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Climate Changed

Climate Changed

By: The BTS Center
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 Climate Changed is a podcast about spiritual leadership in a climate-changed world. Hosted by Nicole Diroff and Ben Yosua-Davis, Climate Changed features guests who deepen the conversation while also stirring the waters. The Climate Changed podcast is a project of The BTS Center.Copyright 2025 All rights reserved. Christianity Social Sciences Spirituality
Episodes
  • Convocation Stories, Part One: Walking for Peace, Listening for Song

    Convocation Stories, Part One: Walking for Peace, Listening for Song
    Dec 16 2025
    In this special bonus mini-series, Climate Changed returns to the 2025 BTS Center Convocation, where participants “flipped the script” and stepped forward to share climate-centered personal stories—not lectures, not data, not policy, but lived experience. Co-hosts Peterson Toscano and Ben Yosua-Davis introduce two powerful stories of walking, vision, and spiritual practice from BTS Center community members June Zellers and the Rev. Sara Hayman. About This Mini-Series: Convocation Stories At the 2025 BTS Center Convocation, participants were invited to share climate-centered stories grounded in their own lives—stories shaped by imagination, vulnerability, and courage. In this mini-series, Peterson Toscano and Ben Yosua-Davis share two of those stories in each episode, offering listeners a glimpse of how ordinary people are integrating climate concern with spiritual practice, community, and daily life. This end-of-year series is designed for a season when many of us are carrying questions about justice, the environment, and the future of our climate-changed world. Reflection, exhaustion, hope, and uncertainty often intermingle. These stories offer a companion for that moment, reminding us that one of the most powerful tools we have is our own voice and our own lived experience. How These Stories Were Made: The Story-Making Process To bring these stories to life with care and craft, The BTS Center partnered with Stellar Story Company. Months before Convocation, the BTS Center staff invited participants to propose story “seedlings” connected to the Convocation theme. More than twenty community members responded. From those proposals, seven storytellers were selected. Each worked with an experienced storytelling coach from Stellar Story Company over several months, meeting in multiple sessions to develop, revise, and rehearse their stories. Together they shaped deeply personal narratives—rooted in faith, place, and embodied experience—designed to be shared in a plenary setting rather than as expert lectures. As Associate Director Nicole Diroff explains in the episode, the intention was to “flip the script”: to center not headline keynotes, but the voices of people sitting at the tables, taking the leap to tell stories they had “lovingly, prayerfully crafted” for this community. The hope is that these stories will not only move listeners but also spark new stories in all of us. Stories in This Episode “When the Earth Sings” – A Vision Quest with June Zellers Attorney and long-time BTS Center participant June Zellers takes us back 32 years to Eagle Song Camp in western Montana, where she joined 27 women and Indigenous teacher Brooke Medicine Eagle for a three-week physical and spiritual training culminating in a two-day vision quest. Sitting within a carefully prepared medicine circle on a grassy mountainside, June seeks “soul-level answers” to why her outwardly successful law career feels so soul-crushing. What follows is a night of galloping horses, a mountain lion stalking a fellow participant, and the unsettling choice to break the rules in order to move toward another’s distress. The second morning, as she wakes, June hears what she can only describe as the earth itself singing—a three-syllable chant carried first by stillness, then by warm rain, and finally by a brook she has crossed many times before. Tone-deaf and unable to reproduce the melody, she nonetheless carries this silent chant as a mantra through decades of difficulty, sorrow, and grief, a reminder that “regardless of my circumstances, the spirit of life is so incredibly joyful. And my soul, our souls, are designed to be radiant.” “Walking for Peace and Friendship” – A Long Walk with Rev. Sara Hayman The Rev. Sara Hayman, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Maine, describes how intentional walking has become a primary way she gets grounded amidst overlapping crises, ministry demands, and the weight of liberal religious leadership. From the Camino de Santiago in Spain (500 miles, no blisters—though bedbugs made an appearance) to the wild coasts of Newfoundland and a sheep-covered Dingle Peninsula in Ireland, walking renews her spirit. It reconnects her to land, ancestors, and gratitude. When Penobscot spiritual leader and activist Sherri Mitchell invites her to help organize a “Journey for Peace and Friendship”—an 82-mile, eight-day prayer walk from Indian Island (Penobscot Reservation) to the State House in Augusta—Sara says yes without asking her congregation’s permission. Alongside Wabanaki leaders and a diverse group of walkers, she experiences ceremony, risk, hostility from passing traffic, unexpected welcome (church bells, homemade chocolate-zucchini muffins, cold sparkling water), and the daily discipline of simply putting one foot in front of the other. On the State House steps, exhausted and unprepared with formal remarks, she finds herself moved into...
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    35 mins
  • Small Experiments with Radical Intent with Allen Ewing-Merrill and Rev. Nicole Diroff

    Small Experiments with Radical Intent with Allen Ewing-Merrill and Rev. Nicole Diroff
    Nov 18 2025

    What does it mean to take faithful action in a climate-changed world—especially when the problems feel impossibly large? In this final Behind the Scenes episode of the Climate Changed Podcast, host Jessica David sits down with Allen Ewing-Merrill, Executive Director of The BTS Center, and Rev. Nicole Diroff, Associate Director, to explore a defining BTS Center phrase: “small experiments with radical intent.”

