As the school year begins, I’ve been reflecting on the 20+ back-to-school experiences I have had as a student. While many of these moments run together, there are a few back-to-school memories that figure prominently in my imagination and formation.
One of those was the 2017-18 school year, which I spent at Virginia Theological Seminary to learn the ins and outs of the Episcopal Church: its respective liturgy, history and polity. I also learned — in the classroom and through the seminary community — about the quirks, moral quandaries, and outright sins of this tradition I chose to adopt as a young adult.
The Episcopal Church has its roots in colonialism. Birthed as the American branch of the Church of England, it was one of many churches planted as part and parcel of British colonialism, with all the violence toward human beings and exploitation of the earth which that project continues to entail. The American Revolution and the Episcopal Church’s subsequent emergence as its own entity did nothing to hamper the white supremacy culture running throughout the institutional church. Many priests, bishops, parishes and seminaries of the Episcopal Church are on the record as having held human beings in enslavement, and the vast wealth of my denomination is largely the legacy of the Triangle Trade — a fact with which church institutions are actively reckoning today, including VTS.
The work of repentance and reparation is just beginning to make inroads. This means that cross-racial relationships within the Episcopal Church and across the Anglican Communion — the network of churches around the world linked by their shared lineage — are as complex as they are necessary for healing.
Which brings me back to my back-to-school memory: I met the Rev. Pearson Yoram Nhayo within my first few days of moving into the dorms at VTS. He was tending the gardens with the kind of vibrant smile you see in the photo below, so happy to have a student job that entailed fresh air (a welcome respite, he told me, from the stuffiness of the library, where he also spent a great deal of time).
There are few people in my life who have made me feel so immediately at home as Pearson — and this coming from someone who was nearly 8,000 miles from his own home in Tanzania, where his beloved wife and daughters were still residing. His way of being in the world is effervescently generous and hopeful, as he builds community everywhere he goes. It has been a privilege to be his friend, and to support his ministry (as he has supported mine) as it takes root and flourishes.
Today, Pearson is priest of St. Barnaba Church in the Diocese of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where he ministers at the intersection of decolonization, creation care, and economic justice. He is a program coordinator for the Health Tanzania Foundation, a multi-faith nonprofit organization which supports community health and educational and economic transformation in Tanzania. Pearson is a certified Mission Formation Agent by the Global Episcopal Mission Network. He received the Anglican Communion Prize Award of 2018, and was runner-up in the Kreitler Environmental Sermon-Writing Contest of 2019. He is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Ministry at Virginia Theological Seminary. He writes on Substack here:
I’m pleased to introduce you to him as today’s guest writer. Here is his essay:
It is an undeniable reality that commitment to engage in the world as someone living and working at the intersection of spiritual and social change demands a dedication to Creation Care work and the ability to initiate projects to combat environmental destruction.
It was November 2020. I was driving home from the Sunday service of one of the nine churches of St. Barnaba Parish, Pwani region in the Diocese of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in East Africa. The day was very hot and cloudless.
Along the road were many carcasses of cows, goats, and sheep, scattered about. Suddenly, I met a woman crossing the road to pasture her cattle. She was dressed in the Maasai tribe fashion. Culturally, it is the responsibility of girls and women in the Maasai tribe to take care of cattle and build their families’ local houses.
While crossing, two cows fell near the road. The woman continued to bring other cows, letting the two fallen cows remain near the road. I stopped the car and went to see what kind of help I could offer. We began to talk, and our conversation went like this:
Me: Hello madam!
Woman: Hi pastor!
Me: Why are you leaving the two cows down there?
Woman: They are very thirsty and I cannot do anything to help. So, I am going home to seek help from other members of the family to help me.
Me: Will they help you to pick them up?
Woman: Yes...they are hungry too.
Me: Where do you get water for the cows and for you?
Woman: We buy water for us and a little water for our cattle too. But cattle are food and water is as scarce for them as it is for us. As you see, it’s a drought, and so, too hot to survive.
Me: I am very sorry. Yes, it's too hot and too dry.
Woman: Thanks.
She continued herding her cattle as I went to my car. During my trip, I pondered how our Tanzanian community has been impacted by environmental degradation. My encounter with the Maasai woman is just one of many anecdotal illustrations I could provide of how climate change is affecting our community in Chalinze, the Pwani region, the Diocese of Dar es Salaam, and beyond. Climate change is real to us right here and right now.
Rising temperatures, regular drought and famine, water crises, cooking energy scarcity, and the rise of water bodies, are just some of the red lights that urge me to integrate my practices of social change and spirituality.
Climate change is real to us right here and right now.
It has been common these days in my community to witness horrific events resulting from climate change:
Child labor has increased, as children drop out from school in order to help to search for firewood or water in the field, or to help to fetch water away from home.
Women look for firewood far away from home and must fetch water away from their homes or villages, which often results in gender-based violence against them.
Sometimes water is polluted and contaminated, as people are forced to share with animals.
Girls’ hygiene has been affected because there is no running water in almost any school in Chalinze.
Meeting the Maasai woman with her cattle pushed me as a spiritual leader of a parish community to find ways to combat climatic change on the local level. That is why, a few days later, I called a meeting with parish leaders to share the story with them. We had a conversation about environmental justice, and ultimately agreed to plant trees in the churches of our parish. I talked to the diocesan office, and they agreed to support us. Hence, we were able to plant more than 70 trees on the main allotment, with the other churches of St. Barnaba planting more than 100 additional trees.
For me today, both spirituality and social change are about taking responsibility for the care of Creation. I find inspiration for this challenging work in my Christian faith tradition. For example, in the second Creation story, “no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground.” (Genesis 2:5). It was when a human being was created and put it into the garden for the purpose of caring for and keeping it, that the garden began to grow.
This ancient story illustrates the interdependence between human beings and the rest of the created world. Planting trees, gardening, and other ways of tending to Creation are just a small part of the work we are called to do as people entrusted to the land on which we live. We must also advocate for subsidies for alternative cooking fuels, protection of water sources, reduction in industrial emission, and adoption of non-plastic packaging and environmentally friendly agriculture, and all of this while supporting the livelihoods of the poor.
For my part, I am currently guiding my parish’s liturgical committee in designing a Creation Care liturgy for an Earth Day worship service. Our congregation will invite political and community leaders to attend this worship service, to inspire action for climate justice in our wider community. Participants will plant trees as part of the service, and also be encouraged to plant trees on their compounds and farms, in order to provide food, beauty, and shade to those most affected by environmental degradation.
In our work and in our worship, I hope we will all be rooted in a spirituality of Creation Care and a shared commitment to ecological justice.
I’d love to hear from you! What captured your imagination in today’s essay? What inspired you or gave you hope? What questions are emerging for you?