<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Cindy-Crosby-2-300pxl.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 150px; float: right;" />Au Sable welcomed Cindy Crosby to our board of directors last month. Cindy is a gifted writer and teacher and has a passion for connecting people&rsquo;s hearts and minds with the natural world. She speaks and teaches on many topics, including writing, backpacking, natural history, prairies, and faith. Her audiences include backpackers, kayakers, publishing professionals, librarians, aspiring writers, book clubs, religious groups, and nature organizations.</p>
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	Cindy is the author or compiler of seven books, and a contributor to nine others, including <u>The Tallgrass Prairie Reader</u> forthcoming from University of Iowa Press (2014). She has written more than five hundred articles and reviews for many periodicals and websites, including&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Books &amp; Culture</em>,&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Backpacker</em>,&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Christian Century</em>,&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Christianity Today</em>,&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mars Hill Review</em>,&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Quiet Spaces</em>, and&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Wild Ones Journal</em>. Her poetry has been featured in&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Prairie Light Review</em>,&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Seeding the Snow</em>,&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The DuPage Sierran</em>, and&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A Prairie Journal</em>. Her essay &ldquo;Blowing Bubbles: Much Ado About Nothing&rdquo; was the winner of the Paul Gruchow Nature Essay contest in 2013.</p>
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	When she&#39;s not using them to writer, she likes to get her hands dirty. She is actively involved with The Morton Arboretum, where she is a docent and steward supervisor. As part of her stewardship work, she leads a weekly tallgrass prairie restoration group, participates in prescribed burns, and removes invasive plants from natural areas. She&#39;s developed Cindy is a National Association for Interpretation Certified Interpretive Guide and Master Gardener, who also holds four certifications from The Morton Arboretum: Natural History-Interpretation, Natural History-Natural Areas, Steward Supervisor, and Woodlands, totaling more than 200 hours of class and field work. She led a faith-based community environmental group, The Earthlings, for four years.</p>
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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Cindy-Crosby-300pxl.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 149px; float: right;" />Cindy is the dragonfly monitor for the Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum and also at Nachusa Grasslands in Franklin Grove, IL, a Nature Conservancy site. She also serves on Nachusa&#39;s outreach committee, helping prepare for the changes bison will bring to the site&rsquo;s tallgrass prairies in 2014. She is a member of the program committee for the National Association for Interpretation Region 5. Cindy is currently completing her Master&#39;s degree in Environmental Education and Interpretation at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.&nbsp;</p>
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	Cindy was Artist in Residence (2005) at Isle Royale National Park where she later served as a volunteer in the park, park guide, and national park ranger. Cindy was also a jury member for Isle Royale&#39;s Artist in Residence program for three years. She has volunteered more than 500 hours at the national parks and more than 1,000 hours at The Morton Arboretum in addition to her paid work.</p>
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	When she&rsquo;s not out chasing dragonflies, reading, hiking, or kayaking, you&rsquo;ll find Cindy enjoying her backyard garden with her husband Jeff in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.</p>
<p>
	<strong>How did your passion for God&#39;s creation develop?</strong></p>
<p>
	I grew up in a small town, where our big backyard was a shifting kaleidoscope of tent-building, games of hide-and-seek, whiffleball contests, or reading books under the forsythia bush. I could bike to both sets of grandparents&rsquo; houses, and spent a lot of time exploring the woods and meadows that still existed around our neighborhood. During the summer, I played outside all day; I only came home when the streetlights flipped on. When not outside, I was still investigating nature. My grandmother was a science teacher who bought me rock tumblers and a microscope for gifts, and my room had shelves full of rocks and shells and other collections. The outdoors was my playground, my thinking spot, the place I learned about cause and effect, and where I observed the cycle of life. When I was sad or in trouble, I climbed a sweet gum tree in our front yard and hung out in the branches until I got my equilibrium back.</p>
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	Now, as an adult, the outdoors is a place where I work out knotty problems, find solace, and regain my balance when things in my life feel out of kilter. Whether it&rsquo;s kayaking Lake Superior or an Illinois River, backpacking an island in Lake Michigan or hiking the tallgrass prairie, there is always something in nature than reminds me that my problems are small and God is big. The outdoors has always been where I&rsquo;ve felt closest to God and felt most connected to my faith.&lt;\p&gt;</p>
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	<strong>Why do you think it&#39;s important for students to grow in their knowledge, skills, and ethic for caring for God&#39;s world?</strong></p>
<p>
	Everything around us is rendered increasingly abstract by virtue of technology. It&rsquo;s easy to lose sight of the physical world in which we live, move and breathe. Yet, God has a lot to teach us through observing the natural world. Annie Dillard writes, &ldquo;Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try and be there.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;I think there is no substitute for &ldquo;being there.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	As we learn about the natural world and its rhythms and systems, we learn about ourselves, and our place in the environment. We also learn humility. As we develop skills to tend this incredible place we call Earth &ndash; from prairies to wetlands to forests &ndash; we express care for the people who live in it. We make a difference for the &ldquo;least of these&rdquo; &ndash; people in poverty and underserved populations who suffer the most from environmental degradation, yet have the least resources to take action. We are called to develop skills so we can do our part to ensure clean water, unpolluted air, and a healthy food supply for our nation and our world.</p>
<p>
	We will always need places to unplug; get-aways where we can breathe deep and unwind, and landscapes that help us create room to think about what&rsquo;s most important. When we preserve these landscapes for ourselves, our communities, and for the generations to come, we are preserving something irreplaceable that God has entrusted us with.&nbsp;</p>
