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 Meeting the Sacred in Creation:
“I have also lectured and written on environmental theology and have been particularly influenced by the writings of Thomas Berry, Ian Barbour, John Haught and Hans Jonas. I’ve also served for a decade on the Interfaith Partnership for the Environment (IPE), an advisory group to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). My activism on regional, national and international levels is a direct outgrowth of my work as an environmental theologian and ethicist. “In the fall of 2002 I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In the wake of this, I decided that I wanted to devote the rest of my life to working for the restoration of Creation, referred to in Judaism as Tikkun Olam – the healing of the world. I believe that this is a critical moment in human history and I feel called upon to respond. I know of no more important religious work.”
“In an era of global ecological crisis,” he continues, “caring for Creation has emerged as a paramount moral obligation for all people of faith. Yet we will not work to save that which we do not love. Connecting our faith with the sources of our direct kinship with the natural world is now an essential part of our core religious task, regardless of which tradition we represent. Our very survival may depend now on our ability to make this connection real, both for ourselves, and for the communities of faith we serve.” << Back to Meeting the Sacred in Creation 
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Rabbi Lawrence Troster, a Conservative
rabbi from Toronto, served congregations in Canada and the
US for over twenty years prior to focusing his rabbinic work
on the link between religion and the earth. He has co-led
previous GreenFaith retreats with Hoelting, and the two have
kayaked together in the Alaskan wilderness. “I have
spent a significant amount of time in nature throughout my
life and have come to realize - whether through time in my
backyard looking at birds on the feeder or hiking on a trail – that
my relationship with the sacred in Creation is the foundation
of my spirituality. The natural world is inspiring and restorative.
I now know that most people have similar experiences if they
are willing to remember and to open themselves to this.
Kurt Hoelting is a clergyman (United
Church of Christ), meditation teacher and wilderness guide
with twenty five years of experience in Zen meditation practice.
A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Kurt founded