Interviews with the Great Salt Lake Interfaith Action Coalition

I sat down with a member of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Salt Lake City, a  member of Congregation Kol Ami, and a member of Latter-day Saint Earth Stewardship. I had  wonderful conversations with all of them, and we talked about many things, but I am going to  highlight their answers to three central questions: 

1. Why do you feel passionate about saving the Great Salt Lake? 

2. What about your worldview or religious belief inspires you to take action on behalf of the  Great Salt Lake? 

3. What is your recommendation for the everyday Utah citizen who is concerned with efforts  to save the Great Salt Lake but is not sure where to start? 

As we talked, I realized how shared values can powerfully bring diverse groups of  peoples together. I recognized that different religious beliefs could provide yet another  understanding of feeling spiritual connection with the earth. I was specifically struck by the  Jewish principle of tikkun olam, which Helene, a member of Congregation Kol Ami, shared with  me. Tikkun olam means “world repair” and can be applied to principles of both earth stewardship  and social justice. Helene shared with me a wonderful thought from Rabbi Abraham Joshua  Heschel,  

In the history of civilization, different aspects of nature have drawn forth  the talents of humanity; sometimes its power, sometimes its beauty and occasionally its grandeur have attracted our minds. Our age is one in which  usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of  power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of [humanity] in God's creation. Human beings have indeed become primarily tool making animals, and the world is now a gigantic tool box for the satisfaction of  [their] needs.... 

The awareness of grandeur and the sublime is all but gone from the modern mind. Our systems of education stress the importance of enabling the  student to exploit the power aspect of reality...But there is no education for the  sublime. We teach the children how to measure, how to weigh. We fail to teach  them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe...There is thus only one way to  wisdom: awe...A moment of awe is a moment of self-consecration. They who sense the wonder share in the wonder. They who keep holy the things that are  holy shall themselves be holy. 

As a Christian myself, I was grateful to the words of a Jewish Rabbi who so eloquently  expressed how I felt nature is so often seen for its usefulness instead of its beauty and grandeur.  With his words in mind, I move to my first question. 

1. Why do you feel passionate about the Great Salt Lake? 

Joan (First Unitarian Universalist Church of Salt Lake City): 

Well…the lake, it is our ecosystem. We are totally connected to the Great Salt Lake. This  is our place. If we care about the environment, climate change, the survival of our our  families...or any of those issues, then we need to to be taking care of this place. Climate change  and environmental issues overall seem so far away to people and it's hard for people to stay  connected to that, but when it's in your own backyard, when it's a place that you know and you're  committed to, just like our parks, we are connected to it. 

Although, the Great Salt Lake is a place that people have had to reconnect to. So many  people- when I came here in 1987- would say “you don't need to go out there…that smell today?  That’s the Great Salt Lake. That's why you don't want to go there.” And I’m like, “well, I think I  want to go out there. I want to see this place.” I can't say that that I have been out to great Salt  Lake so many times, I was working, I had young children, but I understand climate change and I  understand our environment and our ecosystem and I know how much we depend on the Great  Salt Lake. If the lake isn’t here then we won’t be. 

Mike (Latter-day Saint Earth Stewardship) 

It is a really critical part of the natural ecosystem of Utah, so caring about it is just kind of  pragmatism for me. If all of us living things are going to flourish in Utah, that system must be  healthy, and that’s not just the people, but the birds, bees, plants, and migratory birds. Whether  we know it or not, we all rely on each other to help with survival. That is a critical system for  Utah. 

About four or five years ago, I just felt- I don't want to overstate it, but I just felt kind of a  personal calling. I wanted to be more involved with connecting my daily experience with what I  felt drawn to in nature, and so that's how I sought out some of these organizations involved with  the Great Salt Lake. I think it was the year after some of these reports started coming out about  how really dire the situation was. I had noticed for years because for most of my career, I  traveled a lot. I remember- over the course of two decades, flying over the lake and every year  like it's a little lower and lower. I thought, yeah, it's sad, but I was not paying much attention to  how problematic that was in so many elements. It’s bad for people, it’s bad for animals and  plants, it’s bad for the whole system. So, I think when people like Ben Abbott and then some of  those folks started really amplifying the severity of what the lake disappearing might mean for  the livelihood of all living things in Utah, I started to really pay attention.

