The service was put together by St. Paul’s incumbent, the Rev. Andrew Kuhl, in consultation with members of the bishop’s committee. The liturgy drew on diverse sources from around the Anglican Communion. There was a litany for the preservation of the environment from the Anglican Church of Kenya, a prayer of confession from The Episcopal Church, an absolution from Alongside Hope’s Season of Creation liturgy, and a Eucharistic prayer from the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil.

Continuing with the Communion-wide theme, Mr. Kuhl’s sermon was organized around the three mission statements of the Communion Forest initiative: “To plant is to hope; to restore is to heal; to protect is to love.” For each statement, he gave examples of forest regeneration, restoration and ecosystem protection in Ontario, some of which were within the parish itself. One of these examples was the work of the local Copeland Forest Friends Association, which helps to manage the largest tract of forest in Ontario south of Algonquin Park, removing invasive species, restoring the natural flow of streams, and clearing debris from this spring’s devastating ice storm. Members of the association were in the congregation

“A forest is not just a collection of trees in a certain geographical space, but a complex web of interdependent relationships for mutual flourishing – a web which includes us,” Mr. Kuhl remarked. He noted that the Bible recognizes the agency of the non-human creation. Not only do we care for forests and other ecosystems, but they also care for us in their turn, providing fresh air, clean water, food, medicine, shelter, and, not least, places of recreation and contemplation.

In Isaiah 32:14-18, this year’s text for the global Season of Creation, the judgement that comes upon Israel is a “re-wilding”: the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted, and the hill and watchtower become dens for wildlife, the joy of wild asses and a pasture for flocks. When God’s spirit is poured out, “the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest” where justice and righteousness dwell.

“Through the Spirit of God, people learn to live in right relationship with all creation,” observed Mr. Kuhl, recalling that God’s love and salvation in Christ is for the entire cosmos. Challenging us to take up the call of the Communion Forest initiative, he noted that “hope begins here and now with the actions of our lives. What is God calling you and your parish to do, to participate in God’s great love for the world?”

The theme of a “forest web” was illustrated in the service as participants brought leaves, branches, flowers and acorns from forested areas near their homes and hung them on a large fishnet suspended on the wall of the church. The fishnet also evoked the imagery of our diocese’s Cast the Net vision. Just like an ecosystem, our diocese itself is a complex web of relationships for mutual flourishing, and care for creation, along with spiritual renewal and reimagining ministry, is part of that vision for our Church’s flourishing.

The image of a web, rather than a wheel with spokes emanating from a central hub, also reminds us of how churches in the various parts of our diocese have much to offer and learn from each other in many respects, including in terms of creation care.

“Last year we were invited by some clergy to consider celebrating the Season of Creation outside downtown Toronto,” said the Rev. Paige Souter, co-chair of the Bishop’s Committee on Creation Care. “While we wanted to have our inaugural service at St. James’ Cathedral, we wanted to invite other parishes to host the diocesan celebration going forward. It was a delight to have Fr. Andrew Kuhl welcome us to Midhurst for this year’s celebration.”

The service concluded with announcements about other deanery events and the diocesan outreach conference, which included a workshop on the Communion Forest initiative. Participants also had an opportunity to enjoy refreshments and conversation in the hall after the service.

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This is a spirituality that is rooted in prayer for and with creation. It is in prayer that we begin to truly understand the reality that all life is interconnected. We know this intellectually and scientifically, but often the spirituality of knowing this is true is missing.

Do you recall the first time that you felt connected to the Earth? It may have been when you were young, or it may have been during your adult life. You may have been gardening, on a hike, watching the clouds, canoeing, sitting on a beach, swimming in the ocean, having a picnic, sitting under a tree or looking out of a window into nature.

That experience was a spiritual connection of kinship – the web of belonging that defines life on the planet.

Praying for and with creation changes how we understand our relationship with God, with nature and with each other. As John Philip Newell writes in his book Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, it is time to reawaken “to what we know in the depts of our being, that the earth is sacred and that this sacredness is at the heart of every human being and life form. To awaken again to this deep knowing is to be transformed in the ways we choose to live and relate and act.”

