The mission of Sacred Earth: Common Ground is to tell good stories – stories that connect us with our deepest selves, our neighbors, the wider natural world, and the Holy.
Storytelling is a creative, engaging way to bridge the cultural-political-religious divides that threaten democracy, devastate Creation and divide communities.
“The shortest distance between two people is a story.”
– Patti Digh, Four-Word Self-Help: Simple Wisdom For Complex Lives
The stories we tell shape the way we live on the Earth and with one another. When our stories are rooted in fear, separation, consumption, or despair, we lose our sense of belonging. But stories of connection, wonder, compassion, mystery, and sacred presence can help restore and renew us.
Neuroscience and ancient spiritual traditions alike teach us that storytelling helps human beings connect, something that facts and arguments alone cannot do. When we hear someone speak honestly about awe, wonder, grief, gratitude, or transformation, something deep inside us is awakened. We remember that we, too, have stood under a night sky and felt humbled. We, too, have sensed mystery in the natural world. We, too, have experienced moments of insight, awe, and invitations to transformation. The Celts called these mysterious encounters “thin places,” where the veil between the physical and the spiritual became thin and distinction between the ordinary and the sacred became indistinguishable.
We would like to share some of these good stories with you, hoping that they will inspire your own.
“You can’t hate someone whose story you know.”
– Margaret J. Wheatley, Margaret J. Wheatley, Turning to One Another
We invite you to host a storytelling event that connects us with the Earth & with each other.
We’ll invite community artists to spark our imaginations with a poem, a song, a dance, or a work of art on the theme of “Sacred Earth.” Then we’ll divide into small groups, and invite them to tell a 3-minute story about sometime when they stood on Holy Ground.
One story inspires another. There will be laughter and camaraderie. Though we came to the event as separate individuals, from different tribes, by the end of the evening we will have discovered Common Ground that we didn’t know existed. Often, to celebrate, we serve refreshments that acknowledge the place where we live and move and have our being. In the desert, for example, we’ve served chocolate chip mesquite cookies with prickly pear lemonade and shared Apache tea and fry bread in the desert mountains.
If you’re interested in learning more, contact Rev. Doug Bland (doug.bland@azipl.org).
We invite you to join us for Good Stories – a storytelling journey into connection, wonder, and the sacred.
Every two weeks we will email you a story (you can opt-out at any time). We will also post the stories on our “Sacred Earth: Common Ground” Facebook page. Read the stories. Share them with friends and family. Sit with the memories they awaken in you. And perhaps ask yourself:
When have I experienced a deep connection?
When has the world felt luminous, alive, holy, or mysteriously whole?
What story within me is waiting to be remembered?
Together, through Good Stories, we can rediscover common ground, resilience and a passion to care for our Mother / Sister Earth.
The day started out bright and sunny and I was out for my usual morning run through our Tucson urban neighborhood. About two blocks from home, I turned the corner and saw a bird frantically scurrying around a lump in the street. As I got closer, I noticed that it was two roadrunners. The live bird, likely the mate, was clearly stressed and consumed with checking on the lifeless bird. Suddenly, my heart broke. Here was this magnificent creature, distraught and mourning for the lost life of its partner. It kept circling the still body, as if willing it to get up and move. After several minutes, I tenderly picked up the dead roadrunner, and as I cradled it in my arms, tears began to flow down my face. I spoke to the grief-stricken mate, saying, “I am so sorry for your loss.” I walked slowly, sobbing, every fiber of my being now knowing that these creatures are capable of love, loyalty, and sorrow. I stroked the patterned feathers, admiring the green sheen of the tailfeathers and the bold colorings around the eyes and crest. This beautiful creature, bonded with another, was no longer, and my worldview was irrevocably changed. I buried that roadrunner in my backyard, and as I buried it, I wept and prayed as I would for a dear relative. Just in the past year, I had buried my ex-husband, killed by a drunk driver; now I buried another’s spouse, killed by reckless driving. Perhaps my release of grief for the bird was an outpouring of my own grief. And yet this shared commonality of loss opened my heart up for something bigger than myself, transitioning my relationship with the natural world from one of outside observer to member of my newly recognized family. Now I greet them as good friends. Good morning, brother Raven! Good hunting today, sister King Snake! And I tenderly move the broken bodies of those hit by cars, grieving for what has been lost to our common community. With great love will come sorrow, but my life is so much fuller in knowing and loving what is here than to never have known it at all. - This Good Story is brought to you by Lori Bryant, AZIPL Board Member. To see more stories of connection - to our deepest selves, our neighbors, the wider natural world, and the Holy - follow the Sacred Earth: Common Ground Facebook page! You can visit azipl.org/subscribe to join the AZIPL mailing list and receive Good Stories directly to your inbox every two weeks. If you have a story of your own you’d like to share, please reach out to Rev. Doug Bland (doug.bland@azipl.org)!
"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . . This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.” - This Good Story is brought to you by Thomas Merton: Trappist monk and author of "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”. To see more stories of connection - to our deepest selves, our neighbors, the wider natural world, and the Holy - follow the Sacred Earth: Common Ground Facebook page! You can visit azipl.org/subscribe to join the AZIPL mailing list and receive Good Stories directly to your inbox every two weeks. If you have a story of your own you’d like to share, please reach out to Rev. Doug Bland (doug.bland@azipl.org).
In July 2022, after four weeks of cycling with my college friend Wayne, we began the final climb of our five-week journey: Logan Pass in Glacier National Park. At 6,646 feet, it is the highest point on the Going-to-the-Sun Road and the last of five mountain passes we would cross. As I pedaled upward, I found myself wondering not whether I could reach the summit, but how it would feel when I did. I had first climbed Logan Pass by bicycle in 1984. Before my last year of college, eager to experience the Rocky Mountains, I rode from Jasper, Alberta, to Denver. On a brilliant August day, my companion and I wound through waterfalls draped with rainbows, climbing at nine miles an hour through scenery that earned Glacier its nickname, the Crown of the Continent. I never imagined I would return 38 years later. Life unfolded between those two rides. I finished college, built a career, married an extraordinary woman, and together we raised two courageous sons. We shared our own bicycle adventures, settled near the mountains I loved, and later returned to Glacier as tourists. Along the way came life's greatest joys and deepest fears, including watching our older son battle lymphoma before the miracle of modern medicine restored his health. Eventually, retirement opened the door to this long-awaited ride with Wayne. Three hours after beginning the climb, the familiar Logan Pass sign came into view. We stopped, proud of what we had accomplished together. Then, without warning, tears poured down my face. I embraced Wayne because I needed a friend in that moment. Standing there, I felt nearly four decades of memories arrive all at once — youth, adventure, marriage, fatherhood, hardship, gratitude, and renewal. Returning to Logan Pass by bicycle had become far more than finishing a climb. It was the other bookend of my adult life, marking both an ending and a beginning. In that unforgettable moment, I realized I hadn't simply returned to a place. I had returned to the person who first dreamed of the journey. - This Good Story is brought to you by Mike Sills-Trausch, President of the AZIPL Board of Directors Mike retired from a 30-year career in local, county, and state government in 2021. He is planning a 700-mile bicycle ride from Montreal, Canada to Ann Arbor, Michigan in August. To see more stories of connection - to self, nature, and the Holy - follow the Sacred Earth: Common Ground Facebook page, or visit azipl.org/subscribe to join the AZIPL mailing list! If you have a story of your own you’d like to share, please reach out to Rev. Doug Bland (doug.bland@azipl.org).