Here are 100 books that Monastic Ecological Wisdom fans have personally recommended if you like
Monastic Ecological Wisdom.
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I began as a Benedictine Oblate and then joined a monastery. I was drawn to women presiding at our own liturgy of the hours, a spirituality that seeks the Divine in music, art, and literature, alongside a passion for justice. Yet, I questioned history and began a pursuit of “what really happened.”
I’ve kept up with the growing literature on the Rule of Benedict, Benedictine history, and Benedictine Spirituality. I'm currently researching (a many-year project) the history of Benedictine women from the time of Benedict and Scholastica up to around 1850. The few histories out there are all about the men (who can be quite colorful characters), but very little on Benedictine Women.
And this is an excellent example of why so many spiritual seekers in so many traditions, languages, and cultures are finding grounding and guidance for their lives. Gioia is a great resource for anyone who desires a more authentic relationship with the Divine as Benedict offered in his Rule.
Gioia gifts us with deep and practical wisdom for anyone in any situation, not just monastics. Gioia is realistic about messy human nature and the challenges the human community is facing. He does not separate the sacred from the profane, as ALL of life is sacred. His writing is quite accessible for the "non-specialist" and the book is organized in a way that makes it “user-friendly."
I highly recommend it if you're serious about your inner spiritual journey.
Monastic spirituality has much to offer Christians who live far beyond monastery walls. In Saint Benedict's Wisdom Luigi Gioia, OSB, demonstrates that monastic spirituality is a gift for the whole Church. Because monastic vows are fundamentally a deep dive into one's baptismal commitments, monastic experience speaks to all the faithful who wish to do the same within different lifestyles. As an expression of divine wisdom, monasticism offers a way of deeply integrating spirituality with the rest of life, teaching us to seek holiness, not only in prayer, but also through work, sharing of food, sleep, and life in community.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I began as a Benedictine Oblate and then joined a monastery. I was drawn to women presiding at our own liturgy of the hours, a spirituality that seeks the Divine in music, art, and literature, alongside a passion for justice. Yet, I questioned history and began a pursuit of “what really happened.”
I’ve kept up with the growing literature on the Rule of Benedict, Benedictine history, and Benedictine Spirituality. I'm currently researching (a many-year project) the history of Benedictine women from the time of Benedict and Scholastica up to around 1850. The few histories out there are all about the men (who can be quite colorful characters), but very little on Benedictine Women.
Carmel uses her knowledge of women in early Christianity to create a life (“biography”) of St Benedict’s twin sister, Scholastica. Carmel uses the format for Pope Gregory’s Life of Benedict in a way that is quite plausible.
She begins by imaging, from the history we do have, a childhood for the two of them—and her teacher is called Sophia. Scholastica comes across as wise, and courageous, and a leader in her own right.
Meet a saint who confronts warring gang leaders, gives wise counsel (including to her brother), establishes monasteries, and leads an ascetical movement of women. Carmel retells the famous story of the last meeting of Benedict and Scholastica, then reimagines the death and burial of the twins.
Imagine the enduring legacy and ancient hagiographical method used to recover the missing life and voice of St. Scholastica of Nursia. In The "Lost" Dialogue of Gregory the Great, Carmel Posa, SGS, applies a “disciplined imagination” and the ancient hagiographical method to recover the missing life and voice of St. Scholastica of Nursia. Drawing on a wide range of scholarship, including Gregory the Great’s four famous dialogues, biblical models, and the Rule of Benedict, Posa follows a technique similarly used by Saint Gregory himself to create an engaging and credible account of Scholastica’s life. In The "Lost" Dialogue of Gregory…
I began as a Benedictine Oblate and then joined a monastery. I was drawn to women presiding at our own liturgy of the hours, a spirituality that seeks the Divine in music, art, and literature, alongside a passion for justice. Yet, I questioned history and began a pursuit of “what really happened.”
I’ve kept up with the growing literature on the Rule of Benedict, Benedictine history, and Benedictine Spirituality. I'm currently researching (a many-year project) the history of Benedictine women from the time of Benedict and Scholastica up to around 1850. The few histories out there are all about the men (who can be quite colorful characters), but very little on Benedictine Women.
Casey, an Australian Trappist, parses out an exploration of grace, the Holy Spirit in action, in every aspect of our lives and relationships. While he explores grace in community, humanity, and prayer, Casey finds grace in our experiences of temptation and disruption. Spending time with this master will open your eyes and heart to the ways that Spirit is already present in your life.
Benedictine monastic spirituality has emerged as an antidote to the spiritual and cultural challenges facing people of faith today. In this book, the author focuses specifically on GRACE, and the benevolence of God as it expresses itself in many different ways along our spiritual journey. What is a person likely to experience when beginning to give up him or herself conscientiously to the spiritual journey? In this beautiful guide, gradually, we come to realize that everything that happens in our lives is somehow the gift of our loving Father.
