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	Duke Divinity School&rsquo;s <a href="http://www.divinity.duke.edu/initiatives-centers/center-reconciliation/programs/reconcilers-weekend">Center for Reconciliation</a> hosted its 6th annual Reconciler&rsquo;s Weekend in September, partnering with the <a href="http://center4eleadership.org/">Center for Environmental Leadership</a> to explore what it means to reconcile with all of Creation, from soil and water to the plants and animals that depend on them. Theologians, activists, pastors, farmers, and students gathered for a weekend of sharing insights. For fellow Au Sable Graduate Fellow Samantha Miller and I, this weekend presented an opportunity to get away from a busy start to the semester to learn from people who are on the ground doing the good work of reconciliation. And the long drive back to Michigan through the almost-autumn Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains was a perfect backdrop for processing what we learned before jumping back into the classes!</p>
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	One of the most striking sessions for me was a presentation by <a href="http://billkearney.com/blog/">Bill Kearney</a>, a North Carolina pastor and resident of the famed Warren County. If, like me, you weren&rsquo;t around or can&rsquo;t seem to remember what happened to push Warren County, NC into the national spotlight in 1982, here&rsquo;s what you should know:</p>
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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}NO_30594_Fr251.jpg" style="width: 150px; height: 226px; float: right;" />In 1982, a small, predominantly African-American and low-income community in Warren County, NC was chosen to host a landfill. This in itself is not such a big deal, but this landfill was to house soil contaminated with PCBs from the illegal roadside dumping of toxic wastes around the state. This decision, which put the health of the land, water, plants, animals, and people in danger, led to massive protests and community organizing that gained national attention. While these protests did not actually stop the siting of the landfill all together, they served as the initial fodder to ignite the environmental justice movement that has now spread around the globe.</p>
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	Many communities since then have banded together to work for equitable distribution of environmental burdens and benefits in the places &lsquo;where we live, work, and play.&rsquo; Warren County residents not only carry this legacy of activism but have been left with a legacy of environmental racism and the contamination of soil and water that started only a decade after the landfill was constructed. Bunyan Bryant, University of Michigan professor and pioneer of environmental justice, says that &ldquo;environmental justice is served when people can realize their highest potential.&rdquo; While the landfill and surrounding areas in Warren County finally have been remediated, the community has spent the last 30 years battling pollution that kept them from their full potential. Warren County has traditionally been a place of healing, having been built around its famous hot springs centuries ago, and residents are now finally able to begin the journey of healing their relationship with the land. &nbsp;</p>
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	At the Reconcilers Weekend, Kearney focused on how the community is &ldquo;reclaiming its voice&rdquo; as it reclaims and cares for its land. After the protests in 1982, researchers flocked to Warren County to document the story and to monitor the soil and water around the landfill. While all of that research has been pivotal in understanding community activism and in eventually getting the landfill cleaned up, the residents themselves have lost their voice in the process since much of the data has simply been extracted from the community. Through a new grant, Kearney is working to teach citizens how to do their own data collection so they know the health of their soil and water without having to rely on outside databases that may or may not be publicly available. The community is also learning to tell its own story again, to pass on its proud legacy of activism to youth instead of just the legacy of pollution. One of the ways they are reconciling with the land is through organic gardening. Kearney&rsquo;s church is leading efforts to connect youth and families with the land by teaching them how to grow and eat their own healthy food. For the past 30 years, their health has been threatened by poisoned land, yet now they are learning to use the land to bring health and healing to their community. While every student of environmental justice hears about the Warren County of 30 years ago, we don&rsquo;t always get to see the Warren County of 2012. That one hour presentation may have enriched my understanding of environmental justice more than any of the lectures on Warren County I&rsquo;ve sat through in my classes, and it was the added voice of the faith community that made the story so much richer and more real to me than before.&nbsp;</p>
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	It&rsquo;s not surprising that the faith community is helping to lead the healing effort in Warren County. We know that God is in the business of reconciliation, reconciling all things to himself&mdash;soil, water, plants, animals, humans, and everything in between. &nbsp;And in that reconciling, we too can reclaim our rightful place as caretakers of Creation, working for the well-being of communities like Warren County. In order for all things to be well, all things&mdash;all people, all water molecules, all soil particles&mdash;need to be at peace and free to &ldquo;realize their highest potential.&rdquo; That means working for clean air, soil, and water in all communities, regardless of race, income, and immigration status.&nbsp;</p>
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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Anathoth_02.jpg" style="float: right; width: 200px; height: 135px;" />In working for reconciliation, people can also be reconciled to each other. Organizers from <a href="http://anathothgarden.org/">Anathoth Community Garden</a> shared their story of healing during the Reconcilers Weekend as well, exemplifying how a gift of land and the activities that follow can bring together a divided community. After a racially-motivated murder in a small North Carolina town, two church communities on opposite sides of the racial divide came together to grow food and to grow it well, tending to both the health of the land and the people at the garden. They took the words of Jeremiah 29 to heart in &ldquo;plant[ing] gardens and eat[ing] what they produce&rdquo; in order to &ldquo;seek the peace and prosperity of the city.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p>
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	These two stories of hope and healing are a reminder that we live in an &ldquo;already but not yet&rdquo; world. Reconciliation has come to all Creation through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ&hellip;yet we are still living amidst broken relationships. Our relationship with the land and water that sustain us is not what it is meant to be, and our own health deteriorates with the land. When we reclaim that right relationship with the land, though&mdash;when we tend and care for it&mdash;we regain a community that was lost. We learn the necessity of clean land and water, and we join together to fight for it. In coming together, we join the work of reconciliation with all things in our own corners of Creation.&nbsp;</p>
