What would it be like to not just admire nature from a distance, but treat creation as a relative, a teacher, and an expression of the love of the Creator?

On this week’s episode, I talk with Randy and Edith Woodley. Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley is an author, activist, farmer, scholar, speaker, wisdom keeper, and a Cherokee descendant recognized by the Keetoowah Band. In his work, Dr. Woodley addresses a variety of issues concerning American culture, faith, justice, race, and our relationship with the earth and Indigenous realities. He currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Faith and Culture and Director of Intercultural and Indigenous Studies at George Fox University/Portland Seminary. Randy has written numerous books, including his most recent title, Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth. His expertise has been sought in national venues such as Time Magazine, Christianity Today, and The Huffington Post.

Edith Woodley is a mentor/speaker on issues concerning Indigenous Spirituality and Creation. She is a full-time mother, grandmother and farmer, and has developed a unique relationship with the land and insights concerning how to raise a family on a small farm. Edith is an Eastern Shoshone tribal member and enjoys carrying on the tradition in her family of Native American beadwork with her jewelry. Together, Randy and Edith are co-creators and co-sustainers of Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm & Seeds. Through an Eloheh experience, they invite people to a deeper spirituality and new relationship with creation while modeling regenerative Earth-tending practices and Earth justice.

In this episode, Randy and Edith, invite me to see beauty and creation through a completely new, counter-cultural lens. What if true beauty has nothing to do with being flawless and everything to do with what indigenous cultures call the Harmony Way? What if we laid down our striving and rested in a more beautiful reality, one that says that we are loved by the great Creator just as we are, that we have each been created with a unique beauty and identity, and that we are a part of something much bigger than we are.