotter said students are hoping that President Wong and other NMU officials will understand the importance of the Native Plants Project and change the master plan.
"I hope that once he sees the petition - President Wong will take a stand with his students that this is a project that must stay and be actively supported by the school administration," said Rotter, a member of the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper Student Team.
Students are learning a great deal about the environment as the work inside and out on the Native Plants Project at NMU
"We will be asking President Wong and others in the administration will they support the Native Plants Project," said Rotter.
If the native plants project is taken off the chopping block, President Wong will prove NMU is sincere when it uses the slogan "Northern Naturally" to promote the campus, Rotter said.
Meanwhile - Rotter and NMU senior Emily Wessels, an environmental science major, will present information on the effort to save native plants from being uprooted to build dorms while attending the event entitled: "Making a Great Lake Superior 2007 - a conference linking research, education and management" on October 29-31 in Duluth, Minnesota.
The conference is hosted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Great Lakes Sea Grant Network and the Lake Superior Binational Program. NMU is listed as one of several "working sponsors" because Dr. Sundell is one of the conference planners.
Northern Michigan University students are trying to save their four-year-old Native Plants project that will be a valuable seed tool for other northern Michigan environment efforts and help attract students to the campus along Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula if its not destroyed to make dorms
The students have been on the conference agenda for months but recently updated their presentation when they discovered the new NMU master plan includes removing the five acre project to build dorms, said Professor Ronald Sundell, director of the NMU Environmental Science Program.
The students are scheduled to present their poster session explaining the project and answer questions from 5:10 - 6:30 pm (CT).
"This is an opportunity for the students to present research materials in a professional setting," said Dr. Sundell, co-chair of the conference watershed stewardship session.
"During the poster session the students will discuss the development and ecological monitoring that is taking place by students on our campus involving the Native Plants Project," Sundell said.
"The students recently modified their presentation to include the efforts to save the project."
Thousands of students hours have gone into making the project a success and it includes The project includes field sampling of vegetation, insects, birds, small mammals, and is expected to attract reptiles and amphibians
"Attending the conference is a great learning experience for the students because they will meet with many environment professionals from government, private industry and nonprofit organizations," said Sundell, who is giving a presentation at the conference on how universities should coordinate their environmental research and monitoring efforts within the Lake Superior ecoregion.
The native plants outdoor classroom will include a northern open pine barrens, a retention pond/wetland area, upland mesic forest and shrub types representing various northern Michigan habitats. The project has attracted insects, birds, and small mammals and is expected to attract amphibians and reptiles.
Over the past four years, hundreds of NMU students have worked hard to build the Native Plants Project that will soon become a beautiful part of campus if it's not destroyed by NMU dorm planners
The outdoor classroom is used to study ecological modeling, plant identification, native plant propagation, restoration techniques and water quality.
Dr. Sundell said that campus planners have other areas to build dorms instead of destroying the native plants area.
"We understand the work that has gone into the planting project, and that some of the plants may not do well if moved," said Dr. Wong, who has toured the project. "We want feedback on the big ideas."
Rotter is receiving support from student organizations including the NMU Environmental Science Organization, Superior Geography Club, Sustainable Agriculture club, and the Students Against Sulfide Mining.
Native plants help keep waterways clean, build habitat for animals and other organisms, Rotter said.
The student founders of the project hope to be able to show to their children what they helped start.
"I have always told my students that the project they started is part of a long term green-scaping of the campus," Sundell said. "The university has started an environmental sustainability committee to make our campus greener and address other issues like reducing our energy requirements, and less pesticide and fertilizer use."
Beautiful flowers are part of the project that is coming of age and will soon have many flowering plants in brilliant colors
"Our Native Plants Project is a prime example to the university committee and the general community on how to develop more sustainable systems on campus and the U.P.," Sundell said.
"In the plan they state this a would be a green corridor - this is already a green corridor," Sundell said. "If they carry through with the plan they have a building that would block that green corridor.
"The native plants are part of a current green corridor that stretches north from classrooms in the new science building to the existing dorms," Sundell said.
Hundreds of students from the student environmental science organization and NMU classes have assisted in development of the Native Plants Project site, Sundell said.
NMU students who have helped Professor Sundell develop and manage the Native Plant Project over the past four years are Mike Stefancic, Jason Woodhull and Michael Rotter. The three students each spent a summer managing the native plants including planting, maintaining and developing of the site Sundell said.
This map shows the five acre project at NMU that is growing each year but now faces destruction to make way for dorms and other student housing.
Despite the worst drought in U.P. history the student volunteers added about 11,000 native plants to the project this summer, Sundell said.
"This Native Plants Project is valuable as an educational and research site and a native seed bank for future environmental restoration project in the central U.P.," said Sundell. "As the project moves forward NMU will become a major seed source for environmental restoration projects in the central U.P."
The Native Plants Project is coming of age and will add beauty to the campus including flowering plants and grasses in various shades of white, yellow, pink and purple, Sundell said NMU students put loving care into the five-acre Native Plants Project on the north side of campus (NMU Native Plant Project Photos by Professor Dr. Ronald Sundell)
Dr. Walter Brueggemann got his Marquette, Michigan audience involved in his talk about the bible and the environment often resulting in laughter and stunned silence - hundreds turned out for his talks at Northern Michigan University and Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, Michigan
Biblical scholar warns proposed U.P. sulfide mine is losing idea that puts economic interests over environment & local concerns
At the Northern Michigan University Lutheran Campus Ministry house, Theologian Dr. Walter Brueggemann shows an Earth Keeper Shirt he was given while sharing a laugh with Marquette Baha'i Spiritual Assembly leader Dr. Rodney Clarken, one of the 10 Earth Keeper Initiative faith communities.
Dr. Walter Brueggemann describes consequences of greed, overindulgence, and abuse of the environment
(Marquette, Michigan) - Noted theologian Dr. Walter Brueggemann warns that the proposed sulfide mine in northern Michigan is a losing proposition that puts economic interests over concerns of local residents and the environment.
In an interview following his Upper Peninsula visit, Brueggemann said while he doesn’t know the all the details about the proposed sulfide mine near Lake Superior in Marquette County he has done "some reading on the crisis of the proposed mining initiative" in northern Michigan.
Opponents of Michigan sulfide mine are worried that the Salmon-Trout River in Marquette County will be polluted like another sulfide mine did to this river (Save the Wild UP photo)
"It is obviously a case in which the well being of the environment and the well being of the neighborhood are being subordinated to economic interests," Brueggemann said.
"In the bible, the economy is, according to the Torah, kept subordinated to the well being of the neighborhood," Brueggemann said.
"This seems to me a case in which economic interests want to overpower the concerns of the neighborhood."
"From the perspective of biblical faith, that is always a loser," Brueggemann said.
On Monday night, a standing room only crowd clapped when he tied abuse of the environment to the proposed sulfide mine by stating abused land will not produce in the future.
"What this poet knows is that absentee ownership and agribusiness - and you can extrapolate the word mining - I don’t know much about it but I know that much - will simply refuse to produce when the land becomes a tradeable commodity and is no longer caressed, and honored and treated with its own particular creation magic," Brueggemann said.
"The land requires ownership that is partnership and without such partnership creation loses its interest in fruitfulness."
Speaking this week to packed audiences at two northern Michigan events, Dr. Brueggemann warned that today’s world should change its ways because the "creator will not tolerate the ultimate despoiling of creation."
Brueggemann’s talks were co-sponsored by Lutheran Campus Ministry, the interfaith NMU EarthKeeper Student Team, the NMU departments of Philosophy and English, the Northern Great Lakes Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming.
Northern Michigan University Earth Keeper (NMU EK) Student Team Project Director Jennifer Simula spoke during the event at NMU
Brueggemann’s visit "was another way we like to continue our (environmental) work and invite other people into our community so that we can learn from them and continue to grow in our knowledge about theology and creation and the environment as well," said Jennifer Simula, the NMU EK project director and a student leader with NMU Lutheran Campus Ministry.
Northern Michigan University Earth Keeper (NMU EK) Student Team Project Director Jennifer Simula turns podium over to Professor Don Dreisbach of NMU Dept. of Philosophy who introduced biblical Scholar Walter Brueggemann
Understanding the audience was filled with supporters of the environment, Brueggemann said he is "aware of the work of the Earth Keeper’s Covenant and so I already know that you are into these issues" describing his talk "simply as a reinforcement footnote to what all of you have already thought."
Earlier in the day, Brueggemann was given an Earth Keepers shirt.
Noted author and Bible scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann holds an Earth Keeper shirt at Lutheran Campus Ministry on Monday Oct. 8, 2007
Speaking to over 400 people in Ishpeming and Marquette, Dr. Brueggemann said historically greed, disregard for the environment and "the violation of the ten commandments will lead to the dismantling of creation."
An expert and prolific author on the Old Testament, Brueggemann quote numerous biblical verses and described the prophets of the time as "poets" who warned about the greedy abuse of nature because people must "view the environment as God’s gift that requires responsible management.
"Bringing humor and simple explanations to complex scripture, Dr. Brueggemann’s animated translations invoked passion, laughter, and stunned silence that was often punctuated with crescendos, whispers and dramatic gestures like a fist in the air or hands clutching his head.
"Every national security state works itself to destruction - never learning in time the limits to acquisitiveness and giving full rein to satiation," Brueggemann said Monday night (Oct. 8, 2007) at Northern Michigan University in Marquette.
Dr. Walter Brueggemann got his Marquette, Michigan audience involved in his talk about the bible and the environment often resulting in laughter and stunned silence - hundreds turned out for his talks at Northern Michigan University and Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, Michigan
Dr. Brueggemann's ecumenical public talks are reflected in his personal life. Brueggemann is a member of the United Church of Christ, teaches at a Presbyterian Seminary, and worships in an Episcopal congregation.
