Many of us are wandering the earth these days with hearts that are breaking. All we have to do is look around. West Virginia, the Mountain State, for example, has been virtually leveled. During the height of the BP spill, comments such as “I cannot look at another oil drenched pelican” were common. Among the shared vocabulary we use to describe the plight of ordinary people even as we try to be responsible citizens are words and phrases such as:

• powerless
• paralyzed
• despairing
• angry with nowhere to put it
• fear
• longing
• hopeless
• numbed
• tired

Against the tapestry of such vocabulary, how does an individual or a small group of people, having recognized and named something amiss in their community, begin to take steps to redress the situation. The “something amiss” might take any number of forms:

• a small New England pond which once boasted a diversity of wildlife now disappeared;
• the absence of a certain song bird;
• a real estate developer threatening significant deforestation and destruction of habitat including migration corridors;
• a community's desire for its local supermarket to carry more locally grown produce and dairy;
• a proposed resort golf course where water is already in short supply.

Caroline's gift as a consultant lies first in her ability explore the spiritual dimensions and spiritual costs of the identified problem; second, to design adaptable process and strategy to address it. Third, given her more than twenty years of ordained ministry, Caroline offers an unparalleled ability to collaborate in the design of sacred ritual (not religious) that acknowledges our responsibilities, mourns our defeats, and celebrates our victories, all the while expanding our concept of community to include non-human life forms as well as human.