AS WE ENTER THE DARK DAYS OF WINTER, many of us feel like we are living through a dark time as well. But as Kamala Harris said in her concession speech, “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.” Our General Meeting on December 17 featured contemplative readings and music, along with periods of silence, to help us welcome the blessings of darkness. You can view a recording of the service on our YouTube Channel.

With the longest night of the year right around the corner, the gathering welcomed the darkness. Just as surely as our bodies need the night’s rest, the Earth needs this dormant period of winter. In the months when our part of the Earth is tipped away from the Sun, seeds lie beneath the ground, awaiting the warmth of spring. Trees stand bare, flowers die away, and grasses stop growing. In the midst of this drab season, evergreens remind us that this time is not about death, but is simply a different phase of life, as the Earth cycles round to a season when nature will again flourish with new life.

These winter days invite us to embrace the darkness and to balance our activism with rest and quiet reflection. In our winter celebrations, we engage the wisdom of ancestors through stories of how they survived difficulty. Through rituals of light, we look for signs of hope that, like the evergreens, promise a resurgence of life to come.

THE GATHERING OPENED WITH  Morten Lauridsen’s beautiful song, “Sure on this Shining Night,” after which TAF co-facilitator Betsy Bennett greeted participants and welcomed the evening, using the traditional Jewish prayer Ma’ariv Aravim, “the God who brings on evening.”

The songs “Dark of Winter” and “O Beautiful Darkness” were paired with A Winter Prayer, by Joyce Rupp, to help us recognize that along with nature, “we are … terminal buds waiting in repose, to be energized in our vigilant dormancy.” May Sarton’s poem “The Invocation to Kali” reminded us that destruction and creation, death and birth all occur in darkness. The contemplative service closed with Irish priest and poet John O’Donahue’s blessing “For Light.”

Breakout groups considered questions about both darkness and light:

• Question #1: What causes you fear or stress in this dark time? How can you use the darkness to prepare for what comes next?
• Question #2: Where do you find light? How could you share light with others?

Following breakout groups, participants shared their appreciation of darkness and of silence as places of rest. Others noted the importance of working with others, and that they find light in community and in being outdoors, echoing Kamala Harris’s observation that the deep darkness makes the stars appear even more brilliant. Some named books that help them through difficulties, some of which are on our Reading List for Difficult Times. One person described their conversation as a group hug, despite it being mediated by technology over great distances.

The evening closed with Jan Richardson’s poem “Where the Light Begins” and a musical setting of the poem by Susan LaBarr, as we concluded our time of conversation, while continuing to move towards healing for ourselves and our broken world.

View the recorded service on our YouTube Channel. 

For more reflections on darkness and light, see the recent “Going Deep” essay by TAF co-facilitator Betsy Bennett, and a reflection by TAF member Jane Ellen Nickell in our News & Views newsletter in December 2022. 

On July 24-26, 2024, along the shore of Lake Chautauqua, NY, twenty environmental activists gathered to learn how to share their climate journeys across generations. This Intergenerational Storytelling Project was a partnership of Third Act, Planet Forward, and the Chautauqua Institution, designed to capture the insights of elders and youth and catalyze climate action.

As workshop developers noted, in describing what participants had to learn from each other, “Some [of you] will look back on years, maybe decades, of life experience as you take stock of the present and the future. Your life trajectory has provided you with rich stories and clear lessons that provide context, texture and understanding. Others will have less history and more of a future perspective. You still have experiences, stories and ideas, but [yours will be] looking ahead because that’s where you’ll live and where you’ll make your mark.”

The ten intergenerational pairs included parents and children, students and teachers, and some who were meeting each other for the first time. On Tuesday, July 23, journalist Frank Sesno, Founding Director of Planet Forward at George Washington University, led pairs through a workshop on how to conduct interviews. After conducting preliminary interviews, three pairs were selected to share their interviews at a public event on Thursday, July 25. All ten pairs recorded their stories to be part of an online “StoryCorps” for the climate, which will be available later this year.

The pairs comprised members of TA Upstate New York and TA Faith, elders and young people from the Chautauqua community, and high school students from Dryden and Carthage, NY, who were identified through focus groups that TA Upstate NY held with high school green teams.