Speaking to about 200 people Tuesday night (Oct. 9) at the Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, Brueggemann said in the New Testament Jesus fed people with loaves of bread warning his followers about the evil ways of greedy pharaohs.
Brueggemann said "for the sake of the common good - for good health care policy, good schools, for better housing - the work of the neighborhood depends upon the power of the dream to dream outside the pharaoh’s regime of anxiety."
"One way to understand the worship of the church, is every time we gather - we gather to dream the dream of God’s abundance that powers us to the neighborhood," Brueggemann said.
Rev. Warren Geier, pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, said in all Dr. Brueggemann's talks the theologian "highlighted that God's intention for the world, as articulated in the Ten Commandments, is that we live in relationship with God and with the neighbor."
"This can't be done without respect and care for the ‘neighborhood' which is the earth, God's gift of creation," said Geier, who organized Brueggemann's U.P. visit.
Brueggemann "emphasized the need the tell the truth, not to deny reality and pretend things are other than they are," Geier said.
Rev. Warren Geier, right, who organized Dr. Walter Brueggemann's northern Michigan appearances, takes notes during the theologian's talk at Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, Michigan
"This is done in order to get to hope, the realization that there is another way that counters ways that seem unchangeable - to use Dr. Brueggemann's words: ‘The data on the ground is not the final truth; it's outflanked by the fidelity of God. There are new gifts to be given'," Geier said.
Describing a story about land abuse in the book of Isaiah, Brueggemann said the text warns about coveting land and "exercising eminent domain and buying up the property of neighbors until there is no one left but you."
"You are left to live alone in the midst of the land - woe you," he said.
An Atlanta resident, Dr. Brueggemann said a verse that states "these many houses shall become desolate - large beautiful houses without inhabitants" reminds him of the once prosperous southern cotton plantations.
"When I read about large beautiful houses that become desolate without inhabitants I think of Tara in Gone with the Wind," Brueggemann said in Marquette.
"You know that the cotton industry in the south was the wealthiest economy in the world and nobody paid any attention."
Lutheran Campus Ministry Director Rev. John Magnuson, right, talks with author/biblical scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann who visited with students and boards members at the LCM home on Oct. 8, 2007 near Northern Michigan University in Marquette, MI
Describing an agricultural economic crisis, Brueggemann said "the text goes on in this poem to imagine that when the land is organized so that it destroys a neighborhood that the land simply refuses to produce."
"God has said to the land ‘be fruitful’ and the land simply says ‘I won’t do it - I won’t grow anything’," Brueggemann said. Dr. Brueggemann said you know when the poets (prophets) are about to make a point - and interject "moral passion" - when they use words like "therefore" or "alas."
"When you read a ‘therefore’ in this poetry you must duck," said Brueggemann - in one example of his wit that evoked laughter sometimes adding levity to an intense Biblical lesson.
"I believe the gap between consumer indulgence and the consequences of that in our society has to be filled with moral passion and not with explanation," Brueggemann said.
The poets, Brueggemann said, warned of the possible outcomes of human behavior and were used in the Bible "as an interface between the power of acquisitiveness - on the one hand - and the poetry of alternative on the other hand."
"All through the heady years of Jerusalem there were ad-hoc protests and dissents and warnings," Brueggemann said of the poets who today would be considered liberal.
The poets were "not social action liberals - which they were - they were poets - they wrote poetry so that the world could be imagined outside the domain of (King) Solomon."
In the book of Hosea, "the Lord has an indictment with the inhabitants of the land," Brueggemann said.
"The inhabitants of the land are abusing the land so Yahweh (God in the Old Testament) is taking them to court," he said.
Brueggemann crafts his messages to have a direct bearing on today’s world while sticking to Biblical history - thus causing the audience to think and draw their own conclusions of time.
"Here is the indictment - see what this makes you think of," Brueggemann said leading the audience to a purposely indirect point.
"There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, adultery, bloodshed. What does that make you think of?"
An audience member said: "Iraq?"
"I meant in the Bible - I don't want to get into anything contemporary," said Brueggemann - delighting the crowd.
"There is lying, stealing, killing, adultery - the ten commandments," Brueggemann explained bringing home a Biblical lesson with contemporary impact.
"The indictment is - Israel in its acquisitiveness has violated the ten commandments."
"Now from what I have told you - what do you think comes next - ‘therefore’," Brugeggeman said. "Therefore the land mourns - this is a Biblical idiom for drought."
"When you violate the ten commandments you get a drought.- and then it says - because of the drought - the beasts and the fields and the birds and the air and the fish in the sea - What's that supposed to make you think of ? Creation is perishing. This is an extraordinary three-verse poem."
"The indictment is you break the ten commandments - the connection is the therefore - and the threat is that creation will be undone and won't grow anything anymore," Brueggemann said.
"The logic of the poem is that the violation of the ten commandments will lead to the dismantling of creation."
"The poet only knows that the land that is being abused is God’s creation and the poet knows there are limits to be honored and respected, restraints to be exercised and trusts to be cared for and when self indulgence overrides limits, restraints and trusts - creation has a way of circling back and bringing death," Brueggemann said.
"I heard a Rabbi once say - that in Auschwitz all Ten Commandments were systematically violated - and then he (Rabbi) said ‘whenever you violate all ten commandments then you get Auschwitz’," Brueggemann said.
"I would not suggest that our ecological crisis is of Auschwitz proportion - however you have got to believe that the violation of God’s commandments eventually jeopardize and risk the good gift of creation," Brueggemann said.
During a meeting at the Lutheran Campus Ministry house, Brueggemann said the American "Christian community has been overly pre-occupied - for a long period of time - with personal salvation and redemption - and the result of that is that we have reneged on the Creator - Creation question."
Brueggemann said "you can’t just turn it (the environment) into a commodity."
"I believe that our work in scripture study and teaching is to reread the Bible away from those personal questions toward the large questions of creation and creator so we learn to view the environment as God’s gift that requires responsible management," Brueggemann said.
Noted author and theologian Dr. Walter Brueggemann at Lutheran Campus Ministry in Marquette, Michigan
With the exception of noted Lutheran theologian Joseph Sittler, Brueggemann said that "Lutherans are notorious for not having had a very vibrant Doctrine of Creation."
Brueggemann said many fundamentalists just "want to talk about me and Jesus, and being saved by the blood and all that kind of business."
Fundamentalists "have no understanding of creation at all" and don’t "understand that our reception of the reality of God also has to do with honoring the Earth differently," Brueggemann said
"Those categories have almost been lost in the way the church conducts its teaching."
Many churches refuse to face antisemitism and past religious violence and instead are "sort of pretending" that Christian-related atrocities did not happen, Brueggemann said.
"I think we invite people to engage in wholesale denial about their own lives," Brueggemann said. As a result of denial, the communication to churchgoers, Brueggemann said, is "well if you feel violent - talk about it somewhere else - don’t do that here because we are all nice people here’."
It is "better to say we have a long history of antisemitism - we’ve go to own that," Brueggemann said.
"I think that good recovery of the Bible is like good psychotherapy."
At Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, Brueggemann said one of the saddest quotes by Jesus is in the New Testament book of Mark.
After Jesus feeds ten thousands people at two events with loaves of bread to spare - he’s out in a boat with two disciples who don’t understand his frustration over why they forgot the bread, Brueggemann said.
"The paragraph ends with what I think must be one of the saddest statements of Jesus in the new testament - Jesus says to them ‘do you not yet understand?’ He says to his disciples ‘you don’t get it, do you?’," Brueggemann said.
"What’s to get - is - wherever Jesus is - the power of anxiety has been broken - and there is an abundance that lets us get our minds off ourselves," Brueggemann said.
"So the disciples - the church - is invited to get its mind off itself - off its scarcity - off it’s narrow budget - off its parsimony."
The disciples "did not understand that Jesus is in the bread business," Brueggemann said.
"Watch out for the bread of the Herodians and the bread of the pharisees - he says watch out for the bread of the pharaoh because if you eat the bread of the pharaoh your stomach will be filled with anxiety," Brueggemann explained.
Brueggemann said Jesus then "gets a little reprimanding and he says to them ‘do you have eyes and not see - do you have ears and not hear and do you have hearts and not understand - don’t you know what we have been doing’?"
Brueggemann added that Mark says Jesus "took the bread, he blessed the bread, he broke the bread, he gave them the bread."
It was standing room only at NMU for the talk by scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann
"These are the four great verbs in the church for abundance - he took, he blessed, he broke, he gave - these are the four verbs of the Eucharist," Brueggemann said.
"These are the verbs whereby the gospel takes the stuff of the earth and transforms it into a wondrous abundance."
"So what Mark is telling us is - that the disciples know the numbers but they haven’t any idea what the numbers mean," Brueggemann said.
Brueggemann participated in Bill Moyers acclaimed PBS television series on the Book of Genesis.
A graduate of Elmhurst College, Professor Brueggemann studied at Eden Theological Seminary, receiving his Doctorate of Divinity from Union theological Seminary, New York, and a Ph.D from Saint Louis University.
Brueggemann was professor of Old Testament at Eden before joining the faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary in 1986.
He is currently William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia.
(Marquette, Michigan) - The dynamics of male spirituality and the feminization of the church will be explored in a free discussion series later this month sponsored by the Turtle Island Project."King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine" will be held from 7 - 10 p.m. on Tuesdays, October 23 and 30, 2007 at the Upfront and Company restaurant in Marquette.