This awakening requires restoring humanity’s broken relationship with nature. This is the theme of this year’s ecumenical Season of Creation, “Peace with Creation.” Rooted in Isaiah 32:14, this worldwide movement invites us to see the war that humanity has ravaged on the planet, both on nature and on the most marginalized who bear the brunt of the devastation. And it invites us to work to build peace with creation.

Achieving God’s deep shalom requires praying for the healing of the planet and learning to pray with creation, for it is in praying with creation that we learn to hear God’s heartbeat in nature and are transformed by the experience.

To pray with creation is to become aware that we are not separate from nature; rather we are its kin. We come to know spiritually that we are integrally woven together, and in that knowing we discover the fullness of our humanity. To pray with creation means we seek to deepen our connections with the Earth and to hear deeply both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor. Lastly, in praying with creation we are drawn deeper into God and God’s reality.

I would like to offer the words of an embodied prayer with creation that has been part of my spiritual practice for close to 30 years. (The source of this prayer has long left my memory.) While the physical movements are too challenging to explain here, imagine one’s legs as tree roots and one’s arms as swaying branches.

Let us pray.

Standing like a tree with my roots dug deep
Branches wide and open
Down comes the rain
Down comes the sun
Down come the love to the heart that is open to be
Standing like a tree
(repeat, repeat, repeat, and give thanks)
Amen.

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Do you have a tree story? Perhaps a favourite tree from your childhood home or at the cottage? Maybe you’ve seen the mighty coastal redwoods of British Columbia or stood among the old-growth pines of Temagami and experienced awe. Something in us wants to preserve and protect these trees, to build and nourish our forests. Listening to this desire, the Anglican Communion is writing a new story in our relationship with trees.

Building on previous creation care work, the 2022 Lambeth Conference launched the Communion Forest. This is a worldwide initiative “to join together in tree growing and ecosystem conservation, protection and restoration throughout the world.” It is a thoughtful response to our Communion’s fifth mark of mission: “To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the Earth.” When you think about it, isn’t this one of our deep desires? Don’t we want to pass on a beautiful planet to those who follow us, for generations to come?

This is the desire of the church in Uganda as it works on tree-planting and making churches plastic-free. It is the desire of the church in Ethiopia as it works on reforestation and soil conservation. It is the desire of the church in Kenya as it works with partners to sequester carbon through tree-planting. It is the desire of the Rev. Dr. Rodrigo Espiuca, an Anglican priest and environmental and human rights lawyer from Brazil who, with support from Alongside Hope (formerly PWRDF), has been appointed facilitator in the Americas for the Communion Forest initiative.

If you share the desire to safeguard the integrity of the Earth, the members of the Bishop’s Committee on Creation Care echo and amplify Bishop Andrew and Mary Asbil’s invitation to join in. We are launching the Communion Forest initiative in our diocese this September as part of the Season of Creation. We may not be able to grow a new forest, but there are so many ways to get involved:

• Grow a tree to mark an important occasion.
• Work with the cemetery committee to increase the tree canopy.
• Create a small pollinator garden at your church.
• Partner with others on a local conservation project.
• Increase awareness by holding hiking church.
• Advocate for habitat conservation in your area.

The Season of Creation will kick off on Sept. 1 with a new blessing: this year, General Synod adopted the Feast of the Creator as a major feast in our liturgical calendar. This celebration is in line with our call to be good stewards of what our Creator has provided.

To learn more about creation care and the Communion Forest, visit www.toronto.anglican.ca/creationcare. You’ll find a plethora of resources to support you and your community on the disciple’s path of creation care. The very trees themselves may “clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12) at our efforts.

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Too many of the world’s forests are coming down, and the Earth is heating up. The great old growth giants who sequester carbon and act as the lungs of the Earth are falling faster than the minutes of our lives. As carbon dioxide grows in our atmosphere, we find ourselves in deeper trouble. Canada uses more than its fair share of the global carbon budget, according to the David Suzuki Foundation, and we are disproportionately responsible for the climate crisis. It is alarming to see how political and economic chaos in North America is eroding any commitment we had to mitigating the crisis.