Participants also met and were inspired by TA Founder Bill McKibben. On Wednesday, he and Frank Sesno offered the morning lecture at the Chautauqua Institution, discussing what both elders and young people bring to climate activism and how they can work together to make significant change. McKibben also took part in an info session about TA Faith and a “Town Hall” chat, then joined the workshop participants for a pizza party on the lakeshore.

Third Actors and students met informally for breakfasts and dinners, sharing experiences and learning from each other. All participants came away inspired by the time they spent together and the commitments they saw in other generations.

Ave Moore, a 2024 graduate of Carthage High School, said, “It felt good to see older generations actually take action and help the youth and elevate our voices. We so often feel like we are silenced or invalidated by our elders, so seeing Third Act members and getting the chance to interview them was an uplifting experience.”

Jonathan London of TA Upstate NY was equally impressed with the young people, “who brought new and different perspectives and insights.” London noted, “I am inspired to work harder. My meditation practice is perfectly suited to do this with open-heartedness, and will help impact the work we do.”

Patty Werner, a member of TA Faith, traveled with her daughter Wendy from Colorado to take part in the events. A junior at University of Colorado, Wendy enjoyed learning from Sesno how to conduct good interviews, having pizza with Bill McKibben, and learning about the climate work the other young people are doing. Patty was delighted to hear from Bill several times in one day. “In each of those settings, he presented more depth about the urgency and importance of working together across generations to find solutions to environmental problems. I learned a lot and loved every minute,” she said.

The conversation between Bill McKibben and Frank Sesno is available on the Chautauqua Institution streaming platform (small monthly fee required). The coordinators hope to further develop the model for use by other intergenerational groups.

The project also served to recruit new members to TA. Audience members approached Third Actors after each presentation to ask how they could join the group. About 130 people attended an information session on TA Faith, and some signed up on the spot.

We are grateful to Mark Wenzler, Peter Nosler Director of the Chautauqua Climate Initiative, for hosting and coordinating the project, and to the Chautauqua Institution, Third Act, and Rivers & Mountains GreenFaith for providing funding.

As “Summer of Heat” continues in New York, Third Actors are taking action in their own communities during Elders Week, July 8-13. From Augusta, ME, to San Francisco, and from Minneapolis to Broward, FL, elders will host rallies, demonstrations, sing-alongs, and other events to pressure Wall Street banks to stop using our hard-earned retirement savings to fund the climate crisis.

Third Act Faith folks are taking part in these actions and also stepping up during SOH’s Faith Week, July 29-August 3. To provide spiritual grounding for these and other SOH events, TAF has prepared a recorded contemplative service, designed to speak across traditions and address the ethical and spiritual dimensions of climate activism.

Rev. Dr. Jessica McArdle created the recorded contemplative service. Including interfaith chants, prayer, and petitions, the recording provides an immersive guided forest meditation. Designed to invite participants to experience the natural world’s refreshment, the recording’s intent also underscores the earth’s fragility and our summons to safeguard what has been entrusted to us.

An environmental and social justice activist, Jessica is also a practicing contemplative with twenty-five-plus years’ of experience in ordained ministry, including interfaith chaplaincy. She also serves on the Environmental Ministries Team of the Southern New Conference of the United Church of Christ, which supports greening local congregations and enlisting faith communities to protect democracy. She blogs at thespiritualactivist@blog.

The contemplative service is available on TAF’s YouTube channel for individuals or congregations taking action during Elders Week, Faith Week, or any of the 12 weeks of Summer of Heat. We invite anyone anywhere to view our virtual service as a way to engage in prayer and solidarity with those taking action in New York and across the country.

If you do not live close enough to New York to take action on Wall Street, visit Third Act’s Summer of Heat page to locate an action near you during Elders Week, or to see how you can take part from home.

On August 1, as part of Faith Week, members of TAF will join people of faith from GreenFaith, Dayenu, Earth Quaker Action Team, and XR Mindful Rebels for a day of food, song, art, and meaningful spiritual practice in Citi Plaza. If you can be there in person, register here.

