Suzanne's Mom's Blog

I used to get emails from the Christian Science Monitor that I don’t think I signed up for but had links to articles I liked. It seemed like the Monitor sought out the same kinds of upbeat stories I look for. So when the emails stopped, I decided it was time to start paying my way. It’s not expensive. In addition to digging up good news like today’s, the paper has always had great international coverage that other outlets ignore until something explodes.

Erika Page reported recently from Baltimore, “When Pastor Michael Martin began preaching at Stillmeadow Community Fellowship in 2017, he heard only whispers about the creek. No one seemed to know for sure, but rumor had it that deep inside the 10 acres of dark, untended woods on the church property, a stream might flow.

“A year came and went before the leader of the suburban church in southwest Baltimore convinced a congregant to show him the land, which the church couldn’t sell or even give away. When Mr. Martin finally got a glimpse of that creek, hidden in overgrown brush and vines, he realized something: All his preaching about stewardship of the community could take on a tangible shape.

“ ‘We’ve got 10 acres of stewardship that we haven’t accounted for,’ he told his congregation the following Sunday. And he went on to paint a mental picture of his idea of stewardship: a peace park where churchgoers and visitors could worship, connect with nature, and join in fellowship. Before long, and with the input of dozens of community members, his vision included walking paths, vegetable gardens, meditation stations, an apiary, and even an amphitheater. 

“As word got out about the idea of the Stillmeadow PeacePark in a historically underserved neighborhood where green space is sparse, volunteers began to pour in. …

“The United States Forest Service partnered with Stillmeadow. Organizations like Blue Water Baltimore and the Interfaith Partners of the Chesapeake offered support for environmental restoration. Students from local schools and from five universities joined the fold. Two and a half years later, the project has become an emblem of environmental justice – equal parts ecological restoration and community building. 

“On a recent Saturday morning, volunteers tended to squash, melon, cucumber, sweet pea, green bean, soybean, and Swiss chard plants in a vegetable garden by the park entrance. Others carried native understory saplings – laurel, rhododendron, dogwood, and redbud – up the wood chip path that now winds through the park. (The team, so far, has planted 1,800 new trees to replace hundreds of sick and dying ash trees.) Deeper in the forest, in a clearing by the creek, a local educator guided children in a lesson on nature art.

” ‘As someone who teaches environmental justice, this is a perfect laboratory,’ says McKay Jenkins, a professor of environmental humanities who brings students from the University of Delaware to volunteer at Stillmeadow every Saturday morning. 

“The PeacePark, he adds, is one of the few places he knows where people of so many racial and religious backgrounds are coming together: “They’re starting to realize that they have way more in common than they have not in common.

‘When you sweat and plant trees together, it’s a very healing experience. It’s restorative for people, it’s restorative for ecology.’ …

“For Mr. Martin, leading a church is about caring for the community through active stewardship. ‘My time here [at Stillmeadow] started out with challenging us to be good stewards of the building and of the neighborhood.’ … But Mr. Martin admits he had never been much of an environmental advocate. His most regular contact with nature as a child took place on Sunday evenings in front of the weekly TV show Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.

“ ‘There’s no way that you could have gotten me to think in terms of converting all of that nice-looking lawn into a pollinator garden even three years ago,’ he says of the Kentucky bluegrass lawn in front of the brick church that the PeacePark team is planning to remove. In its place, volunteers will plant native Maryland flowers that will be beneficial to butterflies, bees, and birds.

“Now, thanks to the Stillmeadow forest, the local environment is front and center in his understanding of what it means to be a true steward of the neighborhood: ‘We as Christians owe God an obedience to take care of what is taking care of us.’ …

“What Mr. Martin didn’t know was that this land was a microcosm of problems in ecosystems across the mid-Atlantic region. In fact, Morgan Grove from the U.S. Forest Service says his colleagues didn’t think the project would be possible when they laid eyes on the space. The presence of invasive vines and insects such as the emerald ash borer meant that hundreds of dying ash trees needed to be cleared to rehabilitate the forest. …

“If the reforestation experiment works, experts say it could serve as a model for green areas on the East Coast.”

More at the Monitor, here. Read about the student who began by hating volunteering here for his high school’s community service requirement and ended up an evangelist for the park.