C.G. Jung Dr. Robert Moore
Dr. Robert Moore book
The two evenings will explore the works of Dr. Robert Moore, a Jungian analyst who is one of the founders of the men's movement in the United States.
"This event is for those who have an interest in examining the dynamics of male spirituality, and it's impact upon the church," said Rev. Lynn Hubbard, director and co-founder of the non-profit Turtle Island Project (TIP) in Munising, Michigan.
"One of the questions we will examine is why the church is not attracting as many men as women."
Turtle Island Project Director Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard
"We will examine what can be done to attract more men to participate and enjoy faith related activities and make suggestions as to how to start a mens group within your own spiritual community," Hubbard said.
"In some congregations there is a noticeable difference in the larger number of women versus men who attend the church."
"We will explore the feminization of the church and why fewer men are joining spiritual communities as lay persons or leaders," Hubbard said.
The series is the second event in the Grand Island Conference and Retreat Program which recently held a Native American Roundtable and a discussion concerning Earth-based spiritualities and their contribution to contemporary religious communities.
First Grand Island Conference & Retreat Series Sept. 13-15, 2007:
TIP Native American Roundtable & Celtic Spirituality
Organizers have scheduled numerous events during the next six months on a wide range of Native American, environmental and related religious issues.
The Grand Island Conference and Retreat Program events - sponsored by the TIP - are free but donations to cover costs are welcome.
For more information and registration materials call 906-387-5615or the TIP website:www.TurtleIslandProject.org
Quest for Harmony: The Contemplation of Nature in the Christian Tradition
(Munising, Michigan) - A free spiritual retreat on interfaith prayer and nature for all northern Michigan churches and temples will be held in Munising in early November.
The gathering for all Upper Peninsula faith communities is the third of many events that are scheduled through the summer of 2008 under the Grand Island Conference and Retreat Program.
The retreat is scheduled from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Friday, November 9, 2007 at Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising.
Rev. Dr. George Cairns of Chesterton. Indiana will lead the retreat. Cairns is an experienced practitioner of many forms of traditional Christian spirituality and an expert in Celtic Christianity.
The interfaith Grand Island conferences, retreats and seminars are one leg of the TIP in Munising that promotes respect for the environment and Native American culture.
The TIP encourages all religions to work together and listen to Earth-based cultures like Native Americans, Celts and others.
A research professor of theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary, Dr. Cairns is TIP co-founder and board chairman.
Dr. Cairns has led inter-faith prayer groups and has developed methods for people of many faiths to be in prayer, authentic to their own traditions.
"As a Christian, I believe that it is my duty to pray with people of other faiths in ways where I do not forget that I am a follower of Christ and where I do not coerce them to follow my path." Dr. Cairns said.
The ecumenical retreat is for faith communities “seeking to learn how to pray with others,” said Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard, TIP director and co-founder.
“This will be a contemplative and prayerful time - shared in a caring community of fellow Christians and anyone else who wishes to be with us,” Hubbard said.
“Dr. Cairns will lead us in an exploration on the history of Christian spirituality, and the importance of nature, in the Christian tradition,” Hubbard said.
In the Spirit of the Earth: Ecology and Spiritual Liberation
(Marquette. Michigan) - A series of free discussions on the relationship between the environment and theology including what Christians can learn from Native American culture will be held in Marquette on Tuesday evenings in November.
Sponsored by the Turtle Island Project (TIP)in Munising, the seminars will examine whether Christianity is partially to blame for the ecological crisis and whether Christianity offers a viable solution to the problem.
The seminars will include discussion on what western religions can learn from earth-based spiritualities and the contribution of Native American spirituality to the solution of the ecological crisis.
TIP Director Lynn Rev. Dr. Hubbard of Munising will read selections from the works of Leonardo Boff, Vine Deloria, Jr., George Tinker and Steve Charleston.
The seminars will be held from 7-10 p.m. Tuesdays, November 6, 13, 20, 27, 2007 at Upfront & Company restaurant in Marquette, MI.
The seminars are free but donations are welcome to defray expenses.
The TIP seminars are the latest in a series of public events schedule throughthe summer of 2008 that are part of the Grand Island Retreat and Conference and Retreat Program.
The TIP promotes respect for the environment and for the Native American culture.
Pre-registration for the ecological seminar is required by November 7, 2007.
You can register by calling 906-387-5615 or visit: turtleislandproject.org
Northern Michigan University students are trying to save their four-year-old Native Plants project that will be a valuable seed tool for other northern Michigan environment efforts and help attract students to the campus along Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula if its not destroyed to make dorms
“Green wash” at Northern Michigan University
Plans to destroy a student environment and
research project is at university that uses
slogan "Northern Naturally"
(Marquette, Michigan) - Northern Michigan University students are battling a university plan to bulldoze a four-year-old environment study project to build new dorms.
Northern Michigan University (NMU) student Michael Joko Rotter is leading a petition drive and other student efforts to stop the university from destroying the five acre Outdoor Classroom and Native Plants Research Area - that has received $24,000 in state and federal funding.
During the past week, Rotter started a petition drive and media campaign - collecting over 500 signatures and organizing several student organizations to battle the NMU administration plans to eliminate the Native Plants Project garden and research area.
NMU Student Michael Rotter is leading the fight to protect the Native Plants Project that has involved the blood, sweat and tears of hundreds of students
"We have spent the last four years working hard to make the area natural and educational," said Rotter, a 22-year-old NMU senior.
"Native plants contribute to helping keep our waterways clean, building habitat for animals and other organisms, and contribute to a more sustainable lawn."
The five-acre native plants outdoor classroom has oak/jack pine savanna, a retention pond/wetland area, upland mesic forest and shrub types representing various northern Michigan habitats .
“If NMU is going to use the slogan “Northern Naturally” to me this project is the epitome of that whole slogan,” said project professor Dr. Ronald Sundell, director of the NMU Environmental Science Program.
NMU students put loving care into the five-acre Native Plants Project on the north side of campus (NMU Native Plant Project Photos by Professor Dr. Ronald Sundell)
“The project has been approved by the university under their former master plan that is now being revised - now they are saying they are going to put up new dorms - brick and mortar,” said Dr. Sundell, who is active in several northern Michigan environment projects.
The students hope to convince "campus planners to preserve our native plants and make Northern green and not give it a ‘green wash'," said Rotter, who is a member of the NMU EarthKeeper Student Team that has organized numerous environment projects including helping to recycle or properly disposed of over 370 tons of household hazardous waste on the past three Earth Days.
The project includes field sampling of vegetation, insects, birds, small mammals, reptiles, and amphibians); ecological modeling, plant identification, native plant propagation, restoration techniques; water quality and oil analysis plus weather and climate studies.
Literally hundreds of students from the student environmental science organization and NMU classes have assisted in the development of this site,” Sundell said.
Over the past four years, hundreds of NMU students have worked hard to build the Native Plants Project that will soon become a beautiful part of campus if it's not destroyed by NMU dorm planners
“I think there are opportunities for the university to enhance their environmental science program and attract significant numbers of new students to NMU,” Sundell said. “And it’s things like the Native Plants Project that makes this attractive to potential students interested in environmental restoration and environmental sustainability.”
Rotter has fostered support from the NMU Environmental Science Organization, Superior Geography Club, Sustainable Agriculture club, and the Students Against Sulfide Mining.
NMU students instrumental in creating and nurturing the Native Plant Project over the past four years are Mike Stefancic, a graduate who was part of the first planting; and Jason Woodhull, who trained by Stefancic and then passed the torch to Michael Rotter.
Thousands of students hours have gone into making the project a success and it includes The project includes field sampling of vegetation, insects, birds, small mammals, reptiles, and amphibians
“These students have helped out during the summers doing the planting, maintaining and developing of the site,” Sundell said.
“This was the worst drought in the recorded history of the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) and with the help of Mike Rotter and other student volunteers we were able to add an additional 11,000 plants to the campus Native Plant Project this summer,” Sundell said.
“And during this dry summer the students maintained the part we had established - even under these harsh conditions it grew in size about one third of an acre.”
“It takes a lot of care for these plants to become well establish - but once they are established they will need minimal maintenance,” Sundell said. If it’s not destroyed, the project will help other environmental efforts in northern Michigan.
“You can’t go a lot of places and find native seed - we are becoming a major seed source,” Sundell said “We are planning to give the seeds to organizations across the central U.P. for restoration projects.”
The Native Plants Project is coming of age and soon will add beauty to the campus. Beautiful flowers are part of the project that is coming of age and will soon have many flowering plants in brilliant colors
“It may not look aesthetically pretty at the present because it takes time to be establish - but once established it will become an area of great beauty with all sorts of flowering plants and grasses in shades of white, yellow, pink and purple - it will be an amazing hill site that the campus can be proud of,” Sundell said.
The project is located on a small hill between the new science building and the NMU Learning Resource Center on the north side of campus.
“There is other space on campus that Northern could use for housing and dorms,” Sundell said.
This map shows the five acre project at NMU that is growing each year but now faces destruction to make way for dorms and other student housing
The National Weather Service automated weather tower for Marquette sits in the middle of the native plants area and would have to be moved if the site if developed for dorms. NWS weather instruments hang from the 30-foot tower.
“It’s a perfect site for collecting the weather data because its sits in middle of an open area, surrounded by natural vegetation and is not close to buildings or sidewalks which can skew the weather data,” Sundell said.
“It’s hard to find an appropriate location in the city of Marquette to collect this weather data so our native plants site was one of the few locations available and a perfect site for this automated weather tower,” Sundell said.
