In January, the foothills of Los Angeles caught fire again.

We shouldn’t have been surprised. Hurricane-force winds, a record-setting dry spell—the driest January in 150 years—and a landscape thirsty for ignition. The flames raced through canyons and neighborhoods, testing the boundaries of our preparedness. But more than just the hills burned—so did something deeper. So did our civic soul.

Amidst the smoke and sirens, the moment could have been one of shared reverence: for the firefighters battling infernos, for the families displaced, for the land itself groaning under our unawareness. Instead, the fire was politicized before it was even contained. Social media turned into a battleground of finger-pointing. Emergency was met not with unity, but with cynicism. There was no sacred pause. Just spin.

This dissonance prompts a question we can no longer ignore:
What is the protocol for protecting the sacred in a world where organized religion is fraying?

Because something sacred was at stake. Not just the land, but the sense of place. Not just the homes, but the lives lived inside them. Not just the crisis, but our ability to come together around it.

In a country where church attendance has steadily declined—down from 42% to 30% over the past two decades, according to Gallup—we’re facing a spiritual infrastructure deficit at the very moment our physical infrastructure is also under strain. And the climate crisis is only beginning. The fires are not isolated. Nor are the floods, the blackouts, or the record-breaking heat.

Dave Chappelle, in a recent Saturday Night Live monologue, implored: “Do not forget your humanity and please have empathy for displaced people—whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.” His words blurred the line between the local and the global, between hills and headlines, between here and there.

By 2050, the UN projects over 200 million climate refugees. We’re not just talking about coastal towns or distant nations. We’re talking about our own backyards—foothill communities, urban cores, neighborhoods one gust away from disaster.

So how do we respond? What does reverence look like in a time of collapse?

Here are eight potential protocols—rituals of civic life—drawn from the great faith traditions of the world and reimagined for a digitally connected, spiritually disoriented age:

Inspired by: Judaism, Christianity, Islam
Practice: Set aside regular time for communal reflection, rest, and sacred pause—free from algorithmic demands. No email. No endless scrolling. In civic terms, this becomes a protected cadence for dialogue, where speech slows and listening deepens.
Why it matters: Without pause, all becomes urgency. Sacredness begins in the deliberate refusal to rush. The Sabbath was never just a break—it was a weekly resistance to tyranny, a space to remember what matters most.

Inspired by: Buddhism (Eightfold Path), Quakerism
Practice: Speak only what is true, necessary, and kind. Begin with lived experience, not ideology. Replace argument with testimony. Design meetings and digital platforms to reward vulnerability over volume.
Why it matters: In a shouting world, gentle truth-telling invites trust. The sacred can only be spoken gently. Right speech opens the door for dialogue, not debate. “I” roots conversation in truth that cannot be refuted, only received.

Inspired by: Indigenous traditions across the Americas, including the Lakota and Haudenosaunee
Practice: Gather in circles. No hierarchy. One speaks at a time, from the heart. A talking stick or stone may be used to signal respect and presence. Digital analogues can involve “stacking” speaking turns with reverent pacing.
Why it matters: Circles remind us that no voice is beneath or above another. They cultivate the democracy of the sacred. Everyone can be seen. Everyone can be heard. The shape of the space shapes the spirit of the conversation.

Inspired by: Abrahamic faiths—especially stories of Abraham and Lot welcoming strangers
Practice: Create civic and digital spaces where the outsider is welcomed first, not last. Let the newcomer set the tone. In apps, slow onboarding can be sacred design. In meetings, center introductions with stories rather than credentials.
Why it matters: The sacred is often disguised as the stranger. How we treat the unfamiliar is a test of our soul. Hospitality is not just a virtue—it is a radical act of faith in a fragmented world.

Inspired by: Hinduism, Shinto, and Indigenous land-based spiritualities
Practice: Begin gatherings with land acknowledgments and stories of place. Anchor decisions in ecological literacy. Use rituals of offering—like seed plantings or water libations—as civic ceremony.
Why it matters: The sacred often hides in the physical world—in soil, in watersheds, in urban forests. What we tend, we come to revere. Reconnecting to place is a form of re-enchantment.

Inspired by: Zen Buddhism, Christian confession, Islamic adl (justice)
Practice: In civic discourse, suspend judgment long enough to truly witness. Incorporate structured silence or storytelling circles before decisions. Delay votes. Begin with listening sessions.
Why it matters: Justice becomes sacred when grounded in full presence. Rushing to judgment is desecration. Compassionate witnessing is a necessary precondition to meaningful accountability.

Inspired by: The Psalms, Ashura, Buddhist memorial rituals, Navajo blessing ways
Practice: Create public rituals for shared grief—of fire, displacement, injustice. Host vigils. Write collective elegies. Leave space for weeping. Mark civic losses as we would personal ones.
Why it matters: Shared grief breaks the illusion of separateness. It opens the civic soul. Without mourning, we rush to forget. With it, we remember—and make space for renewal.

Inspired by: African traditional religions, Confucianism, Mormon genealogy, Día de los Muertos
Practice: Name the ancestors in civic space. Ask: what would your descendants wish you had done? Carry their eyes into the room. Use visual timelines of both past and future. Invite people to sign commitments “in the name of their grandchildren.”
Why it matters: Civic choices rooted in lineage and legacy move from short-term reaction to long-term sacred care. This is not nostalgia—it is continuity.

These are not laws. They are invitations. Protocols, after all, are not just rules—they are rituals of becoming. They ask not for belief, but for participation. You don’t need to be religious. You can believe in God, in family, in the Gaussian distribution, or in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Whatever floats your boat.

What matters is the pattern. Protocols shape the possible. They make sacred what would otherwise be neglected.

The foothills are an edge—between mountain and valley, between memory and future. And what we do at the edges often determines what becomes possible at the center.

So perhaps the real question is not, “What is sacred when the hills burn?” but “Will we choose to live as if anything still is?”

Let’s begin again—deliberately, humbly, together.

Cui Bono
This piece was written by the Patchwork Protocol, on behalf of Patrick Atwater—lifelong resident of La Crescenta, a small town in the foothills adjacent to Altadena. It was composed on a Daylight Computer in Palo Alto, birthplace of the personal computer revolution. Patrick works at the intersection of climate resilience and civic innovation.