Heather Barfield - General Synod 35 Reflection

First and foremost, I want to mahalo all individuals and churches that support our Hawaiʻi Conference delegates when we attend General Synods. General Synod 35, in Kansas City, Missouri, was a fabulous experience. We worshipped together, ate, prayed for one another, ate, listened to keynote speakers, ate, learned from our peers and colleagues in ministry and we ate some more! While there was a lot of food, it wasn’t about the food for me, unless you're talking about the food that fills my soul. And, it is always nice to reconnect with individuals that live on the continent that we don’t typically get to see, like my friend that I attended college with almost 30 years ago.

The theme of GS35 was Into the Deep based off Luke 5:4, “Now when He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’” Rev. Marilyn Pagán-Banks provided the message “Planting Sweetgrass”. She was raw and provided a message to attune our minds for what was to come.

Our Sunday worship was led by our General Minister and President Karen Georgia Thompson whose message was in her State of the Church address and powerful Sunday sermon. Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, General Minister and President, invited us to reflect honestly on who we are and who we are becoming as the United Church of Christ. She offered both lament and hope—acknowledging the weight of shrinking numbers and financial challenges, while calling us to courageous imagination, faithful innovation, and bold engagement with our communities. She reminded us that we are not simply managing decline but discerning how to be church anew in such a time as this. Her message titled “Beyond Dry Bones: Into the Deep” included words of wisdom for the future of the church, providing a sense of hope in these uncertain times.

Rev. Antony Coleman shared his message “Take the Sweet Grass.” His message was powerful and thought-provoking.

We were also blessed by a stirring keynote from Rev. Jennifer Butler, founder of Faith in Public Life, who preached with prophetic clarity and deep love. Her message? Don’t lose heart. We are built for this moment… Don’t lose heart. We are built for this moment!

A highlight for me was passing out nearly 500 lei that a handful of individuals made and donated to share our aloha with other delegates. They were a hit! We even had a few people want to learn about the significance of lei. Seeing people smile when they received and wear them throughout the week was a joy for our delegates as well.

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Found this about Sweetgrass: Beautiful words about Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, scientist, professor, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation:

“Sweetgrass is a really good name for it, and in our language, her name is Wiingaashk. In the Potawatomi language, Wiingaashk refers to that sweet fragrance for sure, that wonderful vanilla-like fragrance. But it also refers to the fact that it is a ceremonial, sacred plant for us, and a teacher.

It’s also a healing plant, and the way that it heals is so interesting. Ecologically, it is a healer of broken, open land. It’s a pioneer species that comes and binds up the soil with its rhizomes. But it’s also a cultural healer, a spiritual healing plant as well.

We revere that plant. We revere Sweetgrass, or Wiingaashk, for a number of reasons, but one of which is in our oldest stories.

Sweetgrass is understood as the hair of Mother Earth – that sweet, shining long hair. And just as we braid the hair of someone that we love to enhance their beauty, to care for them, as a real tangible sign of our loving and caring relationship with one another, our people braid Sweetgrass. It is a metaphor and a pragmatic representation of our care for Mother Earth.

That plant is a braid of stories, which are made up of three strands. One of those strands is Indigenous knowledge and traditional environmental thinking about plants from the Native perspective.

Another one of the strands is scientific knowledge about plants, and then there’s that third strand that makes up the beautiful braid.

The way that I think of that third strand is the knowledge that the plants themselves hold – not what we can learn about plants, but what we can learn from plants.” (shared by Native American History Facebook Group)