In a similar project, Rotter recently helped turn the NMU Lutheran Campus Ministry lawn into a Native Plant Garden that includes rocks from three of the Great lakes, dozens of Michigan plants, and a solar fountain.
On Friday, Oct. 5, 2007, just hours before getting the bad news from NMU, Rotter arranged to have a Lutheran pastor and a Zen Buddhist head priest conduct a blessing of the garden that encircles the Lutheran Campus Ministry house.
Two pastors conducted a blessing on the Lutheran Campus Ministry new Native Plants Garden on Friday Oct. 5, 2007 that was attended by LMC board members and LC students. (Garden Blessing Photos by Greg Peterson)
Prayers, incense, bells, and chants were part of the ceremony arranged by Rotter, who is a member of Lake Superior Zendo, a Marquette Zen Buddhist temple.
Stones from three of the Great Lakes are part of the Lutheran Campus Ministry Native Plants Garden that encircles the house and replaces the lawn.
Rotter held two student meetings this week to discuss ways to stop NMU from destroying the project.
“We had a really good turn out at the meeting with a majority of the audience in support of the project,” Rotter said.
Pleas to university officials to reconsider the plan has fallen on deaf ears, Rotter said.
“We felt that the planning commission and the few administrators there did not take us seriously - they choose to argue against the project instead of hearing our concerns,” Rotter said.
Students are learning a great deal about the environment as the work inside and out on the Native Plants Project at NMU
“Our next step will be to keep collecting signatures so by December when the proposal comes to the NMU Board of Trustees we can hand them copies of all the signatures and a letter from student leaders with our concerns,” Rotter said.
Rotter is asking the public and students to inundate NMU administration officials with emails requesting that the Native Plant Project be spared.
People can email NMU President Les Wong at: lwong@nmu.edu
The email of NMU Provost Susan Koch is: skoch@nmu.edu.
"Their job is to help us obtain a good education and we think that it is essential that they keep educational opportunities like the native plant study area in tack," Rotter said. "The students want the study area, what we have to do now is make sure the administration hears our voices."
Rotter said the Native Plant Project has a wide range of long-term study and future "research value."
There are 45 two-meter research plots available to students and faculty for either undergraduate or graduate level research studies, Rotter said.
"The plots are currently being used for native plant propagation and seed source," Rotter said.
The students have received support and/or technical assistance (including memorandums of agreement) from numerous agencies including the Hiawatha National Forest (U.S. Forest Service) and the National Weather Service (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the Superior Watershed Partnership, Upper Peninsula Resource Conservation and Development Council, The Nature Conservancy, the Seaborg Center's Upward Bound Math and Science Program and many members of the public and NMU students, faculty and staff.
Funding has been provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Great Lakes National Program Office ($18,000), Northern Michigan University (approx. $6,000 for water line/cedar edging) and recently the NMU Development Fund.
The five-acre Native Plants Project is located on the northside of the Northern Michigan University campus. (NMU Native Plant Project Photos by Professor Dr. Ronald Sundell
Future projects being considered include small wind turbine and solar panel demonstration sites, areas set aside depicting uses of native plants by Native Americans, a greenhouse dedicated to native plants propagation and research; and established viewing areas, trails, and signs.
Rotter can be reached by calling 231-250-3061 or email: mrotter@nmu.edu
The NMU EK Student team can be reached by calling 906-475-5068 or email: earthkeeper@charter.net
The project professor Dr. Ronald Sundell can be reached by calling 906-227-1359 or email: rsundell@nmu.edu
Anatomy of a Murder 2008 Part Two:On the Eve of an Acid Mine Destruction
Salmon Trout River in northern Michigan could look like this mine a year from now
"Acid Mine" will open near original murder that sparked famous book and movie
Will visit by Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann and his environment message be the miracle needed to stop the sulfide mine near Lake Superior in Northern Michigan
Opponents of a proposed sulfide Mine near Lake Superior in northern Michigan need a miracle to stop the project - that will be built in the spring of 2008 if not stopped.
The thousands of opponents include the Turtle Island Project, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, the Cedar Tree Institute, Save the Wild UP and many others.
That miracle may be arriving in the form of one of America’s foremost Biblical scholars - Dr. Walter Brueggemann - who will be giving free talks in northern Michigan in early October on the "connection of Bible and environmental crisis" including a discussion of Upper Peninsula issues like the proposed sulfide mine.
Noted author biblical scholar Dr. Walter Bruegemman will bring Bible's environmental messages to northern Michigan on October 8 & 9, 2007. Opponents of Acid Mine hope it will be the first of several miracles needed to stop the facility that has been put on fast track by state of Michigan.
"My presentation will consider the way in which the Bible empowers and calls us to care about our environment," Dr. Brueggemann said. "The connection of Bible and environmental crisis is an invitation to a new, responsible sanity - after too much economic insanity."
Go to the following link read more about the dates and details of Dr. Bruggemann’s talks and more about the Acid Mine and those who are not speaking out against the mine like the nearby billionaire boys club and two famous people who say they love the U.P.
Please look at this article written for Urth-TV by Turtle Island Project, Earth Keeper Initiative, and Manoomin Project volunteer media advisor Greg Peterson aka Yoopernewsman:
Where is Governor Grandholm and Jeff Daniels when the U.P. really needs them!
Famous actor Jeff Daniels, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm proclaim their love the U.P. but neither has forcefully opposed the mine - and the time is running out.
Jeff Daniels does a song called "The Big Bay Shuffle" about the residents of a town next to the proposed Acid Mine.
Soon those poor folks with be doing the "Big Bay Acid Attack."
Please help me convince them - here are ways to contact the Mr. Daniels and Governor Granholm:
The Acid Mine will be built near Big Bay, the site of the murder and later filming of the famous movie "Anatomy of a Murder." The opening of the mine would be Part Two: Anatomy of a Murder 2008":
The mine is commonly called the "Acid Mine" because the process that removes nickel and other minerals from the ground produces sulfuric acid.
The misguided proposal comes from the Kennecott Minerals Corporation - an international mining company with one of the worst environmental records
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U.P. rivers near Acid Mines will go from pristine blue waters to sick yellow liquid
On the eve of destruction: An acid mine looms on Marquette County’s horizon and your children’s future
Marquette County is heading down a dangerous road - from which there is no return.
The proposed nickle mine near Big Bay is nothing more than an acid mine.
Once sulfuric acid reaches the aquifer, the Yellow Dog and Salmon Trout rivers, and Lake Superior - those pristine areas will be forever polluted.
Make no mistake - the pollution will happen. That is a fact - pure and simple.
After acid mines pop up around the Upper Peninsula, uranium mining will follow.
Once the first acid mine opens - it makes opening additional metal mines easier and inevitable.
A 100-percent safe nickle mine has yet to be built.
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An Acid Mine Proving Ground:
Guinea Pig Glory
The soil, water and air of Marquette County should not be the guinea pig for technology that’s far from perfect.
In fact, the entire Great Lakes system is threatened by the proposal because once Lake Superior is polluted by sulfuric acid - it will reach Lake Michigan. Plus, rivers near the acid mine feed both of those Great Lakes.
The acid mine is proposed for one of the remotest areas left in the U.P. - the Yellow Dog Plains.
When deciding whether the acid mine is safe - it boils down to common sense and trust.
It’s difficult to wager Marquette County’s environmental future on the promises of an international mining company.
It doesn’t make sense to trust a temporary business partner that’s undoubtedly planning its exit strategy before even opening the acid mine.
The environmental impact of the acid mine is staggering.
Our "canary in the coal mine," will be thousands of dead birds and floating brook trout, the oft celebrated fish that calls the Yellow Dog its ancestral home.
Experts fear the acid mine’s effect on the protected Kirtland’s Warbler and sensitive Coaster Brook Trout.
To open the acid mine, will close other obvious avenues of economic development.
Once polluted by an acid mine, Marquette County will be undesirable to "clean"companies seeking a beautiful low-crime area for employees.
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A Sick Shameful Joke: Marquette business leaders who support the Acid Mine are making a mockery of the recent Most Liveable and All-America communities awards
A Most "Unliveable" Community:
Marquette County is proud of recent national recognition as one of "America’s Most Liveable Communities" and an "All-America County."
Organizers of those awards said Marquette County was honored due to the area’s pristine natural beauty and a progressive program for those without medical insurance.
You can be sure that Marquette County would never have even made the short list for those awards if its claim to fame was an acid mine.
These organizations should strip Marquette County of those titles if the mine opens.
The future of the U.P. rests on its clean air, pure water, abundant wildlife and other positive quality of life attributes.
Many studies show that mining is not a good economic investment for today’s communities especially since Americans have become more educated on environmental issues.
Acid mines are far more dangerous to our environment than the iron ore mines that have provided long-term jobs and billions of dollars to our economy.
Once the iron mines close, Marquette County will rely on its beauty to attract tourism and high-paying jobs that don’t create pollution like the fast growing high tech industry.
As other areas of the United Sates become polluted and overcrowded, these companies will move to the U.P. to offer attractive environs for the techies they compete to hire.
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Don’t Be Fooled:
With Michigan’s poor economy it’s tempting to believe the owners of the proposed acid mine - as they dangle money and a handful of jobs in the faces of Marquette County’s business leaders.
Kennecott Minerals Corporation obviously thinks that Marquette County residents are a bunch of uneducated small town northern rednecks lead by a greedy business community - willing to trade our children’s future for a fast buck.
Be truthful. Do you think Marquette’s founding fathers would support this acid mine? Indeed not.
The owners of the proposed acid mine love to wave studies - they have bought and paid for - insisting the mine will be safe. A new safer process has been developed, they say.
