Wyoming Episcopal Priest, the Rev. Warren Murphy, has helped to jump-start the conservation movement:
Wyoming priest helps spark faith-based conservation movement
In the Billings Gazette
If the desert was good enough for Jesus, Moses and the Essenes, the Rev. Warren Murphy believes, then it’s good for Wyoming.
Murphy, who founded the Wyoming Association of Churches and is the longest-serving priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming, set off this week, not for the desert, but for a multifaith conference aimed at preserving it.
“The Red Desert is one of God’s stunning creations,” said Murphy, who lives in Cody. “It’s still a wild place, a wilderness, and wilderness is where people go to look for spiritual awareness.”
The 9,000-plus square miles of the Red Desert in south-central Wyoming remain one of the last intact high-desert ecosystems in the county. The desert is home to the nation’s largest living sand-dune system, and it supports the world’s largest herd of desert elk.
As Murphy notes, people have sought spiritual guidance here for thousands of years. Prehistoric rock art pecked into the cliffs dates back more than 10,000 years. In more recent times, the desert landscape played an important role in the lives of the Shoshone and Ute Indians.