Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast.

I'm Emmanuel Vaughn Lee, executive editor of Emergence Magazine.

In each issue, we feature in-depth interviews, narrated essays, and stories, exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.

Thank you. and spirituality. Kimberly Ruffin is a certified nature and forest therapy guide,

and the author of Black on Earth, African American Ecoliteracy Traditions.

In her essay, Bodies of Evidence, Kimberly revisits her upbringing and spiritual heritage,

compiling the bodies of evidence that have invigorated her spirit.

She explores where spirit power can be found, both within a church community and the places where faith rises up within the land.

Mama, you win. I joined church today. You and Aunt Louise said it would happen, and sure enough,

here I am, a certified nature and forest therapy guide with a church home. It's not because I found

the truth, though. Not sure I need that anymore. It's just that when it comes to believe the phrase

that feels right to me instead is body of evidence.

I'm a church member and a forest therapy guide because in my life, there are two bodies of evidence that are compelling and undeniable.

Getting here wasn't quick and easy, and if I'm honest, I don't know if this is my

final destination. Even if it isn't, I'm going to hang out here a while. My spirit feels good in my

body. There have been lots of twists and turns on this faith journey. I've wrestled with both being a Christian with more

interest in earth than heaven, and a firm believer in religious pluralism who knows that an

earth-based religion would not be enough for me. Free from finding the one and only truth in a religious

doctrine, I know faith is my evidence-based real thing. Faith is the method we

use to support the spirit of our human animality. It's what fills us up, keeps us ready,

and calls us out of the greatness of a Chicago winter. Poised between two bodies of evidence, I've found my faith.

Nature is my church, and church is in my nature. As a kid, I learned about the outdoors as a faith

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