Our leaders are not going to fix this for us. We need to get our hands into the soil and do the work that God calls us to do. Our primal vocation given to us in our sacred story is to cultivate and care for creation so that all life can flourish. The renowned botanist and tree-planting advocate Diana Beresford-Kroeger says, “without the global forest there is no hope for humanity’s future on Earth. We must reclaim the interconnection between trees and humanity. If we strengthen those connections by planting trees, interacting with our forests and protecting natural spaces, we can pause climate change long enough to have a fighting chance to mend our destructive ways.” And she has a plan: every single person needs to plant at least one tree a year.

Planting trees – along with protecting existing natural spaces – is the goal of the Communion Forest movement. In a letter to the diocese, Bishop Andrew and Mary Asbil write, “The call from the Anglican Communion to participate in the global Communion Forest … builds on the foundation of the ministry of creation care already established through the Communion and our fifth mark of mission: to safeguard the integrity of creation and renew life on Earth.” Joining this movement is the focus of the Season of Creation in our diocese this year.

“It’s not just about planting,” say the Asbils, “it is about turning to our knowledge keepers, scientists and theologians to understand how to be better caretakers of our planet.”

One of those knowledgeable people is Guinevere Kern, who is a registered horticultural therapist, educator and advocate for integrating horticulture principles and practices that support health initiatives. In a recent interview, Ms. Kern said that despite increasing public awareness of the importance of planting trees in urban environments, many trees planted with the best intentions do not survive beyond a few years, often due to preventable factors.

Planting trees begins with knowing the space and then choosing the right species, or “the right plant for the right place,” she says. “What is the growth habit of this tree? Is it conducive to the space over a short, medium or long term? What urban stress factors are part of this location? What care might this tree need to support long term health?”

She is passionate about increasing nature literacy – encouraging people to get close to nature, to know the ecosystem where they live, as well as native species and how they interact in the spaces where we live, work and worship.

Knowing and connecting to nature can increase our commitment to care for and rebuild healthy natural spaces. This connectedness not only heals the Earth; it heals us. “The data is clear: there are tangible health benefits to engaging with plant material in biophilic environments,” she says. “Having our hands in the soil and engaging with plant life reduces stress, enhances our mood and renews a sense of purpose. It also exposes us to the intricate and marvelous web of life and the threads of interconnectedness that bind life together.”

Being a part of the Communion Forest movement is a way for us as Church to express our commitment to justice and community. For example, an urban church where there is little canopy to mitigate summer heat might nurture a grove of trees to provide shade and a resting space for neighbours.

“Planting trees can go beyond an altruistic, one-time deed; it can play an ongoing role in supporting multispecies health and communal wellbeing,” says Ms. Kern. “Through proper tree planting preparation and planting techniques, native species selection, long term site-specific maintenance considerations and habitat restoration, we are invited to come into greater knowing and care for local dynamic ecosystems that uphold an abundance of life. Learning about the places and spaces where tree plantings occur can open pathways to reciprocal relationship and ethical land stewardship. To me, it’s an invitation to better participate in our obligations to creation and one another as Treaty people.”

When we look at this work through the lens of community involvement, what we are really doing is co-creating space with the Creator and all creatures in creation. We’re learning to think differently about the spaces God has given to us to care for and to cultivate.

Joining the Communion Forest movement can help us embody our faith as we learn to care for and cultivate the forest of trees that will be for the healing of the nations. As the book of Proverbs says, “Wisdom is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed.” (3:18 NIV)

To learn more about Guinevere Kern’s work, visit www.guineverekern.com.

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Five years ago, the spongy moths invaded our forests and ate through the trees until the dust settled. The moths, whose usual appetite was oak, were so invasive that they digested the coniferous trees on our property as well – the hemlock, spruce and pine.

This was the first personal moment for me when I felt heartsick and helpless to save trees I have known since birth. I had taken them for granted.

Two years later, at the 2022 Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Communion put forth a call to action on the environment and sustainable development with specific requests, including: “Join in the Communion Forest initiative, to protect and restore forests and other ecosystems across our planet, and commit to promoting tree growing at the time of confirmation and other key life and faith moments, as a symbol of spiritual growth.” (4.1.5)

The call was overwhelmingly accepted. The initiative was blessed and supported by clergy and laity from around the world on the grounds of Lambeth Palace, and a tree was planted. As a stark reminder of the environmental crisis around us, the grounds and gardens of the palace surrounding the tree were brown and dry, resulting from 40C weather, a summer of intense heat that resulted in wildfires raging across the land and around the world.