Common sense dictates that there will never be a safe way to mine nickle from sulfide ore deposits because the process creates sulfuric acid.
Once uncovered by blasting, the volatile sulfide ore will be exposed to air and water - triggering a process that creates sulfuric acid.
Despite man’s best attempt to prevent the contamination, it’s impossible to stop all the acid from leaching into the aquifer.
Sure, some of the acid may be contained - but some (or even most) isn’t good enough. Would you drink or swim in water that even has a tiny amount of sulfuric acid?
The leaching of the acid could cause dangerous concentrations of heavy metals and arsenic in private wells.
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Tribes have history of fighting Acid Mines
A declaration of war: Tribes across country oppose "Acid Mines"
Upper Peninsula Native American tribes know how to protect our environment, but some northern Michigan business leaders don't care - just see $$$
In recent years, Indian tribes across the U.S. have bitterly opposed the creation of silfide mines - on tribe called it a ceclration of war.
Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, numerous environment groups stand together to stop "acid mine"
Keweenaw Bay Indian Community President/CEO Susan LaFernier said the tribe continues to closely monitor the Kennecott Minerals Co. Eagle Project in the Yellow Dog Plains.
"Our tribal cultural committee has been very involved with it (Eagle Project) and we're going to continue to do what we can (to halt it)," Keweenaw Bay Indian Community President/CEO Susan LaFernier told the daily Mining Gazette of Houghton, MI.
The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) strongly opposes "acid mine" on the Yellow Dog Plains because sulfide mining tramples ceded territorial rights and the treaties of 1842 and 1856.
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The Air That We Breathe:
Aquifer pollution is bad enough, but the acid mine will also contaminate the air that we breathe.
Former Michigan Governor William G. Milliken said it best in an eloquent column in the May 16, 2007 issue of the Detroit Free Press.
"The proposed mine also poses the threat of air pollution, with a system that would vent air through a 50-foot tall stack, releasing an estimated minimum of 20 tons per year of dust containing sulfides and metals only 300 feet from the Salmon Trout River."
Milliken wrote that past environmental mistakes in Michigan are a lesson that you can’t exploit nature without later paying the tab.
To open this acid mine, the former governor explained, would be the "modern-day equivalent of the biblical story of Esau selling his birthright for a ‘mess of pottage.’ "
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Not Worth a Plugged Nickle:
You can’t plug a nickel mine. The acid keeps leaking and leaking and leaking.
In fact - the proposal isn’t worth a nickle - the same mineral that will create millions of gallons of sulfuric acid.
Like a new nickle, the acid mine proposal may seem shiny to those who will profit but its pollution can’t be plugged
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The New Yellow Brick Road and Yellow Boy River::
Yellow Boy is the term used for the orangish-yellow runoff from metallic mining.
Many rivers worldwide have turned yellow due to the nasty highly acidic run-off from metallic mining.
If the acid mine opens, the Yellow Dog River will soon be nicknamed the "Yellow Boy" River.
Even when trucked away - that blasted material will spill onto our roads - and turned to acid by air or rain.
We’ve all seen the iron ore pellets along Marquette County roads and railways - imagine what 80 daily truckloads of acid mining debris will look like along County Road 550.
Up to 200 times per day, these trucks will rumble through the streets of Marquette skirting Northern Michigan University on Wright street.
These trucks will become part of the daily lives of residents who live along county roads 550 and 510. Kennecott hasn’t addressed transportation issues in permit applications for the Marquette County mine.
Imagine getting into an accident with a truck carrying debris that can turn into sulfuric acid - it’s not like spilling a load of iron ore pellets.
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Heaven Help the Salmon-Trout River & Lake Superior
Salmon-Trout River Photos by Jackie Donoho, Northwoods Wilderness Recovery
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Acid Reigns: Playing Dirty Pool With Our Water
A now infamous consultant’s report that questions the mine’s safety was withheld from the public until uncovered by environmentalists.
Claiming it wasn’t a coverup merely bad training and poor judgement, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality temporarily suspended the mine’s permit applications.
An "independent" investigation cleared the MDEQ and a careless employee of intentionally covering up the report. The popular phrase "yeah right" comes to mind.
That geologist’s report questions if the nearby Yellow Dog River will collapse into the gigantic hole created by mine blasting.
Talk about a disaster. If the Yellow Dog merges with that mine hole - a terrible environmental situation will turn into the horrific nightmare. It’s Love Canal meets Lake Erie all over again.
Don’t be lulled by the temporary permit delays, soon the opening of the mine will be back on the fast track.
Without your concern, the acid mine could be open this time next year.
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6-6-6: The Devil is in the Details:
After six short years, Kennecott Minerals will gladly bid adieu to Marquette County leaving a legacy of pollution, lawsuits, unemployment, and an open door for uranium mining and numerous similar mines.
The acid mine will create about 70 jobs but the best case scenario is 100.
That’s measly even by mining standards.
Again, Kennecott says they could be open for eight years in Marquette County but actions speak louder than words.
Kennecott closed their Wisconsin mine one year early and it’s environmental effects are still being litigated because up to 20 percent of the property is unsafe for humans.
The closed Flambeau Mine in Ladysmith, WI continues to pollute nearby streams.
Kennecott has removed tons of top soil (4 inches deep) but that still hasn’t fixed the ongoing pollution problem.
Federal environment officials annually list two Kennecott mines (Utah, Alaska) among the top six polluting mines in America.
When all is said and done - lawsuits over Kennecott’s Wisconsin and Michigan mines could drag through the courts for much longer than the mines were operating.
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She’s No CCI:
Marquette County’s iron ore mines have not been perfect but at least they created thousands of high-paying long-term union jobs.
The owners of the iron ore mines have given hundreds of millions of dollars to local charities and organizations.
Cleveland Cliffs Inc. (CCI) has also built thousands of acres of wetlands and other natural areas to make up for property ruined by iron ore tailings.
In contrast, Kennecott has agreed to donate 120 acres around the mine to the state of Michigan for about 30 years of public use.
Who will want to take an afternoon stroll so close to an acid mine that has belched tons of noxious exhaust and spewed lakes of sulfuric acid.
And forget hunting and fishing in that area. Which brings up the topic of the new "yellow-tailed" deer.
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The Pristine Salmon-Trout River will be the first victim:
Salmon-Trout River Photos by Jackie Donoho, Northwoods Wilderness Recovery
First They Muddy the Water:
Kennecott counts on complicated studies, reports and language to baffle the public and media.
Reporters must quote reports and studies by name, title and other background that saps the limited space they have to write about this decidedly complicated issue. It’s not malice, it’s just part of the journalistic trade.
That’s why we’ve put this story in plain language and why we’ve brought this vital analysis to your doorstep.
For those interested in a wide variety of government and Kennecott documents or a more in depth story, please visit the Save the Wild U.P. website for links to a lot of information about the acid mine.
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Like a Thief In The Night:
Once our virgin ground has been raped and soiled - it can’t be healed.
You can’t unring that environment bell.
That’s why the Save the Wild U.P. and other environmental groups are working so hard to sound an alarm before it’s too late.
Please make it clear you oppose the acid mine in Marquette County by contacting your state, local and national lawmakers, the MDEQ, Kennecott Minerals Corporation, the news media, and friends, family and neighbors.
There is still limited time to stop this mine.
The acid mine will open without the collective loud voices of Marquette County residents who say "we’re mad as hell" and we’re not going to allow this acid factory to open.
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If you are unsure on whether to contact the governor - look at these photos of the Salmon-Trout River - the very first Lake Superior tributary that will be polluted if there is a problem at the mine that is using new technology that is unproven.
The pristine Salmon-Trout River would become the first murder victim of the "Acid Mine"
Salmon-Trout River Photos by Jackie Donoho, Northwoods Wilderness Recovery
The photos of the Salmon-Trout River are published with consent of Northwoods Wilderness Recovery and photographer Jackie Donoho, please use the group's contact form if your wish to reuse in any way.
Photos by Greg Peterson, Steve Durocher and Samantha Otto
(Marquette, Michigan) - The impact of numerous environmental projects created by the northern Michigan Earth Keepers over the past few years is measured in the hundreds of tons as over 15,000 residents have turned in hazardous waste, teens are restoring wild rice beds, businesses and homes are reducing power consumption and thousands of dollars used to protect Lake Superior
The non-profit Michigan Earth Keeper Initiative, its nine faith communities, an Upper Peninsula American Indian tribe and over 400 volunteers were honored this week with the “2007 Lake Superior Magazine Achievement Award.”
The annual award established in 1994 “recognizes organizations or individuals who have improved the well-being of Lake Superior and it’s residents,” said Lake Superior Magazine Editor Konnie LeMay who traveled from Duluth, Minnesota to honor the interfaith environment project.
(Photos by Greg Peterson, Tom Buchkoe, Steve Durocher and Samantha Otto)
LeMay cited “734,000 pounds worth of environmental impact just since the signing the Earth Keeper Covenant in July 2004 by nine faith communities.”
Presenting an engraved crystal plaque during a Sept. 17, 2007 ceremony at Presque Isle Park in Marquette, LeMay said the “spiritual role model of the Earth Keepers certainly has improved the well-being and environmental awareness of Upper Michigan’s residents - it has offered a concrete way to action.”
The Lake Superior Magazine November issue honors the Marquette-based Earth Keepers whose environment projects include annual Earth Day hazardous waste collections, an energetic student team with its own projects, wild rice restoration, an energy summit, and most recently a classical music concert to protect the biggest, deepest and coldest of the Great Lakes that Native Americans call Gitchie Gummi.
