I met today’s guest in the fall of 2017, at the beginning of a year of seminary studies. Pete Nunnally and I immediately bonded over a shared passion for justice. Within a couple days of meeting, we were driving three hours to be part of the clergy-led counterprotest of the now-infamous “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. We spent the day witnessing to justice with clergy and other people of conscience.
Ever since, I have known Fr. Pete to be someone who consistently shows up to be in solidarity with those who are suffering and oppressed, leveraging his privilege to protect those being targeted. Before we met, he spent years in New Orleans supporting recovery efforts after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Now, he is doing the powerful work of cultivating community in wild spaces, centering care of Creation with his carbon-neutral church plant, Water and Wilderness. And he is writing about this interconnected, hopeful way of being in the world in his upcoming book, Catching Hope: The Hidden Spiritual Wisdom of Fishing.
The body of Christ includes the natural world. It is not just humans. What an amazing thing that our brothers and sisters are the trees and the chipmunks and the fish and the wind and the fire and earth. That the earth really is a living thing. That is our first testament. — Fr. Pete Nunnally
About Fr. Pete:
Fr. Pete Nunnally is the interim rector at St David’s in Wilmington, Delaware, and is working with the Diocese of Washington to plant a carbon-neutral church called Water and Wilderness Church. He graduated from Bridgewater College in 2002, taught middle school Pe for 5 years before moving to New Orleans to work in Hurricane Katrina recovery. He is a fisherman and writer, and his forthcoming book, Catching Hope: The Hidden Spiritual Wisdom of Fishing, is due out next year.
Pete’s Substack:
Instagram: @fr_pete_the_wilderness_priest
Water and Wilderness Church: www.waterandwilderness.org
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