Stewardship and Healing: The Story of Spirit Creek

Behind our church in Lake Oswego, Oregon is about 1 1/2 acres of woods with a small stream running through the middle of it. The story of how we came to name this stream and tend to the surrounding woods is a story of stewardship and, ultimately, of healing both nature and ourselves.

For most of the last seventy years, our woods have been ignored except for the placement of three stone benches to create a meditation garden. About ten years ago, we sought to freshen up the meditation garden, but upon looking around we realized that everything was covered in ivy. Fortunately, our local watershed council held a yearly ivy pull and added our location onto their schedule. With the help of the Tryon Creek Watershed Council (TCWC), we also acquired a small grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board that allowed our creek area to be cleared.  Later, TCWC added our site onto a grant they received from the City of Lake Oswego which allowed for the clearing of invasive plants, bushes, and small trees from our woods. 

Besides all the invasive removals, these grants have planted over 1,000 native plants to fill in where the invasive plants were removed. This help, along with ongoing work from a small but intrepid group of members from our church, has drastically changed our woods. Ivy no longer climbs our trees and is slowly being pulled back. Holly and laurel no longer crowd out our native bushes. Himalayan blackberry no longer blocks access to the woods. The stream is running free and clear through the middle. This stream had always been labeled only with an asset number on local maps. After about two years of moving the appropriate paperwork through both state and federal agencies, the little stream is now officially Spirit Creek, and we celebrated this milestone at our annual Earth Day service this April. There is still much to be done but slowly…our woods are healing. 

Contributed by the Earth Justice Team of Lake Oswego UCC.