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             A Thanksgiving Letter

      At this Thanksgiving we want to show gratitude for your financial and moral support in the past year.   Our Earthhealing Program continues to thrive but we cannot relax our efforts due to the closing window on possible climate change reduction.  We were featured on Steve Curwood's "Living on Earth, a PRI production heard on over 300 NPR stations at the time of Pope Francis' U.S. visit.  Yes, our environmental efforts must be doubled to meet challenges coming from the Paris Climate Change Conference.

     Our environmentally-related Daily Reflections, which is funded by the Kentucky Jesuit Missions, has continued to be popular with nearly sixteen million hits in the last twelve months.  We have assembled many new topics for 2016, with an emphasis this year on the connection between environment and faith issues.  Look for new texts and fresh photos, and review any of 3,200 past reflections and photos by going to the site and selecting month and day.

     In addition, your support is most welcome to help us promote our new YouTube series launched earlier this year.  We give short videos at the start of each month to urge seeing our Daily Reflections, along with "How To--" programs (see separate sheet).  Perhaps we can reach out to video watchers with issues that have been developed this year and the additional twelve we are expecting to produce in 2016.  Let's work together to meet the challenge resulting from influential climate change deniers who are clustered in America; our approach allows tax-exempt educational programs without delving directly into touchy partisan politics.
        
     We have three books at various stages of publication and promotion.  Angela Cox, our long-time editor, is putting finishing touches on Healing Earth, a book that closely resembles and is a companion volume to Pope Francis' Laudato Si.  Another work, Jesus Christ Activist: A Work in Progress is currently available in digital format free from Brassica Books and invites your comments. The third work containing Warren Brunner's photos, Appalachian Water Reflections, is coming out soon with expert book design work by Gwen Hewnsley; this water book will be available on Amazon.com for Christmas.  

  We urge your support for 2016, a critical year in preserving the viability of our wounded Earth.  Again your donations are tax-exempt when made to "Kentucky Jesuit Missions."  Thanks in advance.                        
                       
   Happy Thanksgiving,

   
                          Al Fritsch, SJ

                    Our "YouTube" Series

     During 2015, Earth Healing initiated a YouTube  "How to --" Series, along with twelve introductions for each month of the Daily Reflections.  We are convinced that many of today's readers prefer videos over hard text.  Let's welcome the changes whether or not they reflect our individual preferences.  Starting in January 2015, we developed a series that included environmentally-related subjects with five assorted topics and seven related to understanding Pope Francis' Environmental Encyclical:
    
     1.  How to Challenge Fracking
     2.  How to Grow Shitake Mushrooms
     3.  How to Halt Climate Change
     4.  How to Create an Early Garden
     5.  How to Be Familiar with Laudato Si.
         6. Ch. I  What is Happening to Our Common Home
         7. Ch. II The Gospel of Creation
         8. Ch. III The Human Roots to the Ecological Crisis
         9. Ch. IV Integral Ecology
        10. Ch. V Lines of Approach and Action
        11. Ch. VI Ecological Education and Spirituality
     12. How to Plan Our Annual Work  (this will be available at the end of December, 2015).
      
     We discovered the first reports on our 2015 series to be  relatively successful.  Thus we are actively searching for supporters to help us extend the series through the next year.  For 2016 we are planning the following tentative subjects and continuing the specific introductions to each month's Daily Reflections.  We hope each of the tentative selections for 2016 will have some connection with the themes and spirit of the various months when issued.  The proposed selections for 2016 will be:

     1. How to Use Photography to Aid the Poor
     2. How to Usher in Renewable Energy  
     3. How to Excel in Woodcrafting
     4. How to Start Backyard Wildlife Habitats
     5.  How to Protect Water Resources    
     6. How to Enjoy Forests
     7. How to Promote Eco-Tourism (with a focus on Kentucky)
     8. How to Demonstrate Public Interest Projects
     9. How to Grow Virtually Wild Ginseng
     10. How to Deal with Haunted Houses
     11. How to Redistribute Wealth to Environmental Causes
     12. How to Empower the Poor to Protect Our Earth

     We welcome other themes and will try to oblige to the degree our time and resources allow us. 
                                
    The Earthhealing Team

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Al Fritsch, SJ
316 5th Street
Ravenna, KY 40472

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