Hello all! I’ve written on here before and I’ve been introduced to many of you, but I have not formally introduced myself! I started my internship journey just over a year ago when I was forwarded an email from Pastor Robyn about this internship program offered by EcoFaith Recovery. This particular position really focused on utilizing visual media to inform the story of EcoFaith.
At the time I was starting to live at Camp Lutherwood Oregon, where I still live and work. Lutherwood is a place where I am immersed daily in appreciating the outdoors and environment around me. I also have a background in film making. While at PLU I participated in an internship that allowed me to travel across the US and Canada on two documentaries, the first examining the Oil Sands in Alberta and becoming intimately familiar with the oil crisis. The second focused on compassion fatigue and to some extent recovery from trauma exposure and to the overwhelming disaster that exists in our society.
It has been an eventful and beautiful year spent participating and getting to know the network that is EcoFaith Recovery. My project as was initially dreamed, was meant to capture the different areas of EcoFaith Recovery in order to connect the landscape of EcoFaith across the board; as well as provide a series that can be used to help grow the community. What I’ve been introduced to as I’ve met the EcoFaith network is a community of individuals with passionate stories devoted to finding answers to the bigger questions in the face of consumerism.
Through the course of my project, I’ve directed myself with a few questions. The first being a driving and simple question: “What is the story of EcoFaith Recovery?“ At every interview and for everyone I’ve met, this has been forefront in my understanding of the community. One of my immersions into the community was my experience of the River’s Lament, and leader Solveig Nilsen-Goodin shares her story with this video about the River’s Lament.
https://test.youtube.com/watch?v=OED6YoqRf3E
My second driving question was: “How does EcoFaith Recovery take form?” The passion in the stories I began to know was powerful and invigorating, as Solveig explains. And as she also explains, the community of people who also are viscerally affected by this climate crisis, is supportive and helpful in conceiving answers to an overwhelming crisis. My work brought me to meet the Organizing the Biocommons classes that really examines the intersection between Ecology, Economy, Faith, and Recovery.
https://test.youtube.com/watch?v=bXYmjbUSrzU
Another initiative that I saw carrying out the intersection of Eco-Faith-and Recovery by meeting in intimate small groups over food and practicing local consumption and sustainability was Simply in Season, I’ll let Pat Andeen share her story about Simply in Season.
https://test.youtube.com/watch?v=qtcc_Haw7Bk
My last question that has been motivational in my journey has been “What are you recovering to? While I posed this question to each of my interviewees, receiving a wide range of answers, I’m still discerning this. I know for fact that living closer in community and striving to do my part in decreasing my own consumption are steps, but I strongly believe that continuing to share this question and shape this answer is something that will persistently motivate my journey! I look forward to sharing more about myself and my project with all of you!
Read more about Elizabeth and other EcoFaith Recovery Interns here.
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