Summer Solstice Edition, 2022, "Restoring Connective Tissue" (Tom VandeStadt, lead editor)
Welcome To This Edition of AllCreation
Restoring Connective Tissue
We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return as results.
When members of the Native American Blackfoot community greet one another they don’t ask, “how are you?” They ask, “how are the connections?” As we look at conditions on planet Earth today, we see that many connections are not well. All around our planetary home, connective tissue is fraying, weakening, and tearing as biospheres, societies, and bodies are subject to ever more stress and pulled apart at the seams.
Our theme for this edition of AllCreation is Restoring Connective Tissue. Connective tissue conjures up the image of tendons and ligaments, the physical tissue that holds our bodies together. Without this tissue, we couldn’t do The Skeleton Dance, because the thigh bone wouldn’t be connected to the knee bone. Indeed, we wouldn’t exist at all, because nothing would be connected to anything.
In this edition, we address the health of the physical connective tissue in our bodies, but we also use connective tissue as a metaphor for any element, relationship, process, or invisible thread that connects anyone and anything to everyone and everything. We highlight people who are restoring connective tissue not only in Earth’s biosphere, but between ecology, politics, economics, society, culture, psychology, education, evolution, biology, diet, stress, spirituality, and so on and so forth, for all of these dimensions of human life are interconnected with the crisis humans are now creating on Earth.
This time around, we focus less on the works of North American religious leaders and academics from the Abrahamic tradition, and give more space to people and organizations from around the world and other traditions. Hopefully, they will inspire you as you read their words and hear them speak, and you will feel connected to them through threads both visible and invisible as we all seek to restore connective tissue.
— Lead editor, Tom VandeStadt
Table of Contents
Restoring Connective Tissue
How can we restore healthy relationships with each other, the living Creation, and our shared future?
1. The Very Facts of the World are a Poem – our invocation is a book excerpt from Robin Wall Kimmerer.
2. Connections Smooth and Strong Like Silk – an article by Tom VandeStadt.
3. Kinship and Connective Tissue -- Tom's interview with Dr. Darcia Narvaez.
4. Meaning and Connective Tissue – Tom's interview with author Jeremy Lent.
5. Planet Earth and Connective Tissue – Tom's video interview with Christina Conklin.
6. Qigong and Connective Tissue – Tom's interview with Nick Loffree.
7. Canticle Farm: One heart, one home, one block at a time -- Anne Symens-Bucher
8. God's House is All of Creation -- A few thoughts from St. Francis of Assisi and Fr. Murray Bodo.
9. Restoring Native Pollinators -- A selection of videos from Oklahoma's Tribal Alliance for Pollinators.
10. My Best App is My Grandmother -- A TED talk from Indigenous rights leader, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim.
11. Ubuntu: "I Am, because We Are" -- short videos from Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Getrude Matshé, and others.
12. We Are All Connected with Nature -- two videos from Amazonian leader, Nixiwaka Yawanawa.
13. How Trees Talk to Eachother -- five videos from the world's leading forest ecologist, Suzanne Simarad.
14. Evangelical Call to Action on Biodiversity -- a new accord from Arocha and The World Evangelical Alliance.
15. Reducing Depravation: Black Lives and Climate Justice -- a short video and call to action from British Parliament member, David Lammy.
16. Hindu Connections to Nature -- excerpts from four fascinating articles.
17. Regrowing Traditional Food Systems -- four videos from First Nations Development Institute on their food programs.
18. Regrowing China's Loess Plateau -- three documentaries from John D. Liu on the world's biggest environmental restoration project.
19. "We Are All Expressons of Nature's Creative Force" -- singer songwriters John Frusciante and Xavier Rudd share how they feel life's energy.
20. How to Be an Earthling -- Wes Nisker, the Buddhist sage with the comedian's wit, tells you how to be what you already are--an Earthling.
Meet Lead Editor Tom VandeStadt
Tom VandeStadt is co-founder of AllCreation and a former pastor in the United Church of Christ. Tom came up with the metaphor, "Restoring Connective Tissue," via his healing journey into Qigong this year. Don't miss Tom's article, Silk Reeling, on that awakening. Tom is currently restoring the land on which he lives to an urban wildlife refuge and volunteering as a citizen forester in Tulsa, OK.
Tom is supported on this issue by AllCreation exec. editor and co-founder, Chris Searles.
Cover image by Ryan Price.
See the email release of Restoring Connective Tissue here.
