The Watershed
You and I and all human beings live in a watershed. Who knew? This is God’s creation – we need water every day to survive. Mountaintop snow melts into rivers, rivers swell with rain, carrying everything in their paths, inexorably to the ocean, where evaporation completes the cycle. In Pasadena, we are part of the Arroyo Seco Watershed, an often dry watershed depending on the year and the season.
Theologian Ched Myers sat in with the students explaining the nature of the watershed and some of the ways Scripture illuminates the relationship of God and man and water. The Ancient Israelites would take stones from the riverbanks and build altars to God. In those days the message was not, “this land now belongs to us,” for all land belongs to God. In those days the message was, “we now belong to this land.”
We walked to the Eaton Canyon Nature Center, less than a mile away from our new campus. Docents conducted tours of the surrounding flora and fauna, and after lunch we visited the local museum. It can be difficult to feel deep attachment to our local neighborhoods, now void of indigenous vegetation and covered in beautiful lawns and shrubs native to foreign countries. But in Eaton Canyon, down in the dry riverbed, we could experience the land as Native Americans would have, hundreds of years ago. Here we built our own stone monument. We belong to the land – to God’s creation.
One more thing we learned about the watershed: there are no treatment facilities along the way. Trash sitting on the ground will eventually find its way into the storm drains and out to sea. Picking up litter does more than keeping things beautiful. It prevents the pollution of the watershed and pollution of the ocean. So on the way back to campus, our students picked up four sacks of trash from the neighborhood streets. That’s four sacks of trash out of the watershed. And that is how we learned to better respect and celebrate God’s creation.
The New Space
With the muscle and will of our volunteers – students, parents, faculty, and supporters, we moved during the first two weeks in January, ready to open the day after Martin Luther King, Jr Day. We’ve begun to take root in our new home at St. James United Methodist Church on Washington Blvd. How wonderful it is to look out windows onto green spaces. The campus is a peaceful spot where learning seems to grow organically. If you haven’t had a chance to visit, we hope you’ll come by soon!
A Special Thank You
With all the news of our new locale and a 3-year accreditation, we want to take a moment to especially thank Nora and Matthew Lee. Nora has been keeping us on-track as Development Director and Matthew lent his significant professional expertise to making our accreditation application sound a resounding note with the committee. Thank you both for making this school what it is.