DECEMBER 2025

The outdoors morning prayer service on Nov 24 was a misty, beautiful experience. We will have another outdoor service in the spring!

The “demo plot” is the land south of the rectory that we cleared of invasive species last March during the Weed Wrangle. Since then, a host of volunteers “solarized” the land (baked it underneath plastic sheeting to kill the invasive weed roots) and built up the soil with cardboard and mulch. This past weekend, 18 people planted several rows of seeds and plant starts as well as laid drip lines (and a local sheep named Brownie ate his way through some of the invasive plants we haven’t yet uprooted!). We hope the plot will become a beautiful mess of native flowering plants this spring.

Statistics about the waste generated during the Christmas holidays are rather dismal. We’ve gathered some ideas about how to have a less wasteful Christmas this year. See the ideas here. Please send us your recommendations to add to the list!

CC admin and/or research tasks: Doable from home (computer/phone) on your flexible schedule, approx. 1-2 hours/week, or as you can. Contact Gretchen. 

Waste management: Staff the bussing station at the double ordination Dec 15, Epiphany Jan 4, and diocesan convention Jan 23-24. Here is the sign-up sheet.

Take hard-to-recycle materials to collection centers around town. Contact Gretchen.

Tend the Weed Wrangle plot: Contact Jim Pichert.

Since 2008, St. B’s has contracted with Earth Savers, “Nashville's Hassle-Free Business Recycling Service Specialists.” Through them, St. B’s can recycle almost all the waste we generate. How does it happen on campus? Recycling gets collected in the sacristy and kitchen; then taken to 3 large rolling tubs in the recycling closet in the gym (where the pickleball gear is). Twice a month Earth Savers empties those big tubs and the cart of broken-down cardboard and takes it all to WM’s River Hills Recycling Facility, which a group from St. B’s toured last March. Earth Savers is a champion of ensuring that what they collect truly does get recycled. 

Through Earth Savers, St. B’s can recycle way more than Metro’s residential curbside program. You can bring any items on this Earth Savers list plus the additional items below to the church campus (volunteers take the additional items to the appropriate recycling locations around town). More items will be added as volunteer capacity expands! Confused? These cheat sheets about waste at St. B’s might help.

Hard-to-recycle items you can bring to St. B’s:

Print cartridges (box in gym recycling closet)

Dead batteries (tub in gym recycling closet)

Plastic bags (blue tub in kitchen)

Glass (blue tub in kitchen)

Hope to expand to coffee bags; chip bags/candy wrappers; worn-out shoes

Have Christmas lights that no longer work?

Don’t throw them away! String lights can be recycled through Metro’s convenience centers. We’ll have a box to collect them at church throughout Advent and Epiphany.

All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings  -  Explore the Advent season through the ways northern hemisphere animals adapt to the dark and cold of winter. The book includes 25 daily reflections written by Gayle Boss, paired with woodcut illustrations of animals, by David G. Klein. Available in print and audio, the book speaks to the yearning for stillness and meaning in the often frantic holiday season.

Scripture

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you, and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.”

– Job 12:7-10, NRSV

Prayer

Creator God, as we prepare for the coming of your Son, we give thanks for the gift of creation. We give thanks for its beauty and the joy the beauty brings us. We give thanks for light that shines in the darkness, for the stars and the sun, for the air we breathe and the plants and animals that you have created, for earth and water, and for the daily sustenance we draw from them. Inspire us to see you, Creator, through all that you have created—all that you look upon as very good. Help us to care for creation as you instructed us. Help us be stewards of its abundant life. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

– The Global Catholic Climate Movement 

Contact the Creation Care Committee Chair Gretchen Abernathy (creationcare@stbs.net); and the Rev. Ed Smith, Associate Rector (esmith@stbs.net).

ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

4800 Belmont Park Terrace, Nashville TN 37215

stbs.net  •   615.377.4750