Taranaki Cathedral’s Season of Creation Journey
Taranaki Cathedral, one of our newest Eco Churches, intentionally engaged with the Creation Care kaupapa during the Season of Creation. In this story, Kareen Durbin reflects on the creative and meaningful ways the cathedral community has lived this out.
Having very recently joined Eco Church, we at the Taranaki Cathedral have been exploring the intersection of ecological & social engagement, in part because we have two services with two congregations. How do we foster a sense of one community & creation care simultaneously?
The Season of Creation offered an impetus for shifts in focus & format of services, concluding with the Feast of St Francis. A multisensory event evolved in which young and old squeezed around a huge central table. Down the centre ran a fairly large floral installation, bringing the emergence of spring & the life it reveals into full focus as together we broke bread & then ate symbolically laden lamb (for those who cared to contemplate its theological references).
Over almost a year now, work has slowly evolved in part of our site which is primarily a big car park –– around its perimeter introducing gardens, inserting trees into the concrete, accommodating pollinators etc. Part of this process has been to spend a Sunday a month with the kids from our community outside rather than in, developing with them a māra kai. Although still just a small, emerging thing, we were able to harvest salad greens & edible flowers to include in this shared meal.
So, a month that began with lament in the face of the ecological crisis, the 6th great extinction, the uncertainty we hold for our children & grandchildren; a month that started with us meeting around a huge pile of rubbish –– amidst which we took the Eucharist –– transitioned through both further contemplation & time spent together working on the children’s garden. Throughout, the rubbish covered cross that had emerged from this heap of discarded stuff remained as a reminder of the cost of our consumerism.
Anthropocene, the current geological epoch defined by significant human impact on the planet's geology and ecosystems is our new collective reality –– forced by humans on all living things. There is rubbish in space, micro plastics in breast milk being ingested by infants, intricately interdependent species disappearing as fast as we discover them, etc; all too easy to ignore as algorithmic advertising vies for our attention on a second by second basis.
Throughout the Season of Creation, we tried to remain more than usually aware. Then, in the midst of the very real tragedies unfolding around us, we ended with this shared meal. Together we feasted & celebrated the hope we (the church) hold – the beauty of abundant spring flowers a reminder of the promise of eventual new creation.