A message from our friends and partners at Southern Oregon Climate Action Now (SOCAN)
The climate chaos that surrounds us is affecting much more than the natural world, our economy and our physical health. The changing climate, and our apparent resistance to addressing it, are also conspiring to affect our mental and psychological health.
Rev. Liz Olson, Masters of Divinity, Board Certified Chaplain, will be the featured presenter at SOCAN’s April General Meeting at 6 p.m. on Tues., April 30, in the Large Community Room of Medford Public Library 205, S. Central Avenue. Everyone is invited to attend.
Olsen serves as a Specialty Chaplain with the in-patient Palliative Care team at Providence Medford Medical Center. She, along with fellow SOCAN member Ken Deveney, leads monthly gatherings of SOCAN’s support group ‘Sustaining Climate Activists.’
Olsen will discuss why we should be concerned about our mental health as it pertains to climate change considering direct and indirect effects and differences among populations, particularly people of color, Indigenous communities and youth at the April 30 SOCAN meeting. During the second half of the program, she will lead some of the interactive exercises that the “Sustaining Climate Activists” support group uses.
Olsen has been speaking nationally on how chaplains can play a role in supporting people and communities to cope with the psychological, emotional and existential needs that are arising as we are experiencing the different impacts of climate crises. At the Association of Professional Chaplains annual conference in Houston, Texas, she was the first chaplain to present on this topic at such a meeting. She was also instrumental in an online webinar produced by Chaplaincy Innovation Lab at Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass., in collaboration with The BTS Center: Spiritual Leadership for a Climate-Changed World.
Questions? Contact SOCAN Co-facilitator Alan Journet.