Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast.

I'm Emanuel Von Lee, executive editor of Emergence Magazine. Each week we feature a new interview, narrated essay, or story, exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. Fred Banson teaches at Wake Forest University's School of Divinity,

where he directs the food, health, and ecological well-being program,

and is the author of soil and sacrament.

In this essay, Fred travels to Ethiopia,

where, over the past century, farming and the needs of a growing population

have replaced nearly all the old-growth forests with agricultural fields.

But pockets of lush woodlands still surround

and are protected by hundreds of churches.

During Fred's visit to Ethiopia's church forests,

he documents the work of forest ecologist Dr. Alamiyahu Wasi,

who is working with local priests and communities

to protect these arcs of biodiversity that mark the confluence

of forest and faith.

The scene and the unseen.

In the forests of northern Ethiopia, there are said to dwell large numbers of invisible hermits who intercede on behalf of all humanity.

Menagin, they are called in Amaric.

According to Ethiopian Orthodox cosmology, hermits rank just below angels in importance, making theirs the most efficacious of all human prayers.

To have one of these holy men living and praying in your forest is considered a special blessing, even if you never see him.

About the hermit's lives little as known, They appear rarely, and only then to those with the

eyes of faith, yet their presence in these forests is undisputed. They might accept an offering

of dry chickpeas or a handful of roasted barley left in a clearing, but mostly they subsist on

...