MUM Panel Talks Spirituality and the Environment

Douglas Tuers, a member of Green Iowa AmeriCorps at MIU, coordinated and moderated a discussion about the environment and spirituality with a panel consisting of MIU’s Dr. Travis Cox, Dr. Evan Finkelstein, recent Sustainable Living graduate Pia Fritsch, and guests Father Thomas Miller and his wife Donna Miller discuss how religion and spirituality have affected the environment through the course of history. They delve deeply into what they believe has led to the current state of our spiritual relationship with the environment. They cover topics such as how we define the environment, how we integrate ourselves with it, and how to advance our relationship with nature as we move in to the future.

“The concept of the environment has a lot of definitions and many levels to it. How much we appreciate the environment depends on how awake we are inside…when a person has that experience of unbounded being, they begin to realize that there is a connection between that unbounded being and the environment.” – Dr. Evan Finkelstein

“Something we talked about in our Deep Ecology class is “shallow sustainability”, which focuses on things like changing technology (for being more sustainable). Being more sustainable by taking shorter showers or buying organic is great, but it isn’t enough to create real environmental change.” – Pia Fritsch

“By not only having care and love for nature, but also by being a recipient of the blessings of nature as we interact with it, on an ordinary day you go outside and sense a certain energy to that time of day. If you’re going on a walk with the awareness of what you’re experiencing then there is a sense of making music with the environment, there’s some collaboration, some richness in it that makes you fall in love with it even more.” – Donna Miller

You can watch the entire talk below: