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Please help welcome these four new members of the PA IPL board of directors: |
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John Roe is a professor of mathematics at Penn State and a charter member of the Calvary-Gray’s Woods congregation in State College, PA. He is also a member of the 2012 class of the multi-faith GreenFaith Fellowship program. John has made his home in State College since 1998 when he and his family moved here from England. Outside mathematics he enjoys rock-climbing, cooking, and playing the guitar. Upon joining the GreenFaith program, John offered a quote that is just as relevant to board membership at Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light. “Jesus said that your life is more than the stuff you have. I want to explore how faith communities can hear that challenge and live it out – before our stuff ends up choking us.” Christine Brotherson is the President/CEO of Sustainability Initiatives through Campus Ministries, a non-profit organization that works with Campus Ministry personnel to develop faith based sustainability programming for their college and university campuses. In addition to degrees in Marketing, Theological Studies, and Community and Social Development, Christine brings her experience as a licensed social worker and at Mercyhurst University as a campus minister with her to the PA IPL board. She has advocated at the state and national level, and worked with religious educators and sustainability experts to develop programs that help students connect the teachings of their religious traditions with their responsibility to demonstrate stewardship of the earth through their personal lifestyles. Christine is currently working as an advisor to an investment group developing a 400 acre organic farm in Girard, PA. This farm will not only serve as an organic food source for the local community, but will also provide a living laboratory to practice and observe sound environmental procedures. Krista Showalter Ehst is a recent MDiv graduate of Candler School of Theology (Emory University) in Atlanta, GA. As she and her husband Tim transition back to Barto, PA–near where Krista grew up–they are working alongside friends to run a diversified, mixed-diet CSA. In addition to her work at the CSA, Krista plans to merge her interests in religious education and sustainability by running summer camps and offering monthly, on-farm classes for local clergy and laity. Krista brought her passion for local food and her experience in sustainable, community-supported agriculture with her into seminary. During her studies, she served in a curriculum-writing internship with Georgia Interfaith Power & Light, spent a summer working with youth in a community garden, and guest-taught Sunday School classes on food justice. Her Master's thesis focused on Mennonite rural agrarian identity in the mid-twentieth century. As she moves out of the classroom and onto the farm, she looks forward to continuing to explore the intersections of faith identity and local food systems. Rev. Daishin Eric McCabe is Assistant Teacher to Abbess Dai-En Bennange at Mt Equity Zendo near Williamsport. He began practicing Zen in 1994 After receiving Priest Precepts in 2004, Rev. Daishin trained at several Zen Temples, including Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California, Tich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village in France, and Zuioji, Gotanjoji, and Shogoji in Japan. In 2011 Rev. Daishin fulfilled the requirements to be recognized as a teacher in the Soto Zen Tradition in both America and Japan. Rev Daishin believes that Zen Buddhism has a unique contribution to make with regards to our environmental crisis, namely through the teachings embodied in the following quote by Zen Master Dogen: To carry the self forward and illuminate myriad things is delusion. That the myriad things come forth and illuminate the self is awakening. In other words, though we may not know it, we, as humans, are totally and always interdependent with all things in the Universe even in the simplest of activities. This is not so much a philosophy of life as it is a way of being and acting in the world. When we perceive ourselves as part of nature, then a worldview and way of living emerge which is in greater harmony with the rhythms and cycles of the planet. This harmony begins on a personal level by realizing unity with all beings. Actions to save the planet that proceed from this view not only heal the earth, but heal the mind. |