I was moved by the call, its hope for our present and future – a movement of Anglicans that had the potential to transform the world through prayer, faith and action. One affirmation of the call particularly spoke to me:

“Humanity needs a spiritual and cultural transformation. We must see the world differently: repenting of and rejecting an extractive worldview, which regards the earth and all nature as something to be exploited, and embracing instead a relational worldview, at the heart of Christ’s teaching. This is espoused especially by Indigenous peoples, who see the profound interdependence of all creation.” (3.3)

I love our homeland, our trees, our wetlands, our ecosystems. And I love how our Church moves into action for the most vulnerable and unprotected. For the past three years, dioceses, provinces and local churches around the world, including three Ontario dioceses – Niagara, Ontario and Ottawa – have committed to encouraging parishes to develop activities that support and sustain tree growing and ecosystem conservation.

Since January, the Bishop’s Committee on Creation Care and I have engaged wholeheartedly in conversations about joining the Communion Forest movement here in our diocese. Once a seed is planted, it is amazing to see how it matures into a beautiful sprout. Nature takes its course, but it needs the sustaining support and love of a community to help it grow.

A small sub-committee has sprouted to encourage further conversations and interest in feeding and tending to this movement through our local churches, parishes and deaneries. There is a groundswell of anticipation of how we can support the biodiversity of not just our church lands but our communities, of how we can partner with other Anglican provinces across the world to support reforestation, protection and preservation of all ecosystems.

It doesn’t take a long walk around your own neighbourhood to see the effects of human-caused climate change. As a Church, we lead by example; we gather our resources to support and provide for our communities. When we tend our own grounds, we provide shade and food.  When we tend our communities, we provide love. We are called to be caretakers of God’s garden, and I have faith in this spiritual call to all of us to share in this ministry, one seed at a time.

Information about the Communion Forest in the Diocese of Toronto in time for parish preparations for the Season of Creation, to be held Sept. 1 to Oct. 4, will be posted on the Creation Care page of the diocese’s website, www.toronto.anglican.ca.

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The Season of Creation encourages Christians around the world to observe the period between Sept. 1 (the World Day of Prayer for Creation) and Oct. 4 (the feast of St. Francis of Assisi) as a time of particular prayer for the Earth. In 2019, General Synod passed a resolution adopting the Season of Creation in the Anglican Church of Canada and encouraging dioceses and parishes to participate.

Organized by the Bishop’s Committee on Creation Care, the service featured a mix of musical styles, from traditional choral arrangements to an Indigenous mass setting, led by musicians from Redeemer, Bloor St. Along with readings from scripture, the congregation heard “Remember,” a poem by Joy Harjo, the United States’ first Indigenous poet laureate. Bishop Andrew Asbil presided.

As the service got underway, three teenagers – Joaquin and Mikhail Getfield Francis of Holy Trinity, Thornhill and Gregory Conliffe of St. Martin in-the-Fields – shared stories of times they’ve connected with God through creation, as well as their thoughts about the role the Church might play in addressing the climate crisis.

“When it comes to the concerns of the planet, the Church needs to promote more peace,” one of the young people said. “To try and make sure that peace will be contagious and will be granted throughout the world.”

To reflect the many watersheds of the diocese, worshippers were invited to bring water from their local watershed to pour into a font during the service. Elder Laverne Malcom then blessed the mingled water in Anishnawbemowin and offered a prayer drum song.

In her sermon, the Rev. Susan Spicer, co-chair of the Bishop’s Committee on Creation Care, acknowledged the need to mourn the forest fires, droughts, catastrophic floods and heat waves that are ravaging God’s creation.

“I expect that many of us are grieving for what has been lost – the places we once loved where creation no longer flourishes as we knew it,” she said. “This, we know, is a spiritual crisis. And unless we can grieve for our planet, we cannot love and serve it.”

The path from grief to joy travels through lament to hope and action, she said. “The spiritual practice of communal lament helps us name what has been lost. It keeps us mindful of the suffering we encounter daily. It assures us that we are not alone in our grief. The prophets of Israel taught us to lament – lament the desolation of the world – and yet allow it to lead us to hope.”

