Planetary Health: Bold Creation of a New Narrative

Planetary Health: Bold Creation of a New Narrative

April 19, 2026

Guest Orator: Dr. Teddie Potter

Reading: Ecclesiastes 3:19 & Job 12:7-8  

Download a printable PDF of this sermon here.

“After all, the same things that happen to people happen to animals, the very same thing — just as the one dies, so does the other.” —Ecclesiastes 3:19 

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.” — Job 12:7-8 

Muriel Rukeyser, an American poet and social activist, wrote, “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” For example, this sanctuary appears to be made of wood, stone, and glass, when in fact, it is made of stories. It is filled with stories of all the joys and sorrows that make up the life of a community. It is my deep honor to be invited to add my stories to this important place.

This morning, I won’t be preaching, and I won’t be teaching. Instead, I invite you to listen to a grand story—it is your story, and it is our story. It is the story of Planetary Health and the hope it offers for our collective future.

Imagine our ancestors telling stories around a fire; in the same spirit I invite you to sit back, get comfortable, and listen to the stories I have to tell.

One of my earliest memories reflects the birth of my planetary awareness. I was only three years old, and we were living in the foothills surrounding Great Falls, Montana. It was the first time that we had measurable snow, and my mom took me sledding on the hill next to our home. My memory begins with me on my knees at the base of the hill, my mom was at the top of the hill with my baby brother on her hip. It was night, and when I looked up, I saw the Milky Way spread across the sky. In a flash of insight, I knew that my mom, my brother, me, my sled, the snow, and the stars were all one. Even though I was only a toddler, I experienced awe and the awareness that everything is interconnected.

Years later, this core belief led me to Planetary Health. As a nurse I had learned that health is the absence of disease; but now I understand that human health and the health of our planetary home are interconnected.

I had been a climate activist since the early 2000s, but after countless marches, talks, and movements, I began to realize that climate change is only one of the human-caused environmental issues that threaten our future. The United Nations calls this era the “Triple Planetary Crisis”—loss of biodiversity; pollution of soil, air, and water; and climate change.

In truth, there are not just three crises; there are multiple environmental crises. Scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Center have determined there are 9 planetary boundaries that cannot be exceeded if life as we know it is to continue on this planet. The boundaries include change in biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater change, modification of biogeochemical flows of phosphorus and nitrogen, ocean acidification, aerosol loading of the atmosphere, stratospheric ozone depletion, introduction of novel entities, and yes, climate change.

As of September 2025, we had exceeded 7 of the 9 planetary boundaries.

Therefore, our efforts must not focus solely on climate change. We must tackle the underlying behaviors and values that drive all of these environmental crises. We must challenge the story that humans are exceptional and have the right to abuse and exploit the rest of Nature at will. This false narrative has led humanity toward extinction. We need a new narrative for a healthier future, and we, as people of faith, have a significant role to play.

Even though Indigenous Peoples all over the world recognize that human health depends on the health of the rest of Nature, the modern planetary health movement did not start until 2015.

In response to growing recognition of the urgent crisis, the Planetary Health Alliance was formed. The Alliance includes over five hundred member-organizations in eighty different countries. The Planetary Health Alliance defines Planetary Health as, “A solutions-oriented, transdisciplinary field and social movement focused on analyzing and addressing the impacts of human disruptions to Earth’s natural systems on human health and all life on Earth.”

Here are some of the reasons that I find the Planetary Health narrative so hopeful.

• Planetary Health is solutions-oriented: Instead of fighting against climate change or biodiversity loss, we are fighting for a better future for all.
• Planetary Health is transdisciplinary: It recognizes that one field or discipline cannot create all the necessary changes. All of us are needed.
• Planetary Health is a social movement: We know what we need to do; and Planetary Health organizes us to get it done.
• Planetary Health includes all life on Earth: It moves us from human exceptionalism to Interconnection within Nature and preservation of all life.

The second story I want to share with you took place in the early 2000s.

I became very interested in the ancient origins of healing traditions. I knew that humans had successfully healed without modern medicines, and I wanted to understand how that was possible. My curiosity took me to the Amazon to learn about plant medicine; to China to learn about Traditional Chinese Medicine; and to the Kalahari Desert to learn from the Bushman healers. Despite the wide geographic distribution of these cultures, there were many similarities. One of the common threads was that many Indigenous people receive direct knowledge from the plants and animals.

I returned home with these questions: Do all humans have this capacity or just some? Is the ability to learn from plants and animals still present, or have we lost this capacity for all time?

So, being a nurse, I decided to run a little experiment. I took my dog down to Minnehaha Creek in the middle of winter when the snow and cold kept others indoors. I walked up to the first giant cottonwood tree and placed my hands on the bark and felt for a sensation… nothing. At the next tree I listened deeply… still nothing. I tried many other approaches and the result was always… nothing. Finally, I walked up to a tree and leaned against it and said out loud, “Clearly I cannot communicate with you as my ancestors once did, but I am content to be like a bug on your bark.”

