22 Meet the Author

I was a student in Religion and Environmental Values in America in the Spring of 2025 during my second year as an Environmental Policy major and Soil Science minor at OSU. This piece is written from a view of personal history and culture, and serves as an analysis of my relationship with faith and my grandmother. Writing this allowed me to reflect on how her Catholic beliefs influenced not just how she lived, but also in values that were passed down to me, unknowingly. In examining the Catholic faith, unfamiliar to me, I began to see how religion can shape identity across generations. I became particularly interested in the idea of sacrament and how it extends into rituals of everyday life. Rituals were woven into ordinary moments for my grandmother such as tending the garden, sharing meals, and bird watching. These practices reflected a belief that the sacred can be found through creation itself. Through reflecting on her life, I came to better understand how faith, memory, and the natural world intersect, and how spirituality can be expressed through care for people and place.