April 2017 includes many opportunities for people to express their concern for the Earth. In the 5th century a religious practice began, known as Rogation Days, prior to Ascension Day, that raised up prayers asking God to bless agricultural practices to insure later crop harvests would be free from lightning, blight, plagues, pestilence, etc. so that there would be no famine.
Consider the following books for Earth Day (Apr. 22, with a March for Science in the nation’s capitol); Soil and Water Stewardship Week and Sunday, sponsored yearly by the National Association of Conservation Districts; Arbor Day; and a 4/29 people’s climate rally in Washington DC, with a major contingent by people of faith, see https://faith.peoplesclimate.org/.
A recent bibliography of books selected at the BelovedPlanet web site can be found at http://belovedplanet.com/resources/. Also consider:
- Adam and the Genome: Reading Scripture after Genetic Science. Dennis R. Venema and Scot McKnight.
- All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings. Gayle Boss; illus. by David G. Klein.
- Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America. Kevin M. Lowe.
- The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality. Richard Heinberg.
- Endangered Economies: How the Neglect of Nature Threatens Our Prosperity. Geoffrey Heal.
- The First 1,000 Days: A Crucial Time for Mothers and Children—and the World. Roger Thurow.
- The First World Oil War. Timothy Winegard.
- Food and Faith. Norman Wirzba.
- The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate. Peter Wohlleben
- The Last Beach. Orrin H. Pilkey and J. Andrew G. Cooper.
- More than Enough: Living Abundantly in a Culture of Excess. Lee Hull Moses.
- The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible. Charles Eisenstein.
- My Life with Things: The Consumer Diaries. Elizabeth Chin.
- A New Basis for Animal Ethics: Telos and Common Sense. Bernard E. Rollin.
- A Peaceable Kingdom. Drawings by Ripley Whiteside.
- Personalities on the Plate: The Lives and Minds of Animals We Eat. Barbara J. King.
- The Real Cost of Fracking: How America’s Shale Gas Boom is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and Food. Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald.
- The Sense of Wonder. Rachel Carson.
- The Thinking Person’s Guide to Climate Change. Robert Henson.
- Water in Plain Sight: Hope for a Thirsty World. Judith D. Schwartz.
- Writing America: Literary Landmarks From Walden Pond to Wounded Knee. Shelley Fisher Fishkin.
Quote: “If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, recreated from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: ‘”God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time.'” James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, (New York: Dial, 1963), 105-06.
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