I started walking back to my car and noticed one more giant cottonwood off the path. I had to walk through deep snow to reach her. I stood with my back to her and I sensed the message, “Reach inside.” I bent down and sure enough, there was a hole at the base of the tree; so, I reached my hand inside. Then I sensed, “No, you need to really reach deep inside.” I looked around to make sure no one was watching, then I reached my entire arm into the tree. I thought, “Oh great! How will I explain this in the ER if a raccoon bites my arm?”

When my arm could reach no further, my hand wrapped around a little container and I pulled it out. It was about the size of a film cannister and had a screw-on lid. I opened the jar and found a little note rolled up inside. The note said, “Congratulations! You have correctly followed the coordinates to this geo-cache, whatever is in the bottle is yours to keep.”

I tapped the contents of the container into my hand and found a little silver plaque that said “friendship.” I thought to myself, “Dang! That tree can talk!” There is no other explanation for me finding that bottle.

Let me be clear, I am not an exception. This type of relationship with the rest of Nature was once the norm. In addition to Nature, humans were also connected to their ancestors and to future generations. Nothing has changed; we are still being given messages from the rest of Nature all the time, yet our minds are too cluttered or too busy to remember our shared language. The good news, however, is that this way of knowing and being with the rest of Nature is our birthright.

How does this story connect to Planetary Health? The Planetary Health movement also has a shared language so we can all work together toward a better future. The shared language is called the Planetary Health Education Framework.

The framework has five core domains. These are:

• Interconnection Within Nature: We are not separate from Nature. We are What we do to Nature, we do to ourselves.
• The Anthropocene and Health: Human values and behaviors are causing massive environmental destruction, and this destruction is erasing any previous gains in global health. We therefore need to focus on changing human behaviors.
• Equity and Social Justice: Those who are contributing the least to the crises are the ones suffering “first and worst.” Therefore, solutions cannot work only for the wealthy.
• Systems Thinking and Complexity: We must think in terms of systems to avoid unintended consequences. There are no quick-fixes or easy solutions, and if we aren’t careful, technology has the potential of worsening environmental destruction.
• Movement Building and Systems Change: It is not enough to know we have a problem; we must also take effective action.

What the tree story illustrates is that humans are not separate from Nature; we are absolutely part of the great Interconnection Within Nature. Our ancestors understood this. Our problems started when we began to think that humans are separate from and more important than the rest of Nature. This false narrative allowed us to blow the tops off mountains, to use as much water as we wanted, to create conditions that promote extinction, and pollute our air, soil, and water without concern for future generations. In fact, the Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on Planetary Health concluded, “We have been mortgaging the health of future generations to realize economic and development gains in the present.”

We need to create a bold new narrative. Our hope for a better future will require us to remember who we are, and that we are part of one great family that includes all life now and yet to come.

My last story is more recent. In January, I took my dog for our usual midday walk along Mississippi River Boulevard. On these walks I often pause to pick up stray pieces of garbage, and this walk was no exception. I spotted one of those “Hello, My Name is…” nametags folded in half and frozen to the sidewalk. I tried to pick it up, but it was frozen tight. So, each day I used its presence like a rosary bead. When I reached the name tag, I would pause and ask, “In this world that is filled with so much hate and fear, what can I do to make a difference?” One day the ice was thawing which allowed me to loosen the name tag from the sidewalk. When I turned the nametag over it read, “Hello, My Name is Teddie Potter.” It was my name tag all along! I had asked what I could do, and the answer was to clean up my own mess first! But a second message was to use my unique knowledge, skills, and networks to make a difference.

This story exemplifies a key Planetary Health understanding. We all need to show up and dedicate our unique abilities and skills to restoring the health of the planet.

In 2021, the members of the Planetary Health Alliance crowd-sourced a blueprint for the future, that sets us on a path of hope. The Sao Paulo Declaration on Planetary Health is our shared global vision.

The Declaration begins, “We need a fundamental shift in how we live on Earth, what we are calling the Great Transition. Achieving the Great Transition will require rapid and deep structural changes across most dimensions of human activity.”

The Declaration offers guidance for each discipline or demographic, from health care to city planning, from agriculture to the arts. It also provides a global vision of the work to be done by people of faith. The Declaration calls faith communities to:

Lead in the creation of unity and solidarity among all peoples of the world, based on our shared, common home. Expand the mindset of humanity to embrace ancient teachings and wisdom to foster a flourishing and pluralistic civilization in harmony with the planet. Help guide people to reinvest in our relationship within Nature with the reverence and awe that is felt by so many, and emphasize the moral dimension of protecting all life on Earth. Utilize religious and spiritually affiliated institutions for planetary health education, training, engagement, and action.

The Declaration calls us to consider ourselves a partner in planetary healing. It states,

We all live together in an interconnected world and the actions of each of us inspire others. Therefore, let us pledge to dedicate our lives to the service of humanity, and to the protection and restoration of the natural systems on which humans and all other species who share our home depend.

This is an invitation to all of us to participate in the Great Transition, a bold new narrative for the health of future generations.

In closing, may you have a deeper sense of your interconnection within Nature. May you have the expanded awareness that we are in a loving and reciprocal relationship with all life. And may you know beyond any doubt, that you matter and your unique skills, knowledge, and contributions are needed. Together in faith we can bring forward the better future we know is possible.