Earthkeepers: A Circlewood Podcast on Creation Care and Spirituality · Forrest Inslee

You Are Not Alone: Action Rooted in Community and Nature, with Christy Berghoef | Ep. 144

·52 min·3 clips

Christy says the answer is “one foot in the world at all times and one foot in the earth at all times.”

Forrest Inslee opens the conversation with creation-centered attention to place. He frames the podcast as part of a wider push toward practical social and environmental justice. Christy Berghoff comes into that space as someone shaped by lived experience. She tells the story of growing up in conservative rural Michigan, spending time in Washington, D.C., and returning home as a very different person. Her memoir Rooted, a Spiritual Memoir of Homecoming gives that return a fuller shape. The book and the interview both linger on the unraveling of her childhood faith. They also leave room for the pressures of parenting and ministry. A lot of the conversation turns on what it means to find home again without sanding down the difficult parts. Forrest keeps pressing the question of how people can work for change while staying rooted in sustaining relationships with people and nature. Berghoef answers by refusing contempt. She says you cannot come back to people as though they are terrible or ignorant. There are many things people can do, she says, and many things they do not yet know. That humility matters because everyone is doing the best they can with what they understand. She also notes that God cares about the people on the other side of these disagreements. In her church ministry, she often sits with people who feel small or unwelcome. Some are isolated because they care about the environment. Others are pushed aside because of different political views. Her advice is simple and steady: say something, because you are not alone. The episode treats that as a pastoral answer to isolation. It closes by returning to the places where listeners live and asking how they might respond there.

As heard by us

A calm conversation about homecoming, difference, and creation care rooted in relationship.

The episode centers Christy Berghoef and traces her path from rural Michigan to Washington, D.C., then back to Michigan after a change that feels lived in rather than polished.

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Why you'd press play

You want climate conviction without losing your people.

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