I just did one of our occasional longer pieces that I list as a “monthly column”—a longer list of annotated titles around a theme, usually. This month, I offered books in three categories around the theme of creation care.
I listed books about learning to delight in the goodness of creation. (I suspect we won’t be able to sustain stewardly creation care for long without deep appreciation for creation; duty and guilt and fear simply don’t last.) Next, I list some books that remind us of the crisis of the environment—mountaintop removal, climate change and such. These are admittedly heavy and may stretch your capacity to hope. Lastly, I describe some of our favorite faith-based books on creation care, the ethics of stewardship and such. Some of these are really, really great.
Here are just a few of the covers of a just a few of the books I describe. There’s a good discount, too,on all of the books and DVDs I mention. There are a few links to some other resources, even a free Bruce Cockburn song for fun. I hope you’ll spend some time visiting our April review column, here, found over at the “reviews” section of the website. As always, thanks. If you know anybody who cares about this stuff, forward it, if it seems right.
Here is a bit of an essay with which I started the column. Hope you don’t mind my candor…
It was a year ago that the momentous oil leak in the Gulf coast exploded onto the national
scene, with pictures and videos and news reports and prayer services and
a stunning amount of day by day information. I am sure you, too, would
say it was hard not to be upset about it. Like other similar,
terrible days in our memory—the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Three Mile
Island, Chernobyl, Bhopal—I had so many mixed emotions as the
disasters were reported and the damage become known. This time, for me,
I felt less righteous anger and more deep sadness. Less a desire to
rise up for social change and more paralyzed fear and hopelessness (not
cynicism or apathy, really, just inertia.) Perhaps I yielded to what the
ancients called the sin of sloth–not laziness, really, but an
inability to trust God, to rouse one’s self to faithfulness. I wanted
to write a bit about it—it is at least something I could do, alerting
our friends, civic leaders, students, activists, prayer warriors,
thought leaders, pastors and others who read our BookNotes blog, about
resources for education and action. Alas, I could not. I’ve felt
guilty for a year now and as the sad anniversary pictures—and the
governments less than stellar enforcement, and BP’s recalcitrance, well,
I feel awful….
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