Tag: newsletter

Take a moment as you read this. Breath. Let the air fill your lungs as you plant your feet firmly below you. Wrap your arms around yourself and breath deeply once more. Take the moment. 

If this year has taught us anything it is that we must take every moment we can to pause and connect. The connections to each other and to creation have never been more valuable. For many of us, December is a time for connecting to family and tradition. From the Jewish festival of lights, Hanukkah to the month long celebration of Advent in anticipation of Christmas or the yearly gathering of the Winter Solstice (Yule) we are driven to make connections with families and friends through sharing and giving.

The Future of PA IPL

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As this difficult year ends, help us continue to be a faith based voice for climate justice so we can provide community and hope for so many across Pennsylvania. We need your financial support in these uncertain times now more than ever to advocate and care for our environment, especially those most vulnerable frontline communities. 

2020 has been challenging for us all but the year ahead holds so much promise. Thanks to your support and dedication to climate justice and your stewardship for creation we will continue to take on climate change as an ethical and moral issue through advocacy, education, energy conservation, creation care, and the promotion of clean renewable energy. 

To support these initiatives Donate Today!

Dear Friends,
I am writing this letter on the eve of our election.  It is a day when I am working hard (as so many of you are) to set the national drumbeat of focus on The Moment aside to hold space for a parallel focus on the whole arc of work (which started before any of us did, and which will surely continue beyond the times any of us can even imagine).

You already know that I will step away from Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light on the 15^th of this month, after an extraordinary decade of working with you all.  While this is the right thing at the right time for me and for my family, it is still hard, and a little scary.  But here is the thing:  I believe in the possibilities that you embody, and in my faithful moments, I trust each of us to keep craving justice, to lean into our shared work with personal commitment, and —supported by our faiths— to nurture the hope that, together, we can be much more than the sum of our parts. 

One of the things PA IPL has done well from the start is to make sure that this organization is not about a single person — we have created spaces for many gifts, and avoided that all-too-common organizational affliction of Founders Syndrome.  Jon Brockopp gathered folks following a Climate Ethics conference at Penn State in 2009, to form a steering committee that led to the start of PA IPL in 2010, then he stepped back to support the work as Treasurer, rather than President, before cycling off the Board to continue as an active and inventive volunteer.  The Religion and Society Center in Harrisburg provided shelter for PA IPL in those first couple of years until we stepped out on our own, and then celebrated with us as we did.  Charter Board members intentionally structured the Board so that there were rotating terms, and term limits, inviting new leaders to step in regularly with fresh perspectives, and new ideas.  Of course, our staffing evolved over that time, too. 

It is the right time for me to step down, and for PA IPL to continue forward, boldly.  I look forward to seeing new growth, new flourishing, and I look forward to being able to look to my left, and look to my right, and draw inspiration and warmth from all that you are doing.  Continue doing the work with heart.  Share your stories generously, with courage, and in celebration.  Those stories will lift someone else who will, in turn, inspire you again.  Sometimes it is the smallest story that serves as the seed of something big and beautiful.  

The moment feels big; the work is beautiful; the way you show up matters.

Yours with gratitude, and in faith,