Graham Usher, the Bishop of Norwich: “My dream is that churchyards will be places of the living, not just the dead.”
A paper submitted to the synod meeting in London says there is “noticeable biodiversity potential” within churchyards. However, it adds, “these places carry significance for the communities that surround them … Their significance and primary role as burial grounds mean that increasing biodiversity within churchyards needs to be balanced with public access and consideration for mourners.”
The C of E’s nationally owned land has “historically been kept to augment the income for the [church], particularly in less well-off areas”, the paper says. There has been “steady movement … towards increasing biodiversity alongside evaluating and reducing carbon emissions on land holdings”.
Usher said the church must work with its tenant farmers to deliver “nature-positive impacts”, adding: “When things are done that are good for nature, they tend to be good also for business and good for people.”
I had a virtual “nano-retreat” with my fellow members of the Society of Ordained Scientists (SOSc) yesterday on the topic of “re-wilding our faith this Lent”. We talked about many things and in the course of the conversation and spiritual reflection, I recognized that for me, like others, the places where I find spiritual restoration are almost always outside immersed in God’s Creation. There’s hardly anything that goes wrong in my life than I can’t find solace for by going outside with a book and sitting in sunlight in the woods somewhere.
I was struck by +Graham’s idea. There’s something wonderful about the green spaces our churchyards provide. But how much more helpful could they be if we modified them so that they weren’t just a place of rest but also a place of recharge too. I imagine that would look different in different places, but the goal could be the same; to provide green space, particularly in areas where it is rare, that would be open to the public somehow.
It might even be possible to invite local community groups into planning conversations and the work of transformation – so that it could be as much their space as it is the local congregation’s.
