The Shack, the Aldo Leopold Foundation, and Other Leopold Initiatives

The framed black-and-white photograph on my wall is entitled “The Temptation of David.” It captures a young woman perched on a stump, hiking boots dangling, wet hair and flowered cotton shirt and khakis slightly damp, holding an apple with one bite missing. Standing next to her is the David in question. Behind them is the Leopold Shack, easily recognizable to any who have been there. My husband-to-be, David Mataya, and I had just snuck back to the Shack, after a quick, crazy, unguarded dip in the river. I was young, in love with David and in love with Leopold (of whom I was writing a biography for children), and completely entranced by this piece of land so lovingly restored to its natural state. I have returned numerous other times. I came the spring after Nina had died, when I was working on a religious ecology project. I was hoping, like Art Hawkins, that it would help wake up people about the Judeo-Christian call from Genesis to care for this earth and all its creatures—which God had called “good”—and to help heal this world of many ecological wounds. The project had completely stalled, and like a pilgrim, I needed to stop at the Shack. I ended up in the sand near the river, weeping. The birds in all tones and rhythms calling from tree to tree, the multitude of different trees and bushes, the flowing river, and even the small draba called forth hope. I see the draba, in its small perennial patience, has proved right. In 2014, Pope Francis issued an encyclical, or major Catholic Church teaching, not just to Catholics, but to the world, on the religious, spiritual, social, ethical, and economic reasons on why our must change its ways, just as Leopold once did, but from the perspective of faith. And he has followed this up with visits to the United States Congress and the United Nations to emphasize the need to deal immediately with climate change.