Every journey is ultimately individual. As Casey explains, what you hear…
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
I began as a Benedictine Oblate and then joined a monastery. I was drawn to women presiding at our own liturgy of the hours, a spirituality that seeks the Divine in music, art, and literature, alongside a passion for justice. Yet, I questioned history and began a pursuit of “what really happened.”
I’ve kept up with the growing literature on the Rule of Benedict, Benedictine history, and Benedictine Spirituality. I'm currently researching (a many-year project) the history of Benedictine women from the time of Benedict and Scholastica up to around 1850. The few histories out there are all about the men (who can be quite colorful characters), but very little on Benedictine Women.
This is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to read the Rule of Benedict and appreciate non-scholarly commentary that is still based on solid scholarship.
St Benedict wrote his Rule for a bunch of guys, so it utilizes “guy language.” Most of the Rule can be presented with gender-neutral language, so women see themselves in his teaching.
A tradition among Benedictines is to read the Rule three times throughout the year. Sutera set this up so that anyone who chooses can follow this tradition. With each section of the Rule, she provides some background into the context in which the Rule was written, reflections on its meaning for contemporary life, and a few questions for pondering.
I highly recommend this, especially for those new to the Rule.
The Rule of St. Benedictforms the foundation for one of the oldest ongoing institutions in all of Western civilization. The Rule not only defines life for men and women in monasteries but has also become central to the spirituality of lay Christians across the globe.
This gender-neutral translation is true to the original text but provides an alternative for individuals and groups who prefer such a version over the masculine language of the original as it was written for St. Benedict's monks. It also offers some background into the context in which it was written, as well as reflections on…
I’ve always been a thinker, asking big questions and playing around with crazy ideas. That’s why I’ve been fascinated by the Bible since I was fourteen, reading it cover-to-cover multiple times and studying it academically for—approaching four decades now. It’s a classic for a reason! At first, I read it because I became a Christian, and it’s part of the package, but within a short time, I was hooked. I was especially interested in the tough parts, the bits I didn’t like or couldn’t make sense of. They were invitations to explore, think, and learn. It never ceases to surprise me with new ideas and inspirational insights.
I like hugging trees, so this is my kind of book! It’s based on a PhD, but I found it very readable and blew me away! Its basic idea is that the OT sees the whole cosmos—including animals, plants, mountains, stars, rivers, and land—as alive and as “persons” in some sense.
The Bible is brimming with such language, but we always dismiss it as “mere” poetry. Nope, says Joerstad, ancient Israelites were animists. What the flump! That conclusion turns much of the OT scholarship upside down. I was so intrigued with this one that I read it three times.
It's such a novel interpretation, but to my mind, it makes sense! I am still not sure how it should affect the way we see the cosmos today, but the mystic within me likes it.
The environmental crisis has prompted religious leaders and lay people to look to their traditions for resources to respond to environmental degradation. In this book, Mari Joerstad contributes to this effort by examining an ignored feature of the Hebrew Bible: its attribution of activity and affect to trees, fields, soil, and mountains. The Bible presents a social cosmos, in which humans are one kind of person among many. Using a combination of the tools of biblical studies and anthropological writings on animism, Joerstad traces the activity of non-animal nature through the canon. She shows how biblical writers go beyond sustainable…
I was never an outdoorsy kid. But I was a church kid. As I grew up and moved into a calling to serve the church in ordained ministry, that calling took an unexpected turn when I visited West Virginian hollers poisoned by nearby mining operations and met the people living with the consequences. Subsequent trips to Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, drought-wracked Kenyan hillsides, and to international climate negotiations in Paris all solidified for me the truth that loving my neighbor required loving God’s creation too. I’ve spent the last 10 years speaking, writing, and teaching Christians across the country the same simple truth.
This book was my gateway into Christian climate action 16 years ago.
When my older brother came home from a semester abroad in New Zealand and told my conservative Christian family that he was now a vegetarian because of his environmental convictions, he handed me this book to help me understand why.
It was the first time that I was given permission to engage pollution, environmental destruction, and climate change becauseof my faith, rather thanin spite of it. Nothing has ever been the same.
Caring for the environment is a growing interest among evangelicals. This award-winning book provides the most thorough evangelical treatment available on a theology of creation care. "Authentic Christian faith requires ecological obedience," writes Steven Bouma-Prediger. He urges Christians to acknowledge their responsibility and privilege as stewards of the earth. The second edition has been substantially revised and updated with the latest scientific and environmental research.