2. What about your worldview or religious belief inspires you to take action on behalf of the  Great Salt Lake? 

Joan (First Unitarian Universalist Church of Salt Lake City) 

Unitarians, we have certain principles, and the seventh principle is respect for the  interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. It's from that principle that that we do  our environmental ministry work. Everybody’s different, our different congregations have  different words for what we do, but it’s still based on that seventh principle. When I came here in  1987, I was new and my kids were young, but one of the things I got involved in was the  environmental ministry group. It existed before I did, in fact. 

Many of the people who were in Environmental Ministry at that time were people who  went out to the West Desert in the nineties protesting the nuclear testing and nuclear waste with  the group FAIR, Families Against Incinerator Radioactive waste, radioactive waste being all one  word. That was the same group that was heavily involved in Environmental Ministry here and  also became the core group that formed HEAL Utah [Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah].  And so, that group was involved in getting an Environmental Ministry group started here at the  church. There's other evidence that there was environmental ministry going on in the  congregation before that, but the nuclear testing was a big impetus. 

Mike (Latter-day Saint Earth Stewardship) 

There’s a scripture I really love, one that people really only pay attention to the front end  of, not the back end. I don't know if you're a sports fan but for a long time there was this tradition  where people would have this John 3:16 quote they would hold up at the endzone during a  football game. That’s the one that says, “God so loved the world, He sent his only begotten Son.”  But if you go to verse 17, it says that God didn’t send his son to condemn the world, but to  redeem the world. And the word “world” in that, we always think of that as redeeming humans,  right? In that space in almost no others in the New Testament, the word “world” is cosmos,  which means all of creation. So even in New Testament scripture, if you look at it in the lens of  the original Greek it was written in, you see that Jesus’s mission was redemption of all of  creation, not just us, not just the humans. Obviously, it’s the redemption of everything that was  created.  

The other thing that really strikes me in our theology and tradition is found in our temple  endowment ceremony. It's about a 90-minute ritual, and half that ritual focuses on the miracle of  creation. And yet people are like yeah, that’s the part you kind of get through so you can do all  the other ritual things. To me, there’s a profound reason that is first. The other things don’t  matter without the first things. That’s not in our scripture in the traditional sense, but it’s part of  the experience. You connect that with “God so loved the world,” it’s this creation and then the  sustaining of it and the flourishing of it. It’s not just the people. Our scriptures call us to care for  all of creation. 

3. What is your recommendation for the everyday Utah citizen who is concerned with efforts to  save the Great Salt Lake but is not sure where to start?

Joan (First Unitarian Universalist Church of Salt Lake City) 

I think the work that Nan Seymour is doing is miraculous. I think that's a miracle  happening right before our eyes. Do you know that she does morning meditation towards the  lake every Monday through Friday? And we spent those days through the 45-day legislative  session, walking around the capitol every single day, casting our spell, our blessing, whatever  word is used in whatever spiritual tradition, that our presence and our witness and speaking truth  to power will have its effect. And then in the afternoon, we had a celebration of the species, that  was just amazing. There is also the movement to become lake facing people again. We were  once lake facing people and now that’s needed to remind us that that’s what we are, that this  thing they talk about on the weather channel, the lake effect, that’s part of this whole life and  survival for the Great Salt Lake basin area. I think reconnecting with that nature will bring more  awareness and appreciation. 

Mike (Latter-day Saint Earth Stewardship) 

Some people find one little thing, because the problem is so big and so complex that if  you think you’re going to go engage it top down, you’re just going to be overwhelmed and  frustrated and give up and go back to binging on Netflix or playing video games. But if you can  go and say, you know I'm going to work on this one thing. And maybe it's, I'm going to start  recycling aluminum cans, or in my yard, I’m going to put a drip irrigation line in, just one line in  my garden. It’s probably only going to impact my water use by 5% each year, but that’s going to  be hundreds of gallons. Once you do that one-drip irrigation line, you know how to do that. And  you can do that to your whole yard. Well then you can tear out your park strip!  

Your kind of just build up to those things. Just pick one little thing you can do to start and  then you develop that habit and then it's easy to add two or three other things. I also think  another approach is asking if we can create grassroots awareness and interest and knowledge in  this issue with the community itself, because then if you can do that and then the elected officials  hear about it, then it kind of forces their hand.