The project is co-sponsored by the Cedar Tree Institute, the Superior Watershed Partnership, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and the congregations of over 140 churches and temples representing nine faith communities (Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist, Baha'i, Jewish, and Zen Buddhist).
Rev. Jon Magnuson, who dreamed of creating the Earth Keepers ten years ago, told LeMay that Lake Superior Magazine first announced the existence of the faith-based environment initiative.
“Lake Superior Magazine announced the informal announcement of the Earth Keeper Covenant” and we want to thank the magazine for being a partner that way,” Rev. Magnuson said.
The covenant was signed by the leaders of the nine faith communities in 2004 pledging to actively protect the environment and reach out to American Indian tribes.
Rev. Magnuson honored the memory of one of the first signers of the covenant - Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan Bishop James Kelsey who was killed in a June 3, 2007 traffic accident.
Bishop Kelsey was “one of the Earth Keepers true point people for the religious leaders,” Magnuson said.
“Jim Kelsey’s spirit will carry us on - he was known as the environmental bishop and that was because of this work that he partnered with us on,” Magnuson said.
Magnuson said the Earth Keepers “lift and honor” the members of the “Keweenaw Bay Indian Community have been with us on every one of our initiatives” including a sister effort called the Manoomin project that involves restoring wild rice to seven remote sites in northern Michigan.
United Methodist Church Marquette District Superintendent Grant Lobb accepted the Lake Superior Magazine award on behalf of the nine faith leaders.
Over 15,000 residents have participated in annual Earth Day hazardous waste collections (2005-2007) at sites across the U.P. have recycled or properly disposed of about 370 tons of pharmaceuticals, old/broken computers, cell phones, pesticides, raw liquid mercury, drain cleaner, oil-based paint, vehicle batteries and many other substances.
American Indian guides teach at-risk teens to plant wild rice.
The teens learn to respect themselves, nature and tribal customs
The Earth Keeper Manoomin Project have planted over one ton of wild rice seeds in the past three years through the hands of at-risk teenagers and American Indian guides. The project teaches teens to respect themselves, nature and American Indian heritage.
The Manoomin Project includes classroom time and other learning like Tai Chi relaxation exercises and listening to stories from American Indian elders. In July 2007, KBIC elder Glenn Bressette of Harvey, MI explained how he overcame some of the same obstacles the at-risk teens are currently facing.
Bressette described racism in Marquette when he was young when his mother told all her children to lie about their American Indian heritage. Bressette said he was called a "dirty Indian" and an "old drunken Indian." Bresette said when he was in his teens police officers shot at him as he tried to steal gasoline and described how he became an alcoholic trying to numb the pain from racism.
The Boreal Chamber Symphony
"One night only" July 15, 2007 Lake Superior Day
The Boreal Chamber Symphony was formed by Midwest classical musicians during April 2007 that made its "one night only" performance a free benefit for the Earth Keepers on Lake Superior Day. The musicians to raised thousands of dollars for the Lake Superior Defense Fund.
Nearly 400 people attended the nearly four hour event - the debut of the Boreal Chamber Symphony directed by Craig Randal Johnson of Minneapolis - raising thousands of dollars for the Lake Superior Defense Fund. Thousands of people watched an on-line video made of a rehearsal on the edge of the lakeshore using Lake Superior as an musical instrument following a June 25, 2007 press conference at Presque Isle in Marquette that promoted the concert.
2007 Earth Keeper Energy Summit
Over 500 businesses, churches/temples, and homeowners pledged to reduce power consumption, some received energy audits, millions in energy savings in next few years
This summer's Earth Keeper Energy Summit inspired 500 businesses, homeowners and churches/temples to reduce their power consumption - and many signed up for energy audits. The participants are expected to reduce their utility bills by millions of dollars over the next few years.
The Northern Michigan University
EarthKeeper Student Team
The Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper (NMU EK) Student Team is creating chapters at three other Upper Peninsula of Michigan universities. The nine Earth Keeper faith leaders and the KBIC President/CEO Susan LaFernier stood together at NMU on April 6, 2006 to announce the creation of the student team.
The student efforts have included an adopt-a-watershed project and spreading the Earth Keeper message to children and adults at schools, churches and temples.
The NMU EK Student Team participated in all Earth Keeper events. In October 2006, the students recorded a video for an MTV contest.
On October 6, 2006, Rev. Lynn Hubbard of Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising sponsored a benefit concert for the student team with Greg LaCombe and the Loose Ends band.
Rev. Hubbard has scheduled a second benefit concert for the student team at 7 p.m. ET on Friday, October 12, 2007 at Upfront & Company restaurant in Marquette. The public is encouraged to attend the free benefit concert.
The Earth Keepers have been fortunate to receive several international awards including the Lake Superior Magazine honor.
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Pictured left to right (in above photo) are Earth Keeper consultant Ron Sundell; Cedar Tree institute Executive Director Rev. Jon Magnuson, Catholic Earth Keeper Kyra Fillmore representing Roman Catholic Bishop Alex Sample, Lake Superior Magazine Editor Konnie LeMay, United Methodist Church Marquette District Superintendent Grant Lobb, Jewish Earth Keeper Jacob Silver of Temple Beth Sholom in Ishpeming, U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak's District Director Tom Baldini, Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan Operations Coordinator Jane Cisluycis, and Superior Watershed Partnership Executive Director Carl Lindquist.
In August 2006 and repeating again in 2007, the Grand Rapids, Michigan based Acton Institute named the Earth Keeper Initiative and the Cedar Tree Institute one of the 13 hardest working faith-based non-profits in America.
The Manoomin Project received the hardest working honor in 2006 putting two Cedar Tree Institute projects on the hardest working list. World Magazine did features stories on the projects as part of the award.
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On September 8, 2006, the Lake Superior Bi-National Forum presented the Earth Keepers with its Environmental Stewardship award during a ceremony in Marquette attended by the 9 faith leaders.
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The Earth Keepers and the Manoomin Project have been fortunate to receive a large amount of positive coverage by the news media including national magazine articles, an United Methodist Church national TV crew did a story in Marquette during the 2007 clean sweep, and Rev. Magnuson was one of the guests on a national Native American radio talk show on September 14, 2007.
Numerous national magazines have done stories on the Earth Keepers including Grit, The Lutheran, Thrivent Magazine and others. The Associated Press has run numerous stories on the Earth keepers and the U.P. media has been very supportive.
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The Earth Keeper Team
A core group of about a dozen dedicates souls who inspire 400 plus volunteers and whose faith communties have turned out over 15,000 northern Michigan residents to three Earth Day clean sweeps that have recycled or properly disposed of about 370 tons of hazardous waste.
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Having fun while protecting the environment: Rev. Jon Magnuson, whose dreamed up the Earth Keepers ten years ago, shares a light moment with one of the hardest working volunteers during the Lake Superior Magazine press conference in Marquette, MI on Sept. 17, 2007.
Catholic Earth Keeper Kyra Fillmore of Marquette is a mother of two young children who shuffles a busy home life with doing God's work. Her husband and father are also very active in Earth Keepers.
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Over one ton of pharmaceuticals and over $500,000 narcotics was collected during the 2007 Earth Keeper Clean Sweep at 19 free drop-off sites across a 400 mile area of northern Michigan. The drugs were destroyed in a high-tech, low pollution, EPA-approved incinerator near St. Louis, Missouri.
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Over 320 tons of electronic waste (below) was turned in by the public during the 2006 Earth Keeper Clean Sweep. Old/broken computers, cell phones and other electronics were recycled. The photo by Tom Buchkoe of Marquette represents about 80 percent of the e-waste that was turned in by the public, small businesses and schools.
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The annual "Blessing of the Wild Rice" (below) is held each September in Marquette as a show of respect for the return of the once native grain - and to thank the supporters of the Manoomin Project. Everyone has a fun time and the meal includes various forms of wild rice.
The wild rice is prepared in several ways including searing the grain into a crunchy treat mixed with dried fruit.
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Native American guide Don Chosa created this offering (below) to nature during the 2006 Blessing of the Wild Rice.
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A member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Native American guide Don Chosa and the teens (below) bring the natural offering into the woods where it was placed behind a log during the 2006 Blessing of the Wild Rice in Marquette.
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The at-risk teens involved in the Manoomin Project first arrive - in essence doing community service - after being sentenced in juvenbile court. Many of the teens have so much fun planting and testing the wild rice they ask to return the next year.
These teens are truly a joy to work with and only need a little bit of positive attention to grow into the great leaders of tomorrow. The Manoomin Project honors the teenagers and the KBIC for working so hard to restore wild rice to northern Michigan. Below are links to a tribute music video honoring those involved in the project.
A cloud resembling a tural hangs over "Turtle Island" - Michigan's Mackinac Island. Photo was taken at midway point of Mackinac Bridge. (Photo by Greg Peterson)
(Photo by Greg Peterson)
Turtle Island Project fights religious intolerance, racism, and other social issues that threaten the future of mankind
First Nations peoples asked to submit topics for Native American roundtables
(Munising, Michigan) - Exploitation of the earth, spiritual terrorism, religious imperialism, and racism are some of the modern day injustices that two pastors will battle with a new Michigan project that promotes respect for Native American culture and the environment.
Two Midwest pastors have started a national debate on a wide variety of social issues that they believe threaten the future of society and the planet.
"The Turtle Island project will combat what I call spiritual terrorism," said project found Rev. Lynn Hubbard of Munising, MI.
"There is a lot of spiritual intolerance of other people's religions - whether that's the indigenous Native American religions here in the United States or Islam or Judaism or what have you," said Rev. Hubbard., pastor of the Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church along Lake Superior in Munising.