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
As the author of 100+ children’s books, I work mainly on assignment for educational and faith-based publishers. But when I’m freelancing, I want the topic to be something I’m passionate about. Being married to a science teacher, we often discuss science issues. After having grandchildren, I wondered, what type of planet are we going to leave them? Our grandchildren are aware and concerned about severe weather patterns. I asked myself, what can I do? Plus, I wanted to write through the lens of my faith. I wrote my picture book, God’s Earth is Something to Fight For, to instill hope and give practical ways for children to help save Earth.
So much more than a nonfiction book, Betsy Painter’s All of Creation informs and includes a Biblical perspective and Scripture related to each of the eleven chapters.
Each chapter includes how kids can make a difference and related activities with topics ranging from endangered species to coral reefs to the poles and global climate. The lyrical language emphasizes kindness and care for our planet. For example, the first chapter features water in language kids can understand.
“Imagine waking up during a thunderstorm, as the rain sprays against your window like God is aiming His garden hose at your house.” The chapter defines fresh water, explains clean water challenges, and gives concrete examples that widen a child’s scope related the world and its limitations.
Nearly 200 pages, this book empowers kids ages 8 – 12 to know more and to do more. The subtitle summarizes the book well: Understanding God’s Planet…
From conservation to protecting endangered species to sustainable living, All of Creation offers young readers accessible and fascinating information on the challenges our planet faces and practical ways we can care for the magnificent world around us.
Drawing on science and Scripture, this hope-filled and kid-friendly guide to planet Earth addresses our most pressing questions about caring for and respecting God's world, such as:
What are the biggest challenges our planet faces, and what impact do they have on our lives?
What guidance does the Bible offer to help us navigate environmental issues such as pollution, food shortages, and deforestation?…
For four decades, I have written about art for publications in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. I have interviewed, among other artists, Frank Stella, Mary Ellen Mark, Dale Chihuly, Deng Lin (the daughter of Deng Xiaoping), the most celebrated Vietnamese contemporary painters, and the leading Japanese ceramicists. My ideal vacation is to wander the cobblestone streets of Italy, walking into a church to see the art of Caravaggio, Raphael, and Bernini. On a trip to Venice, I saw the immense illusionist ceiling painting by Giovanni Fumiani in the church of San Pantalon. Looking up at angels swirling in heaven, the idea for my second novel was born.
I have never been able to look at Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and child the same after reading this brilliant and controversial book. I promise your eyes will be opened as well. These paintings were not simple religious decoration. Christ’s genitalia, exposed or covered, was a visible element in theological arguments in the Renaissance about the humanity of Christ. In our secular world, Steinberg argues, we have lost sight of the sexual component of these images. Steinberg’s breadth of learning is astounding, and the extensive footnotes are as stimulating as the text.
Steinberg argues in this work that the artists regarded the deliberate exposure of Christ's genitalia as an affirmation of kinship with the human condition. Christ's lifelong virginity, understood as potency under check, and the first offer of blood in the circumcision, both required acknowledgment of the genital organ. More than exercises in realism, these unabashed images underscore the crucial theological import of the Incarnation.
I have been interested in purpose and meaning since I snuck into a high school philosophy class when I was 10 years old. Since then, I have not only worked on my own quest for meaning in my life but also helped dozens of others through these types of questions as an executive coach and business leader. I believe that having an answer to the question “why am I here?” is the crucial ingredient to living a happy and fulfilled life, and I’ve been working for years to distill all that I have learned on the subject into a useable and accessible collection of insights.
What amazes me about A Confession is that here is Tolstoy, one of the giants of world literature, at the top of his game, lamenting that there is no meaning to his life. This made me realize that there is no one immune from this feeling of purposelessness and that there are no prizes, accolades, awards, or other external things that will prevent you from feeling existential angst.
The book also shows how Tolstoy worked through his crisis, and although I do not agree with his conclusions, the path that he takes in the book was very useful for me in my own journey to meaning.
Despite having written War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy, at the age of 51, looked back on his life and considered it a meaningless, regrettable failure. A Confession provides insight into the great Russian writer's movement from the pursuit of aesthetic ideals toward matters of religious and philosophical consequence. Authentic and genuinely moving, this memoir of midlife spiritual crisis was first distributed in 1872 and marked a turning point in the author's career as a writer: in subsequent years, Tolstoy would write almost exclusively about religious life, especially devotion among the peasantry. Generations of readers have been inspired…
As a conservative Mennonite from Pennsylvania, I have observes many people who, despite numerous desperate attempts at locating lasting fulfillment, find themselves always craving more and never satisfied to relax and be content. I have consequently dedicated myself to helping these folks obtain the satisfaction they inwardly crave. This lead to hours of contemplating, praying, and reading numerous books on the subject.
In Doing What Comes Spiritually, Drescher walks the reader through detailed descriptions of each of the fruits of the spirit and explains how they are the fruit of a proper surrender to God’s will and can not be obtained any other way.
This contains many worthy points and is a great addition to any Christian bookshelf.
