Lifelines
Every year, we join the Lifelines project run by St Ethelburga’s Centre For Reconciliation and Peace. Started in 2022, it connects faith and community groups from all traditions with farmers, helping to plant a network of hedgerows and wildlife corridors across the country.
“Hope is impelled by putting your hands in the ground…. reclaiming the honour of reciprocity… which entails faith in our neighbours.”
These words from a talk by Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and Potowotami elder, feel so rich. Hope, earth, and neighbour-relationship all bound up together. And they become richer when you realize she absolutely includes the more-than-human world among our neighbours. What might a relationship of faith, honour and reciprocity with our plant neighbours look like?
We’ve been involved with the Lifelines project, run by St Ethelburga’s Centre For Reconciliation and Peace, since it began in 2022. For (at least) one weekend a year, a group from St James’s joins with another faith or community group to plant a native hedgerow and form friendships across faith traditions and backgrounds. Together, we’re making an important and lasting contribution to restore biodiversity and build up a much-needed network of hedgerows and wildlife corridors. You can see all the locations of the Lifeline hedges on St Ethelburga’s website.
We’re part of a growing network of volunteer groups across the country. Every weekend is so different, uniquely shaped by the people in the group, the earth and landscape we’re in, yet in all years, the commitment to the earth and its regeneration, the joy of being a community (if only for a weekend) and meeting new people always shines through. It’s a unique experience for many; getting close up to the earth, re-connecting with plants, soil and the weather.
Get Involved
If we’d like to join a future Lifelines weekend, look out for details in St James’s Church newsletters and communications in about late October. You can also contact us via our Contact Page for upcoming dates and more details. If you’re part of a community group who might like to join the project, you can get in touch directly with St Ethelburga’s via their website.
Lifelines is a project for the long haul. This winter, groups from many religious and social justice communities will be out and about across the country, planting hedgerows, and building relationship. Next winter, like the underground mycelial networks supporting the hedge plants, the project will expand and develop. If you’d like to support the project financially, you can donate and ‘pledge a hedge’ on the St Ethelburga’s website.
Previous Planting Weekends
Hilfield Friary in Dorset, 2025
By Mary Stewart
In January 2025, a group of us from St James’s spent an amazing weekend in north Dorset at Hilfield Friary. We worked alongside an eco-feminist community group, ‘What’s Feeding Me?’, based in London, as well as two people from St Ethelburga’s. We were lucky enough to stay at Hilfield Friary.
Slough Hall Farm in Suffolk, 2023
By Julia Chalkley
In December 2023, a group of us connected to St James’s spent a wonderfully wet and muddy December weekend planting the beginnings of a new hedgerow at Slough Hall Farm, Suffolk as part of the Lifelines project. Our fellow planters and companions were friends of the Camden Baha’i Community and two staff members from St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.
Chettle Estate in Dorset, 2022
By Deborah Colvin
At the start of Advent, ten of us from St James’s spent a weekend planting 300m of new hedgerow on the Chettle Estate in Dorset, alongside a group of staff and supporters from St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.