A Goodbye Letter from Emily Nyce

Dear friends, 

It is with a heavy heart that I now announce December 31, 2023 as my last day with Yaupon Place- a dream and reality that has been my heart and work for several years, with all my thanks to you. The seminary has decided to end my position and discern a new chapter of growth for Yaupon Place in its programming and leadership. I’ve included a note to the community from the president of Union Presbyterian Seminary, Dr. Jacqueline Lapsley, at the end of my letter to you.

Words truly fall short during major moments like these. I use the common phrase “my heart is heavy” in a simple attempt to describe what cannot be summarized: years of love and memories, new friendships, renewed relationships with the Earth and Spirit, community organizing, academic learning, innumerous local and cross-cultural partnerships, deep listening, shared visioning, hard work, surprises, challenges, and an overwhelming joy in caring for this little piece of land with you, for you, and for our earth-other community, too. I know we have not accomplished everything I have hoped for with you over the last few years, but we have done so much more than I ever imagined. This all started with a mustard seed of a dream and grew into a wild blessing beyond what can be contained. 

Of course, the land has always been a blessing since, well, forever. I only began this work in 2019 hoping to name all the ways our small greenspace (especially now in our society) contributes infinitely to the health of our bodies and souls, community, and ecology. We named it Yaupon Place because the yaupon plant exemplifies the characteristics of the kind of community place we believe in creating. I invite you to read my original explanation here, still on the website with my eco-meditations. I will continue bringing the yaupon vision alongside my future work and community volunteerism wherever I go, and I hope and pray you do the same. 

There are so many to thank in the process of this collective dream - for Yaupon Place is truly only alive through community care. I cannot name everyone, but I must name Dr. Sally Johnston. She has walked alongside me since day 1 as my mentor and the backbone of so much through Yaupon Place. She will continue to join President Lapsley and others in several of the next conversations. If you know Sally, you know you’ve met an incredibly wise and gifted woman of Spirit, and I ask that you send her thanks for her unwavering dedication, too. 

I have loved this park, and I have loved getting to know all of you. It has been one of the greatest surprises of my life. Please do not hesitate to keep in touch with me. I’ll definitely still come to enjoy Yaupon Place with my family often, but you can find me working now at First Mennonite Church of Richmond as their associate pastor. 

My last request is this: keep enjoying and appreciating our sacred park. Let my work be only a tiny inspiration to you claiming new dreams there for yourself, our community and the natural world at the corners of Loxley and Westwood. There are no doors, no doctrines, membership dues, nor dividing lines. The land exists to flourish and teach us to flourish, too, if we but let it. In all the violence and heartbreak on Earth, may you keep setting your feet on that soil to grieve and find hope again. May you walk the path and make new friends, expanding your circle of belonging. May you pray through the labyrinth, stare at the sky above the canopy, and play with your children as spiritual practices weekly. May you remember the lives who have come before you and the many who will come after you and work for justice together at the park. May you allow the plants and animals, bugs and critters to teach and transform you. And may you host a picnic where the blanket is spread wide. Some of you will remember when Mark Yaconelli visited Yaupon Place on his book tour for Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us (2022). In his book he wrote that when the Dalai Lama was read a list of all the injustices and divisions in the world and asked how we might bring people together, he said: “more picnics.” I can’t stop thinking about peace by picnics. Jesus quite liked picnics and open tables, too. So with the vision and the values of yaupon, may you keep hosting picnics of protest and peace at this sacred place we call home. Thank you for all of the ways you’ve allowed me to host you. I will miss you and this work, and my heart is heavy with hope.

Now, come plant some trees and enjoy a puppet show with me this Saturday!! I can’t wait to see and thank you all. 

Endless gratitude and abiding peace-

Emily

Greetings Yaupon Place community!

I write concerning changes at Yaupon Place. As many of you know, the idea for Yaupon Place, the seminary’s beautiful park on the Richmond campus where spirituality, ecology, and community intersect, came from Emily Nyce a number of years ago when she was a UPSem student. Since then, she has tended and nurtured that nascent idea into something that has taken root in our community, such that Yaupon Place is ready to move into its next phase of growth. The proximity of both Shalom Farms and Yaupon Place to the Richmond campus creates a wonderful opportunity to further explore what kinds of integration with UPSem’s educational programming might be possible. Those conversations have already started and will continue. 

In order to consider what the next chapter for Yaupon Place might be, we need to have a fresh start with respect to the position of director, with how its contours are defined, and how it is imagined and positioned within the seminary. To that end, the position that Emily currently occupies will come to an end this month and a new way of configuring the work of overseeing Yaupon Place will be envisioned over the winter months. 

As Emily transitions onto other opportunities, please join us in thanking her for her creative imagination and hard work that brought Yaupon Place into being and poised it for its next phase of growth. 

Peace and blessings,

Jacq

jlapsley@upsem.edu