Making the Mormon Sacred Grove (Part 4)

April 9, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

Global Significance of Sacred and Religious Forests In addition to the vast areas of protected forests that make up our National Parks and National Forests, many ecologists and scholars are beginning to take note of forests considered sacred by the world’s religions, or owned by them (Verschuuren et al. 2010). In an era of climate change and species extinction, official protected areas have not proven sufficient in stemming the tide of our ecocidal culture. In addition, the environmental community is... Read more

Making the Mormon Sacred Grove (Part 3)

April 7, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

The Restoration of a Holyscape It must be remembered however, that forests are not static objects but dynamic and diverse ecosystems. As this picture shows, taken in 1907, there is no substantial understory. Once the towering trees die, there will be nothing to replace them. After the Beans left as caretakers, the grove continued to be managed as a sacred place, but more like a park than an ecosystem; leaves, branches and dead trees were raked and cleared from the... Read more

Making the Mormon Sacred Grove: Part 2

April 6, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

The Axis Mundi: A Forest Becomes Sacred In addition to expressing a deep colonial longing for God’s presence and forgiveness, reassured through the domestication of wilderness; Joseph’s grove of trees taps into a deep history of sacred forests both in Western and non-western spirituality. Trees often mark the center of the world as the axis mundi. The Tree of Life in Judeo-Christian myth, the Yggdrasil of Norse cosmology and the Bodhi Tree of Buddhist lore all express this centering... Read more

Making the Mormon Sacred Grove: Part 1

April 5, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

Between Puritan Landscape and Wilderness Upon purchasing a new piece of land, New England settlers would clear about two thirds of it to make way for homes, barns, workshops, pasture, fields and orchards. The remaining third was left forested to provide firewood and building materials. When Joseph Smith senior began making payments on 100 acres in the frontier town of Manchester, New York in 1817 his family began the back breaking work of carving a farm out of an old... Read more

The Ecology of Reading Patheos

April 3, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

As the Patheos Blue Banner loads, a pop up add elbows its way into view from the left. I click ‘close’ and scroll down the page looking for an interesting read. The pop up returns. I click ‘close’ again, trying not look at whatever cookie-coded-spyware-demographic-locator-add is striving for my attention. Scrolling past posts on politics, radical Islam, Batman vs. Superman, Easter, Bodhisattvas, I am enticed by low low mortgage rates, and then a do-gooder non-profit asking for donations, playing... Read more

The Forest Rosary

March 26, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

Holy Saturday is a time of breathless anticipation. Of mourning, of waiting. So, after participating in the Washington State Democratic Caucus, I decided to go for a walk in my favorite forest in Bellingham–The Stimpson Family Reserve. Alone, I brought with me a small wooden rosary carved by hand at one of the monasteries I recently visited as part of my PhD research. Being Holy Saturday, the day Jesus was still in the tomb, I decided I would pray the... Read more

Good Friday in the Anthropocene

March 25, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

The Sea is rising; the Arctic glaciers are vanishing; February was the hottest February in 137 years of records; God’s creation is being put to death; and many are beginning to mourn the loss of biodiversity as a religious act. The earth herself, Our Mother, is being Crucified. For Christians, today is a funeral. After the long march of the via dolorosa, Jesus the traitor will be executed. Tradition has it that he hung on the cross from 12:00 to 3:00... Read more

On Loving our Enemies

March 22, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

Lord, I remember being taught to love my enemies. In grade school it seemed noble to love the bully, to forgive the taunt. But when I hear about men or women walking into airports or metro stations and blowing themselves up in your name I do not feel love. I feel hate. Surely, no one wakes up and decides to blow themselves up without a long chain of despair, discrimination, pain, suffering, loss and grieving. My leftist brain tries to make... Read more

The Orchard Rosary: Christianity as Cosmic Liturgy

March 20, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

Sunset. A choir of blackbirds sings in the cottonwoods. A cloister of turkey vultures circles the stone pines. A friary of wild turkeys patrols the garden. Holy Week. This year has been quite an amazing journey, as I have spent weeks at a time with Catholic monks up and down the West Coast. These experiences have not only served as rich research experience, but as abundant nourishment for my soul. As the sun catches the earth at its midpoint between... Read more

Divine Union: Notes on possible Catholic/Mormon Dialogue

March 14, 2016 By Jason M. Brown

Is Union with God something Mormons seek? If so how would you characterize it? Read more