The hope we are called to, she continued, is rooted in the biblical vision of a new creation and leads us to action, inspired by our sacred story. “Prayer transforms hope into action. It empowers us to do the work that Jesus did, of tending and protecting and loving and serving all our kin,” she said.

She reflected on the stories of Anglicans across the diocese who are responding to the climate crisis with compassion and creativity by planting pollinator gardens, growing fresh produce for food banks, greening their buildings, hosting repair cafés, advocating with local politicians and providing Christ-centred climate education.

“We say our prayers every day, and then we enter the world that waits on our doorstep, going out to serve, to do what we can, knowing that the Spirit is with us, empowering us to bring the healing, transforming love of our creation to our neighbours and our kin in this wounded and still wondrous world,” she said.

The diocesan Season of Creation celebrations continued with Hiking Church events in Mississauga, west Toronto, Peterborough and Nottawasaga. These events combine walking and worship in creation, often including gathering songs and prayers and a Eucharist celebrated outdoors.

More information and resources on creation care in the diocese are available at www.toronto.anglican.ca/creationcare.

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For some of us, “hope” is a difficult word. It may seem naïve, even delusional, to speak of hope and creation in the same sentence at this time in history. The last 10 years, and particularly the last 13 months, have seen the hottest global temperature averages ever recorded. Extreme weather events – from heat waves and droughts to hurricanes, extreme rainfall and flooding – are becoming more common. Catastrophic wildfires have become more frequent and more severe, with more and more people experiencing the impacts of smoke inhalation, forced evacuation and loss of homes and livelihoods. Changing weather patterns have expanded the territory and extended the active seasons of insect pests from mountain pine beetles to spongy moths and ticks, to name only three. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, modern humans have never before seen the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years. We are also seeing an unprecedented increase in ecosystem degradation and loss of biodiversity, driven by land-use changes, exploitation and pollution, as well as climate change. Some of Canada’s most iconic species, from Atlantic cod to polar bears to orca to monarch butterflies, are now in decline. And yet, we continue to burn fossil fuels, drain wetlands, clear forests, pave over farmland. How can we speak of “hope” in such a context?

Firstly, it is important to distinguish hope from optimism. Optimism is the belief that things will turn out well, but it doesn’t expect much effort or sacrifice on our part. It is a confidence that the odds are in one’s favour.

By contrast, as environmental scientist David W. Orr has written, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up. Hopeful people are actively engaged in defying or changing the odds.” The late poet Seamus Heaney put it similarly: “Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.” There is an active quality to hope that is lacking in both optimism and despair.

Indeed, despair can be as paralyzing a force as optimism. It tells us that nothing we can do will make any difference, since we are doomed in any case. Hope refuses to give in to despair. It doesn’t shy away from hard truths or bad news but keeps working for what is ultimately of value: life, the health and flourishing of all creatures, a state of shalom that encompasses all God’s creation. This is far too important for us to indulge in the luxury of either groundless optimism or precipitous despair. Indeed, climate scientists and psychologists alike have found that hopeful action helps keep climate grief from lapsing into despair.

As Christians, our hope is rooted not only in what is of value, but also in the nature of who God is – a God who delights in what God has made, who has not abandoned creation but who is continually working (John 5:17) to sustain, redeem and renew it all – including us. Created in the image of God, we are invited to participate in God’s work. Redeemed by the saving work of Christ’s death and resurrection, we are set free from our sins, including our greed, selfishness and all the structural and ecological sins that harm the Earth and ourselves. We are set free to be the children of God we were created to be.

Romans 8:19-25 tells us that creation groans but also waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. As the Season of Creation materials put it, the children of God are “those who stretch up their hands towards the Creator, recognizing themselves as humble creatures, to praise and respect God, and at the same time to love, respect, care and learn from God’s gift of Creation.”

One has only to observe the flora and fauna in our own backyards to see how relentlessly Creation strives toward renewal: how plants seize a toehold to take root in the earth, how birds and beasts continue to make nests and raise their young, how bees, butterflies and other insects continually move from flower to flower to gather food. As much as Creation is groaning, it is also actively striving to survive and flourish, as God created it to do.

