03/05/2026
Day Five: Justice & Loving Mercy
- Miriah Royal, Director of Community Engagement and Belonging
Final day. Presentation day.
I had the honor of presenting "Outdoor Leadership with Episcopal Flare: Rain, Knots, and Nature" at the National Association of Episcopal Schools conference.
Standing in front of colleagues from across the country, I spoke about outdoor education as a justice practice. Pointing out the ways in which beloved community, stewardship, and incarnation all show up in nature spaces. As a group, we moved through some hard questions like:
Who feels safe outdoors?
Whose stories are centered?
Who has access to nature-based learning?
We explored the invisible knapsack of outdoor privilege. We talked about microaggressions on trips. We wrestled with how leadership is often framed as elite rather than relational. And we reframed outdoor spaces as places where dignity, shared leadership, and belonging must be intentionally cultivated.
Through the "Outdoor Education & Leadership Equity Assessment," I invited schools to examine whether their programs truly reflect Episcopal values. Whether reflection is embedded, whether student voice shapes growth, whether land is treated as teacher and partner rather than backdrop.
Presenting this work felt vulnerable. My journey in outdoors spaces has not always centered around bodies like mine. And yet I can find comfort, understanding, and joy there.
I left that room hopeful, not because the work is easy, but because educators leaned in. They asked thoughtful questions. They reflected honestly. They considered what might need to change in their own contexts. One of the larger conversations I had was with a school that wanted to launch an outdoor ed program but was not sure where to start and how their Episcopal identity could lead in such a space. My offering was that the program centers dignity, access, and relationship to land, people, and purpose. All things an Episcopal school speaks to in other spaces.
This conference as a whole was stretching and sacred. From legacy sites in Montgomery, to workshops wrestling with faith and formation, to hallway conversations with educators doing courageous work in their own schools. I was reminded that Episcopal education holds both responsibility and possibility. We are not perfect. But we are capable of reflection and reimagining. Being in community with others committed to this journey was both grounding and invigorating.
Now being back in Colorado, I am still processing, but also floating the ideas of Justice are not abstract. It shows up in who gets a life jacket that fits. In whose discomfort is normalized. In whose leadership is affirmed. In whose story is told around the bonfire.
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