Again there are options for those who cannot be in New York. On August 1 at 1:00 PM PT/4:00 PM ET, GreenFaith is hosting a Virtual Action Hour, to flood Citibank with phone calls. In the meantime, you can sign this letter calling on Citibank to do the right thing: stop funding fossil fuel expansion in the Gulf South, invest in clean energy, and reverse the environmental racism that they have been bankrolling for years.

For the past year and a half, Third Act Faith (TAF) has been welcoming dynamic speakers to our monthly General Meetings. While we know you’ve enjoyed those speakers and programs, we felt that this summer would be a good time to return to our basic General Meeting format – a gathering of our TAF members without a speaker or a program.

During our June and July meetings, we’ll work to strengthen our community of faith-based climate and democracy activists by focusing on getting to know each other better. That means that on Tuesday, June 25, and again on Tuesday, July 30, the Third Act Faith General Meeting will be all about who you are and what you’re looking for from TAF. 

As we expanded our membership efforts, we have enjoyed getting to know some of you through one-on-one conversations and occasional Meet & Greets. We hope our summer General Meetings will allow us to hear from even more of you about how you might engage with our work. If you are the type who likes to just listen in, these meetings might be a more comfortable setting than those more intimate gatherings.

To get you primed to connect with other TAF members, you can think about the following questions:

• What in your background led you to join TAF?
• What concerns you most in terms of the climate crisis?
• What do you see as the most pressing issues in this election season?
• What, if anything, do you see yourself doing to help effect change?

By the time our meetings roll around, you’ll be ready to share, learn, and connect!

We plan to keep the same general format, opening with music, centering time, and brief updates on our current campaigns, but we will also use small-group breakout rooms to help us get to know each other better and to hear your ideas about how Third Act Faith should show up in the world. 

We hope you’ll join us for the next two meetings to help build and strengthen the TAF community. To give you even more reason to attend, we’re giving away two $25 gift cards for Third Act merchandise to two lucky winners at each meeting – all you have to do is show up on Zoom on June 25 or July 30 to get entered in the drawing!

Both meetings are schedule at 4:00 PM PT/7:00 PM ET, and you can register for the June 25 meeting here and the July 30 meeting here. Feel free to email us at thirdactfaith@gmail.com with any questions, and if you are interested in having a one-on-one conversation with a member of our Coordinating Committee, just complete this short form. 

Please note that we do not plan to record these meetings, since we are encouraging your engagement during the meetings.

We look forward to your help in building community this summer!

Seeing both the election season and global temperatures heat up can make us anxious. To address the stress of working on these issues, Third Act Faith is offering monthly online contemplative practices.

Each session begins with a short introduction, followed by a meditation of about 20 minutes, with a short period to debrief. Most will last 35-40 minutes. Because these are spiritual experiences and not informational events, the meditation sessions are not recorded.

Many people equate contemplative practice with Buddhist meditation, but most religions have contemplative traditions. Spiritual practices like meditation, breath awareness, gratitude, and compassion resonate with many people who are not religious. These practices help us develop empathy, improve focus and attention, reduce stress, enhance creativity, and cultivate resilience.

TAF online practices complement Third Act’s monthly Hope & Joy sessions. These 90-minute interactive sessions feature experts in such fields as neuroscience, psychology, faith traditions, sociology, and philosophy to help connect contemplation and action. Visit the Third Act Events page for information on upcoming sessions.

Religious leaders like Franciscan friar Richard Rohr recognize the importance of connecting action and contemplation. Seeing the two as inseparable, Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC), whose vision is “transformed people working together for a more just and connected world.” CAC faculty include Rev. Dr. Brian McLaren, who spoke at TAF’s February meeting.

While Rohr’s work is rooted in Christianity, TAF is partnering with the Garrison Institute, which draws on contemplative practices more broadly, believing that “contemplation is key to discovering insights and innovations which lead to transformative action.” TAF is working specifically with the Institute’s Pathways to Planetary Health initiative, which recognizes the deep interconnection between the wellbeing of people and Earth. Teachers associated with this project will lead our sessions periodically.