A demanding and uncertain adventure

Rosemary (Rowe) Morrow

• Publisher: Interactive Publications Pty Ltd
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780980325898
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

This lecture illuminates the original state of Earth, how humans have affected its environment, and provides theology and sustainable methods for restoring Earth to health. Follows the author's personal story of the change in her thinking over the course of her life. Provides examples of Earth restoration projects and the people instrumental in achieving their success.

THE JAMES BACKHOUSE LECTURES

The lectures were instituted by Australia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) on its establishment in 1964.

They are named after James Backhouse who, with his companion, George Washington Walker, visited Australia from 1832 to 1838. They travelled widely, but spent most of their time in Tasmania. It was through their visit that Quaker Meetings were first established in Australia.

Coming to Australia under a concern for the conditions of convicts, the two men had access to people with authority in the young colonies, and with influence in Britain, both in Parliament and in the social reform movement. In meticulous reports and personal letters, they made practical suggestions and urged legislative action on penal reform, on the rum trade, and on land rights and the treatment of Aborigines.

James Backhouse was a general naturalist and a botanist. He made careful observations and published full accounts of what he saw, in addition to encouraging Friends in the colonies and following the deep concern that had brought him to Australia.

Australian Friends hope that this series of Lectures will bring fresh insights into the Truth, and speak to the needs and aspirations of Australian Quakerism. This particular lecture was delivered at The Innovations Centre adjoining Wollongong East Campus, New South Wales in January 2011.

Maxine Cooper

Presiding Clerk

Australia Yearly Meeting

© The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia, 2009.
eBook edition © 2011.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Author: Morrow, Rosemary.

Title: A demanding and uncertain adventure [electronic resource] / Rosemary (Rowe) Morrow.

ISBN: 9780980325898 (ebk)

Series: James Backhouse lecture ; 2011

Notes: Includes bibliographical references.

Subjects: Religion and science.
Science--Religious aspects.
Spiritual life--Quakers.
Permaculture.

Dewey Number: 261.55

Produced by Australia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia Incorporated

Copies may be ordered from:
Friends Book Sales, PO Box 181
Glen Osmond SA 5064 Australia.
Email sales@ quakers.org.au
or from IP Sales: [email protected]

Contents

About the author

Acknowledgements

Introduction: A letter to James Backhouse

1. Australian adventurous pioneers in Earth repair

2. Evolving Australian spiritual Earth relationships

3. Responses to a damaged land

4. Theological response to human failure to act

5. Earth restoration as a concern

6. Living well with less: how other cultures do it

7. Permaculture: to restore the Earth

8. Gardening the world back to health

9. Spiritual darkness

10. Slowing the descent: living adventurously

11. The unfolding Universe story

12. The Great Work of restoration and reflection

References

About the author

Rosemary (Rowe) Morrow was born in Perth and grew up close to the Swan River and fell asleep at night to the sounds of lions roaring at the Perth Zoo. She ran away many times before she was five years old, mainly to see animals, such as a friend’s goat or cow. And she has travelled with her work ever since. By eleven years old she was convinced that her life would be lived out in the very remote Outback. Well it wasn’t, but from 16 to 21 years old she lived in the Kimberleys on the edge of the Tanami Desert where space, sand, sky and silence became lifelong values/necessities. Her friendships with Aboriginal Australians started then and have continued all her life.

Returning to Sydney she studied agriculture mistaking it for land care. Observant of Earth processes, Rowe grew aware and then alarmed by the rapid disintegration of Earth’s ecosystems. She grieves for a damaged Earth; for every tree carelessly removed and every visible or invisible organism lost to extinction.

She trained in humanitarian work in France where she also lived in Trosly-Breuil l’Arche community, and in England at Jordan’s where she knew she would become a Quaker. Most of the 1970s were spent in Lesotho. Back in Australia in the 1980s permaculture provided the powerful basis for Earth restoration. A concern was born. She considers permaculture ‘sacred’ knowledge to be carried and shared with others. Since then she has travelled to meet many people anxious and concerned to restore their environments.

As a teacher of permaculture Rowe has been inspired for many years by Parker Palmer, the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) and non-violent resistance. She works in difficult places choosing people who have been disempowered and who would not otherwise have access to permaculture.

As an isolated Friend Rowe sits quietly on Sundays and joins spiritually with another Quaker meeting somewhere in the world on the same longitude. She joined Friends at the Devonshire Street Meeting and then the Blue Mountains where she made her home for many years. Being a lover of science she finds depths and challenges in Quakerism in the modern world of the 21st century, and particularly values the Quaker embrace of, and struggle with, continuing revelation.

Acknowledgements

This year of writing the Backhouse Lecture was a difficult one for me – more like an obstacle course than a smooth walk. It took some time to get the themes clear and when I did, personal family challenges intervened. It was a stop-go process and when I stopped or needed to start, there was always someone standing by with a prop and reassurance.

Past Backhouse lecturers reached out. Thank you David Johnston, Helen Gould and Helen Bayes for phone calls and assurances. And Sue Ennis introduced me to Parker Palmer and bought me all his books. How can I say thank you for that?

Of my writing group in Katoomba, Alison Gentle and Robyne Reichel read ill-prepared manuscripts and gave sound advice. Lis Bastion offered ideas and lead me to Penny. Elizabeth Kwan in Darwin took time from her demanding schedule to read and comment on one draft. James Strong sent wonderful emails and made me think. He generously provided the strong Quaker background enabling me to stretch my spirit and mind with confidence. The Backhouse Committee phoned me and Dale Hess was at the end of the phone or supportive email.

I live in happy obligation to all these people and thank them for their contributions. Their emotional and spiritual contributions were as great as the intellectual. And for those others by whom I have been delighted and provoked in our conversations, you are there on every page and I thank you as well and I am sorry not to give your names.

I dedicate this lecture to a beloved nephew, Michael, who loved all things living and would have been supportive and challenged by these times and this lecture.

Rosemary Morrow

November 2010

Introduction

A Letter to James Backhouse

Home

2nd Day, 4th month, 2010

Dear James Backhouse:

I am sorry that there is such a distance between us and we can’t talk. But it is 179 years since you arrived in Australia and I have been asked to deliver the James Backhouse Lecture for the Australia Yearly Meeting in 2011. The world today...