Episcopal Relief & Development’s 2025 LENTEN Meditation Journey . . . A COMMONPLACE Lent

Reverence declares, “All of the things God established please me. I do not hurt any of them.” —Hildegard of Bingen, Book of Life’s Merits

Last spring, we hosted a tree-planting day at our diocesan camp, and a sweet family with four little girls, all under the age of six, joined us for this endeavor. While not particularly interested in tree planting, one of the girls was quite invested in finding and rescuing worms. Each time she found a worm, she placed it with great reverence on a dandelion, one of thousands that month that colored the fields.

Here at camp, we like the dandelions because the bees like the dandelions. And we like the bees because we like the squash, tomatoes and apples that they pollinate—and of course, we love the honey they make for us as well. But deciding to have a campus that is polka-dotted with dandelions did not happen by accident. It is a choice that we continue to make as a sign of reverence, a sign of delight in what God has established.

Often, we think of God’s creation in terms of individual items or categories. We thank God for the tree, the rain and the apple seed. We work to save a river, a species or a person. We fight for a single cause. And yet, the total ecosystem that God has established requires our reverence: bees, dandelions, crooked-neck squash, honey and families are just a few members of the larger ecosystem. To care for any of these members, we must repent for our frequent neglect of the whole and remember that wherever we are, because God loves it, we are standing on holy ground.

For REFLECTION:

Consider the ecosystem of a community in your life. What practices related to one member potentially damage the whole? What changes could positively affect the whole ecosystem?

Click here to read the introduction to the 2025 Lenten Meditation “A Commonplace Lent.”

The Lenten Meditations prepared by Episcopal Relief & Development invite readers to deepen their spiritual practice during the season of Lent, the time of preparation leading to Easter. Our 2025 meditations explore the idea of “A Commonplace Lent.” This concept reflects Episcopal Relief & Development’s tagline: “Working Together for Lasting Change.” We share in common the work of advancing lasting change in communities impacted by injustice, poverty, disaster and climate change.

We also share in common spiritual practices that strengthen our faith—prayer, worship, love, grace, service and so much more. The author explores another meaning of common in the  meditations: finding God in the common and ordinary as well as in the extraordinary mountain-top moments. Each day begins with wisdom from desert mothers and fathers, monastics and other spiritual leaders who offer insight into our common path of faithful discipleship and service. Each meditation concludes with a question for deeper reflection.

Episcopal Relief & Development is the compassionate response of The Episcopal Church to human suffering in the world. Hearing God’s call to seek and serve Christ in all persons and to respect the dignity of every human being, Episcopal Relief & Development serves to bring together the generosity of Episcopalians and others with the needs of the world.

This Lenten Meditation Journey is provided courtesy of Episcopal Relief & Development and was authored by Jerusalem Jackson Greer, co-executive director and agrarian minister for the Procter Center, an Episcopal farm, camp and retreat center in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio. As former manager of evangelism and discipleship for The Episcopal Church under Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, she co-founded the Good News Garden movement and oversaw Way of Love and Evangelism initiatives for the wider church.