    Together, they reflect on how this deceptively simple idea invites spiritual leaders and communities to take creative, courageous steps—grounded in curiosity, rooted in discernment, and open to transformation. Through stories of congregations testing new practices, the BTS Center’s own experiment with reading weeks, and even Nicole’s family’s choice to replace disposable napkins with reusable ones, they reveal how small, intentional acts can lead to profound shifts in culture and worldview.

    Jessica, Allen, and Nicole discuss what it means to lower the stakes, embrace failure as a learning opportunity, and approach faith work as experimentation rather than perfection. They unpack the “radical” in radical intent—not as extremism, but as a return to our roots—to what nourishes and sustains life. The result is a conversation that reimagines leadership and community as living laboratories for hope, spaciousness, and renewal.

    Key Quotes

    Allen Ewing-Merrill:

    “The root of the word radical is radix, meaning root. What if being radical is really about sinking deeply into our roots—into our essence, our source of life and nourishment and vitality? It takes real discernment to know what that is, but once we do, transformation follows.”

    Rev. Nicole Diroff:

    “For me, small experiments with radical intent build the muscle of curiosity. They’re manageable but meaningful, and they keep our hearts open in uncertain times. Without curiosity, our hearts can harden—and that’s when transformation stops.”

    Allen Ewing-Merrill:

    “We’re more likely to act our way into a new way of thinking than to think our way into a new way of acting. A small experiment—taken with radical intent—helps us step toward that new way of being.”

    Meet the Guests

    Allen Ewing-Merrill Allen Ewing-Merrill serves as Executive Director of The BTS Center and is a pastor, writer, and father of three daughters. With a background in ministry and community leadership, he brings deep commitment to cultivating spiritual imagination for a climate-changed world. He lives in Portland, Maine, with his family and continues to find joy in the small experiments that keep faith active and alive.

    Rev. Nicole Diroff Rev. Nicole Diroff is Associate Director of The BTS Center and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. A mother, an amateur naturalist, and a self-described “pet collector,” Nicole brings warmth and curiosity to every conversation she leads. Her work focuses on developing programs that nurture spiritual leadership, curiosity, and awe as pathways toward ecological and cultural transformation.

    Join the Conversation

    Have you tried a small experiment with radical intent in your own life or community? What did you learn?

    Share your reflections by email at podcast@thebtscenter.org or leave a voicemail at 207-200-6986.

    The Climate Changed Podcast is a project of The BTS Center in Portland, Maine. Produced by Peterson Toscano.

    Discover more episodes, transcripts, and resources at climatechangedpodcast.org.
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    28 mins
  • Claiming Your Call: Navigating Spiritual Leadership in a Climate-Changed World

    Claiming Your Call: Navigating Spiritual Leadership in a Climate-Changed World
    Sep 16 2025
    What does it mean to have a calling in a climate-changed world? In this episode, Jessica David is joined by Alison Cornish and Allen Ewing-Merrill from The BTS Center team to explore the idea of “calling.” How do we know what our deepest purpose is, especially when the world is shifting beneath our feet? Through personal stories, reflections on chaplaincy, congregational life, and ecological crisis, this conversation models how calling is not just a destination—it’s an ongoing dialogue between joy and need, self and world, spirit and action. “My calling is to be an agent of God's love, healing, justice, and peace in the world.” — Allen Ewing-Merrill “My specific calling really came when I heard the earth calling directly.” — Alison Cornish ✨ Highlights from the Episode
    • Alison and Allen reflect on their personal callings—from a childhood love of carpentry to a life of teaching and pastoring
    • The BTS Center’s unique framing of vocational discernment: spiritual leadership for a climate-changed world
    • A theological and interfaith understanding of calling as active, evolving, and collective
    • How congregations and chaplains are responding to climate change in ways that are embodied, compassionate, and spiritually grounded
    • An invitation to discern not just what you are called to do, but who you are called to be
    🧭 Resources Mentioned in the Episode
    • Frederick Buechner’s Definition of Calling: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” https://www.frederickbuechner.com/
    • Refugia Faith by Debra Rienstra – framing congregations as spiritual refugia in a climate-changed world https://debriarienstra.com/refugia-faith/
    • Claiming Your Call for a Climate-Changed World — A program led by The BTS Center in collaboration with: Creation Justice Ministries, Anabaptist Climate Collaborative. https://thebtscenter.org/claiming-your-call-for-a-climate-changed-world/
    • Chaplaincy Innovation Lab (Partnered with BTS Center on climate chaplaincy programming) [https://chaplaincyinnovation.org]
    📣 Share Your Calling We want to hear from you! 📞 Call or text: 207-200-6986 📧 Email: podcast@thebtscenter.org 🌐 Learn more and explore past episodes: climatechangedpodcast.org

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    31 mins
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