Together with Creation, we hope in our Creator and, trusting in Christ’s redemption of the whole cosmos (Colossians 1:20), we add our efforts to the sustaining and renewing of all Creation. Rather than ignoring the bad news, we intentionally listen to the voices that are crying our and groaning – those who are losing land and livelihoods, species and ecosystems being lost, victims of extraction, exploitation and pollution. We know that, as urgently as it is needed, transformation takes time, and we might not see the full realization of our hope in our lifetimes. We know that our own efforts are small in comparison to the magnitude of the crises facing us. But we also know that our hopeful actions are part of God’s greater work. And we trust that God’s power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

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Immediately after the 10:30 service, clergy and parishioners processed out to the garden plot while singing “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Parishioner Brad Lennon spoke about how the pollinator garden project took shape. Elin Goulden, diocesan Social Justice & Advocacy consultant, gave a brief reflection on Job 12:7-10, in which we are urged to learn from the animals, the birds, the plants of the earth and the fish of the sea. Indigenous teachers and elders also speak of the importance of learning from Creation. By listening to Creation, we have begun to recover an understanding of the importance of pollinator species and the native plants that support them.

The blessing continued with the symbolic planting of a New England aster by Donna Lang and prayers led the Rev. Dr. Stephen Drakeford, interim priest-in-charge. At the conclusion of the prayers, the garden and those present were blessed and sprinkled with water by cedar boughs. Some native plant seedlings were also available in small pots for parishioners to take away and plant in their own gardens.

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During the Season of Creation, Christians around the world celebrate and pray for the creation God has entrusted into our care. It is a time in the church year when we, as the followers of Jesus, rediscover, reclaim and renew our ancient vocation to care for God’s earth.

This September, the Diocese of Toronto will celebrate its first diocese-wide Season of Creation, drawing together parishes from across the diocese into this important mission.

Some of our parishes have been participating in this ecumenical movement for many years, showing us how to live out this mission. They have engaged in creation-focused Sunday liturgies, workshops, book studies, hiking church and creation justice advocacy. We are deeply grateful for their prophetic work.

Grounded in our baptismal covenant, caring for creation is missional work of the Church. One way we live this out in our diocese is through the Cast the Net calls to action. They invite us to “recognize and act on opportunities to participate in God’s healing work in the world” (Call #4), to “make explicit connections between following Jesus and working for justice and peace (Call #5) and to “intensity advocacy and action in response to climate change” (Call #8).

This season will be an exciting and inspiring time as we experience the spirituality of caring for creation as a foundational element of our faith, and as we learn to follow a path of biblical hope in the midst of climate turmoil, anxiety and lament. This will also be an opportunity for the Church to be a prophetic witness to the urgent need to care for the Earth.

The diocesan season will begin with a vibrant, contemporary, creation-centred service at St. James Cathedral on Sept. 21 at 2 p.m. We are excited to hear the voices of youth who will be our preachers at this celebration. The liturgy will embody and bring to life the ecumenical theme for Season of Creation 2024, “To Hope and Act with Creation.”

Parishes from across the diocese – rural, suburban and urban – are invited to participate in the liturgy, bringing prayers, symbols and stories from your particular place, which will be incorporated into the liturgy and shared with the gathered community. Just as the many watersheds within our diocese ultimately flow into Lake Ontario, parishes from every part of the diocese are invited to bring water from their watershed, which will be poured into a fount in the liturgy.

During this season, parishes are invited to befriend creation and to explore their particular place in creation, both the land and water, through prayer, walking, symbol and story. A short resource guide for parishes is available on the creation care webpage, www.toronto.anglican.ca/creationcare.

The season will close with Hiking Church events located in the headwaters of our region on Oct. 5. Hiking Church is a wonderful and simple way to connect with creation. Through prayer, walking and the Eucharist, we will experience God in creation in new and intimate ways.

Creation is groaning and needs the followers of Jesus to embrace their shared vocation to care for and heal the earth (Romans 8:19). Creation needs all of us – those who have been living the mission to creation care, those who are trying to figure out how to get started and those who are simply curious. Let us together love and serve creation. Alleluia!

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