"Anybody can take that attitude towards life - it's my way or the highway - my religion is right - your religion is wrong - and it's that sort of spiritual terrorism that is destroying the world in which we live in," Rev. Hubbard said.
Rev. George Cairns, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, said a "change in religious consciousness is necessary."
"I am deeply concerned that much of humankind and the Earth as we know it will be gone by the end of this century," said Dr. Cairns, a professor of Practical Theology and Spirituality at Chicago Theological Seminary.
"We are in a time now when dramatic changes are happening on this planet and it is a critical time for people of faith - religious people - to act now," said Rev. Cairns, chairman of the Turtle Island Project.
The Turtle Island Project (TIP) will address a wide range of Native American issues including white influence on American Indian heritage and values, said Rev. Hubbard,
The TIP got its name from Natives Americans who first called the North American continent "Turtle Island."
The TIP will hold biannual national and regional conferences and local seminars to discuss environment and American Indian issues. The meetings will be held this fall and next spring and are called the Grand Island Conference and Retreat Program.
Rev. Cairns said it's important to reverse the negative impact man has had on the environment by learning from earth-based religions "and part of that process is to deeply engage our Native American - our First Nations friends - as our teachers."
Each regional conference will be preceded by Native American roundtables, the agendas being determined solely by American Indians who contact the TIP.
"One of the consequences of racism against First Nations people has been the silencing of their voices and the eagerness of Euro-Americans to speak for them - robbing them of their own freedom of speech - that we value so much," Rev. Hubbard said.
"As a result much of the Native American experience has been filtered through the lenses of a foreign culture that - not only doesn't have the right to speak for them but also lacks the ability to speak to the most fundamental realities of native experience."
Dr. Cairns said "many American Indians are still living in oppressive conditions - and having their voices freed can only happen - if they direct the conversation themselves."
"Americans Indians absolutely must have the lead in the kind of discussions they would like to enter into," said Cairns, who taught has taught "centering prayer" for over two decades including at a Native American cultural center and a maximum security prison.
TIP conferences will provide venues for listening to the voices of Native American peoples." Rev. Hubbard said. "It is our belief that the dialogue can contribute to the betterment of both communities and is a conversation that is long overdue."
Rev. Cairns agreed.
"We think that the conversations with native peoples about their relationship to the Earth will help us reconnect with our much earlier roots of consciousness of nature that were part of Euro-western traditions in the past but now have largely been marginalized or even lost," Cairns said.
Rev. Cairns said he hopes the TIP inspires Americans to rediscover "very early dimensions of Earth spirituality that have been integrated into Christianity but later have been lost."
"We started to distance our self from the earth as early as the late Paleolithic times - when we moved from hunter gatherers and later became industrialized and increasingly turned nature into an object for us to consume rather than a subject for us to relate to," Rev. Cairns said. "We are not trying to turn back the clock to the Stone Age - but a change in consciousness must begin if our planet and we are to survive."
The first regional conference is (Thursday-Saturday) September 13-15, 2007 at the Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising. The hours are 7-10 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday.
The Native American roundtable opens the conference on Thursday, followed by two days of presentations and debate by Rev. Dr. George Cairn, a professor at Chicago Theological Seminary. Dr. Cairn will discuss Celtic and Native American spirituality, and post-modern science.
Rev. Cairns said the Celtic people who lived in Ireland and Scotland integrated earlier beliefs into an Earth-based Christianity and "understood God to be a present in all creation."
"The Celts believed God to be constantly recreating the world and they had an intimate relationship with nature," said Rev. Cairns, who lives in Chesterton, Indiana.
While studying for his doctorate in South Dakota, Rev. Hubbard became friends with Lakota people on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian reservations, the latter was the scene of the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, which claimed the lives of many innocent Lakota women and children.
Both reservations are beset by extreme poverty, teen suicide, high infant mortality and other social problems.
The TIP organized the successful August 12, 2007 benefit concert for America's oldest/first American Indian battered women's shelter in Mission, SD that has served the Lakota Rosebud Reservation for nearly 30 years.
Two Upper Peninsula folk groups, White Water and Duo Borealis, held the free concert for the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society at the Custer Lutheran Church in Custer S.D. The WBCWS battles domestic violence, teen suicide and sexual assault.
Figures from the Rosebud reservation alone are shocking: 21 rapes in the past 18 months; over 600 attempted teen suicides and 15 deaths during the past two years - most teenage boys.- triggered a recent "state of emergency" declared by tribal officials
Poverty, depression, a lack of jobs, drugs, alcohol and other social problems are among the reasons behind Rosebud teen suicides.
The concert was one of the first non-political events to ever bring racial healing between whites and Native Americans in Custer - where racism by some whites is generations old, said Dave Melmer, a reporter for the national Indian Country Today newspaper who lives in Custer.
Melmer said the concert was "a courageous effort" and a "big small step in improving race relations."
The TIP hopes to create a profound change in environmental thinking, Rev. Hubbard said.
The planet is facing an environmental crisis that must be repaired or humans will "bring about our own destruction because of the abuse of nature," Dr. Hubbard said.
One of the pillars of the TIP is the creation of a new North American Theology that the pastors hope will encourage religious tolerance and a new respect for nature.
"We are concerned that our current individual and systemic western consciousness is disembodied and ill," Rev. Cairns said. "We have distanced ourselves more and more from nature - nature has become much more of an ‘it' rather than a ‘thou' - it's an object rather than a subject - this is increasingly being sped up by the modern technological world."
Rev. Hubbard said Christians can learn from other religions.
"Christians have been so empowered for so long their religious imperialism is subconscious," Rev. Hubbard said. "To enter into authentic spiritual with other cultures is to become aware of your own limitations."
"Today, in America, God's children have different skin, colors, genders, languages, sexual orientations and theological ideas," Rev. Hubbard said.
"Those who have had power and control over the church must now scoot over and make room for them in our pews - and maybe, heaven forbid, actually listen to what they have to say, listen to their voices," Rev. Hubbard told a recent gathering of religion writers and scholars in Ann Arbor. MI.
God has been revealed to all religions and Christians need to "learn that spiritual wisdom is not the sole possession of any one people," Hubbard said. "Wisdom is the recognition of multi-cultural and dialogical nature of the truth - in dialogue with one another we achieve spiritual truth."
Christians should "open our ears and hearts to their testimony, and to the witness of the Love of God in their lives, not just ours," Rev. Hubbard said. "It is the opening of the heart and mind to the genius and insights of others."
During recent elections conservative Catholics and Protestants made "strange bedfellows" as they voted against homosexuality, abortion and showed "their intolerance of other people's religions," Rev. Hubbard said.
Christians who have "benefitted from the power structures of the church have defined what the gospel is to everyone," Rev. Hubbard said. "We have defined that through our own Euro-American vision of who we are, who God is, and our relationship with nature - at the exclusion of everyone else - period."
Americans, he said, "stand at the brink of a communications revolution and a fundamental spiritual transformation."
Dr. Cairns said it has "been clear to me for many years that contemporary Christianity is disembodied Christianity - because its been really shaped by culture - more than the institution has shaped culture."
Late Native American activist and author Vine Deloria Jr reminded "the Euro-American community that they have yet to listen to what Native Americans have to say either in terms of the environment or their own struggles as a people, Rev. Hubbard said.
"Native American spirituality is based upon spatial understandings of God while Christianity is based upon temporal understandings of God.
"Spatial metaphors for God have to do with the revelation of the divine life in a particular place - this mountain - at this stream - at this time," Rev. Hubbard said. "While the temporal metaphors for God has to do with the idea of time - that ‘once upon a time there was a great revelation of God' some 2,000 years ago for the Christian religion - and since that time - there have been no new revelations."
Dr. Cairns said "that place is extremely important in Celtic tradition.".
"There is a sacredness to particular places - people relate to them deeply - we have lost much of that in contemporary American culture and we have lost much of that in our religious institutions," Cairns said. "Almost any place can be sacred to an individual depending on who they are and where they are on life's journey."
"One of the places I have found sacred is on the streets of a bad inner city neighborhood talking with homeless folks," Cairns said. "The conversations we've had are very profound - there was an openness and a kind of reciprocal learning that took place in those conversations that I think was sacred."
Rev. Hubbard said the earth was not created to serve man.
"The creation myths of the Hebrew peoples - the very origins of Christianity - was this understanding that human beings are a special creation and that this Earth was created for them," Rev. Hubbard said. "And that's quite a different understanding than what many Native American peoples have."
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Related websites:
Turtle Island Project main website:
http://www.turtleislandproject.org
Turtle Island TV (blipTV)
http://turtleislandtv.blip.tv/
Turtle Island TV (youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/MunisingWhiteHorse
Turtle Island (myspace)
http://www.myspace.com/TurtleIslandProject
Turtle Island Project websites/Blogs:
http://groups.msn.com/WhisperingTurtle
http://turtleislandproject.wordpress.com/
email:
TurtleIslandProject@charter.net
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Rosebud Tribe official website:
http://www.rosebudsiouxtribe-nsn.gov/
1973 Wounded Knee Incident & the earlier 1890 massacre of 146 Indians by government troops:
Turtle Island Project: Fall 2007 - Spring 2008 Schedule:
Grand Island Conference and Retreat Program
The Grand Island Conference and Retreat Program seeks to develop new theological resources and spiritual practices that reflect the place we inhabit, the continent of North America called "Turtle Island" by indigenous communities. It is our hope that these resources and practices will help imagine a new North American Theology with the assistance of First Nations peoples.
We seek to encourage mutual understanding and respect between these communities in order to address issues of health and healing, religion and science, practical theology and environmental issues. We shall accomplish this task by sponsoring regional and national conferences, local seminars, and regional retreats centering on these concerns.
