Creation Care
at The Center
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
— Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Anchor House labyrinth has been a place where our community walks its way into silence, into prayer, into the presence of God. This fall, that ground is about to deepen.
We're transforming the backyard of The Anchor House into two new sacred spaces — a Labyrinth Woodland Garden and a Butterfly Garden — designed in partnership with Go Native Landscaping to surround our contemplative practice with the quiet, living witness of native Texas plants, trees, and pollinators.
Creation Care begins not with a to-do list, but with a way of seeing. The mystics of our tradition — Hildegard, Francis, Eckhart, Teresa — all shared a common gift: they could perceive the world as saturated with divine presence. To care for creation is first to recover this capacity for sacred attentiveness. From that beholding, love naturally moves us to act.
This work has an inner dimension and an outer one, and we are invited into both. The three movements below — Awakening, Witnessing, and Tending — are not sequential but spiraling: each one deepens and nourishes the others.
Awakening
Learning to See with New Eyes
This is the contemplative ground of the work — encountering the saints, mystics, and wisdom writers who have always perceived creation as a living revelation of God. Hildegard called it viriditas, the greening power of God flowing through all living things. Through study, prayer, and formation, we learn to receive the world as gift rather than resource.
Saints & Mystics of the Tradition
- Mary Magdalene
- Ephrem the Syrian
- Francis of Assisi
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Meister Eckhart
- John of the Cross
- Teresa of Ávila
- Thérèse of Lisieux
- Clare of Assisi
Wisdom for the Journey
- Earth Our Original Monastery — Christine Valters Paintner
- Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements — Christine Valters Paintner
- Braiding Sweetgrass — Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Reforesting Faith: What Trees Teach Us About the Nature of God — Matthew Sleeth, MD
- Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says about the Environment — Sandra L. Richter
- Following Jesus in a Warming World — Kyle Meyaard-Schaap
- The Green Bible — Harper Bibles
- Bringing Butterflies Home — Elizabeth Olse
- Sacred Time, Embracing an Intentional Way of Life — Christine Valters Paintner
Prophetic Witness
Giving Voice to What We've Seen
In the contemplative tradition, true contemplation always overflows into prophetic speech. The mystics were rarely silent about injustice. This dimension is about speaking from a place of love — through advocacy, education, and helping others see what we have come to see. Bearing witness is always a spiritual act.
Advocacy & Voice
- Blessed Tomorrow Ambassadors — trained advocacy for climate action
- Resource library: practical guides and sustainable practice checklists
Education & Formation
- Classes and workshops — Stewards of the Earth
- The Great Grow Out
- Visits to St. Julian’s Crossing
Tending
The Prayer of Hands in the World
The Benedictine tradition teaches ora et labora — prayer and work as one seamless offering. The hands in the soil, the hours volunteered, the choices that shrink our footprint: these are not separate from the spiritual life. They are its expression. This is contemplation in action — love made tangible.
Community Gardens & Farms
- Shamba Ya Amani
- Plant it Forward
- Hope Farms
- Finca Tres Robles
Conservation & Land Stewardship
- Houston Wilderness
- Coastal Prairie Conservancy
- Buffalo Bayou Partnership
- Houston Audubon
- Native Plant Society of Texas
- Rewilding home yards and gardens
Everyday Practices
- Recycling at Chapelwood
- Carbon tracking — steps to shrink your footprint
- Rain Barrel Program (Houston Public Works)
- Moonshot Compost & Zero Waste Houston
- Shopping at farmer’s markets: Urban Harvest, Central City Co-op, Memorial Villages