Soil Solidarity No.13
A Weekly(ish) series
“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all...Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.” -Wendell Berry
Soil Solidarity is a weekly(ish) series dropping on Sunday’s where I share a handful of recommended reads or resources that I am finding helpful, interesting, or important for tending the “soil” of our hearts and faith. This list will include stuff I am reading, watching, and listening to from week to week that I hope will be worms in the compost bin helping you break down the decomposing matter of your theology and practice so that it can become rich fertilizer for cultivating a healthy relationship with the soil.
Soil Solidarity No.13
Podcast: Unknowing Season 3
by Brie Stoner
I was really stoked to find out that Brie Stoner (formerly of the Another Name for Everything Podcast with Richard Rohr) dedicated the whole third season of her current podcast Unknowing to the concept of “Compost Christianity.” The season is short but packed full of fantastic interviews from folks like Brian McLaren and Catherine Keller!
You can listen to this podcast here or on your podcast app of choice.
Book: Braiding Sweetgrass
INDIGENOUS WISDOM, SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND THE TEACHINGS OF PLANTS
From the Publisher:
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
You can purchase this book here.
Blog: A Divine Cycle of Reciprocity: Preaching The Parable of the Sower
by Lead D. Schade, Eco-Preacher
While this blog post is geared toward those who are seeking to wrestle with the various biblical texts (in this case the Parable of the Sower) for the goal of preaching them through an ecological lens I still wanted to share it here for the insights on the text, and the questions the authors asks.
You can read this article here.
Interview: Liturgy and Decoloniality. Interview with Claudio Carvalhaes
Interview by Daniel Carvalho da Silva
Note: This interview is not written in English but most modern web browsers have the ability to translate webpages into English.
You can read this interview here.