This booklet lists the events sponsored by the Grand Island Conference and Retreat Program for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan during the upcoming year. It is our hope that these events will not only stimulate conversations on the issues, but also help to build ecumenical and interfaith communities.
Seminars will be held at Upfront and Company, 102 East Main Street, Marquette, Michigan.
All conferences, retreats and Native American roundtables will be held at Eden on the Bay, Lutheran Church, 1150 M-28 West, Munising, Michigan.
Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard
Director, Turtle Island Project
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About the Conferences
Grand Island is one of the most beautiful and largest islands in Lake Superior. Inhabited for generations by the Ojibwa peoples, it is today the Grand Island National Recreation Area with a wilderness character.
In keeping with such a tranquil and beautiful place, Grand Island Conferences are planned so that all participants will have the opportunity to experience its beauty and power.
The conferences are unique in that they are planned to not only stimulate the intellect, but also provide the aesthetic and spiritual understandings usually associated with a retreat setting.
We will not only be participating in stimulating theological conversations on topics of great importance, but we shall also partake of the beauty of the lake, the island, and the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
We will be taking boat cruises along Lake Superior, hiking in the park and listening to lectures on the parks natural and cultural history.
All of this will take place in and around the community of Munising, Michigan, one of the most beautiful natural settings on Lake Superior.
All Seminars will be held at Upfront and Company, 102 E. Main St, Marquette, Michigan
Conferences and Retreats will be held at Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church, 1150 M-28 West, Munising, MI.
For complete information on the events, please visit our website: turtleislandproject.org
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*** A Native American roundtable will be held at 7 pm (ET) on the Thursday prior to each regional conference - and at others times TBA.
The agenda of the roundtables will be set completely by First Nations peoples.
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Regional Conference - Fall 2007
Ecology Series
September 13-15, 2007
Celtic Spirituality, Ecology, and Participative Consciousness
Recreating an Ancient Wisdom Tradition of Relationship
Rev. Dr. George Cairn
Chicago Theological Seminary
Thursday, Sept 13 (Native American Roundtable)
7 - 10 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 14
10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 15
10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
At this conference, we will examine the integration of Paleolithic Consciousness, Celtic Spirituality, Contemporary Spirituality, and Psychology.
We will be examining ideas and meditating in ways that lead to experiencing the world as not separate from ourselves—no inside, no outside, all in relationship.
We will be reading a selection of works by Calvin Luther Martin, J. Phillip Newell, and Gregory Bateson.
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Native American Theology -- Seminar Series
In the Spirit of the Earth - Ecology and Liberation
Tuesdays - November 6, November 13, November 20, and November 27
7 - 10 p.m.
A seminar examining the ecological crisis and the contribution of Native American theology toward a solution.
In this seminar, we will be reading a selection of works from Leonardo Boff, Vine Deloria, Jr., George Tinker and Steve Charleston.
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Regional Ecumenical Retreat - Fall 2007
Quest for Harmony: The Contemplation of Nature in the Christian tradition
Friday, November 9
9 a.m.- 4 p.m.
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Local Seminar Offerings - Fall 2007
Health and Healing -- Evening Discussion Series
Tuesdays - October 23 and October 30
7 - 10 p.m.
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
Two evenings of exploration into the works of Dr. Robert Moore, Jungian Analyst, and one of the founders of the men's movement in the United States.
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Local Seminar Offerings - Winter 2007 - 2008
Religion and Science -- Evening Discussion Series
Tuesday, December 4
7 - 10 p.m.
Life is a Miracle: Reflections on the Work of Wendell Berry
An evening of conversation on the poet and author who has proven time and again a writer of brilliant moral imagination.
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Religion and Science -- Seminar Series
In the Absence of the Sacred: Science as Myth and Religion
Tuesdays - March 4, March 11, March 18, March 25
7 - 10 p.m.
A seminar on the current state of the relationship between science and religion.
In this seminar, we will read selected works from Ian G. Barbour, Wendell Berry, Joseph Campbell, David Leeming, and Ursula Goodenough.
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An Ecumenical Retreat - Spring 2008
The Pipe and Christ: Native American Spiritualities and Christianity
Friday, March 28
9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
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Local Seminar Offerings - Spring 2008
Health and Healing - Evening Discussion Series
Tuesday, April 22
7 - 10 p.m.
The Healing Circle: Spirituality and Sexual Healing - The Role of Spirituality in the Therapeutic Process.
An evening of reflection on the role of ritual process in the healing of juvenile sex offenders.
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Religion and Science - Seminar Series
The Flight of the Wild Gander
Tuesdays - May 20, May 27, June 3, June 10
7 - 10 p.m.
A Series of Conversations on the Nature of Mytho-Poetic Language, Fundamentalism, and the Decline of Christianity.
We will be reading selected works from Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, David Leeming, Calvin Luther Martin.
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Regional Conference - Spring 2008
Religion and Science Series:
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
May 29 - 31, 2008
The Sacred Depths of Nature - The Politics of Religion and Science
Dr. Richard Busse
Indiana University Northwest
Thursday, May 29 (Native American Roundtable)
7 - 10 p.m.
Friday, May 30
10 a.m.- 4 p.m.
Saturday, May 31
10 a.m.- 2 p.m.
Models for interpreting the relationship between religion and science will be discussed by reviewing the history of First Amendment science/religion litigation and by discussing the theological impact of these decisions, all for the purpose of gaining insight into the interplay of religion, culture, and politics.
Background Text: Edward Larson's "Summer for the Gods: The Scope's Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion."
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National Conference - Summer 2008
Native American Theology Series
Place and Time of Conference to be announced
A conference on the premiere Native American Theologian of our times, George E. "Tink" Tinker. Mr. Tinker is Professor of Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at Iliff Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado and is an enrolled member of the Osage Nation. Among his many publications are Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide (Fortress Press, 1993) and Native American Theology (co-authored, 2001).
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For More Information
Turtle Island Project
P.O. Box 360
Munising, Michigan
46982
Email:
Whitehorse006@aol.com
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Seminars will be held at Upfront and Company, 102 East Main Street, Marquette, Michigan.
All conferences, retreats and Native American roundtables will be held at Eden on the Bay, Lutheran Church, 1150 M-28 West, Munising, Michigan.
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Bios:
Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard, M.Div., D.Min.
Rev. Hubbard is founder/director of the Turtle Island Project in Munising, MI
He is the pastor at Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising
In addition to graduating from Valparaiso University and holding advanced degrees from the Lutheran School of Theology and Chicago Theological Seminary, Lynn has studied at the Pedagogishe Hochschule in Reutlingen, German, the Religious Studies Department at the University of Indiana, and the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. For many years he worked as the Associate Dean of Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago.
He has served a number of churches throughout the Chicago area, and lived on the island of St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands, pastoring two Afro-Caribbean Lutheran congregations. He has had extensive experience in both the inter faith and ecumenical communities, and served as the Director of Development for the Parliament of World's Religious.
Most recently, in working in his capacity as spiritual director for Juvenile sex offenders, he has given national and international conference presentations on "Creating Ritual Process for Juvenile Sex Offenders from a Cross Cultural Perspective".
He is currently the minister of Eden on the Bay, Lutheran Church in Munising Michigan. He travels regularly to the Lakota Sioux reservations in South Dakota, where he helps prepare graduate theological students in cross-cultural ministerial training. He has been honored by members of the Sicangu tribe of the Lakota people in being asked to serve as a fire keeper for their Sundance ceremonies.
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George F. Cairns, M.Div., Ph.D.
Rev. Cairns is chairman of the board of the Turtle Island Project in Munising, MI
George is a semi-retired minister, professor of practical and spiritual theology at Chicago Theological Seminary, and is a clinical psychologist. George helped found the Parliament of the World's religions and with Wayne Teasdale wrote/edited a book about this process.
His current work concerns Celtic spirituality, centering prayer, and their integration into a theology of practical action for healing, justice, and peace.
He has practiced and taught Centering Prayer since 1986. He has taught centering prayer in several unusual settings including a Native American cultural center and a maximum security prison. He has published papers on this work.
George and his wife Nancy have taught an early and little known Christian practice known as "jubilation." This form of sung praise produces a whole chord of sound by an individual. When practiced in community, sounds appear which no one is making.
He is a former member of the Forge Guild, an international group which encourages spiritual teachers from different religious traditions to explore one another's practices and Spiritual Directors International. He and Nancy are associates/members of two covenantal Christian communities: The Iona Community based in Scotland, and; the Shalom Community based in Chicago.
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Turtle Island Project founder/Director:
Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard
Eden on the Bay Evangelical Lutheran Church
PO Box 360
1150 M-28
West Munising, MI.
49862
wk: 906-387-2520
cell: 906.202.0590
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Rev. Dr. George Cairns, TIP board chairman
1-219-3959347
Professor of Practical Theology and Spirituality at Chicago Theological Seminary
lives in Chesterton, Indiana
ordained minister in the United Church of Christ
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fyi - The first regional conference is (Thursday-Saturday) September 13-15, 2007 at the Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising. The hours are 7-10 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday.
The Native American roundtable opens the conference on Thursday, followed by two days of presentations and debate by Rev. Dr. George Cairn, a professor at Chicago Theological Seminary. Dr. Cairn will discuss Celtic and Native American spirituality, and post-modern science.
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sponsors Electronic Waste (E-Waste) and Pharmaceutical Collections across the Great Lakes
Earth Day 2008 
Noted author and theologian Dr. Walter Brueggemann at Lutheran Campus Ministry in Marquette, Michigan
