Ecospirituality
An Introduction
- Prayer & Spiritual Formation
- Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2022
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Publisher's Description
Ecospirituality, for the first time, comprehensively introduces and lays the foundation for further individual growth in the burgeoning field of ecospirituality. Rachel Wheeler covers the background for environmentally oriented spirituality in the Christian tradition, beginning with expressions of creation care and creation degradation in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, and moving through important moments and figures in the history of Christian spirituality. With this foundation in place, she reveals how expressions of renewed interest in creation care are showing up amid our compromised living habitats today, and shows what ideas laid the groundwork for beginning to speak of God, human identity, and human responsibility in certain ways. Turning to ecospiritual practice, Wheeler presents specific practices from a variety of global religious traditions, paying particular attention to Indigenous spiritual traditions. She also explores interdisciplinary areas that have combined some essential aspects of their own focus of engagement with ecology and, furthermore, with ecospirituality. Such areas as ecojustice, ecofeminism, ecowomanism, and ecopoetics all provide points of contact with the work that ecospirituality makes possible and have important implications for personal and social transformation. Wheeler's concise introduction to ecospirituality is not only a foundation-laying tool for educators, but also a concise, thorough way for individuals and students to gain a comprehensive understanding of ecospirituality and why it matters.
Endorsements (8)
“our lives with our convictions about Earth’s current state of emergency. It is a book I will keep next to my reading chair to pick up whenever I need a nudge toward more integrity in how I share life with all my creature kin in the Earth community.”
“Rachel Wheeler has woven together a solid theological foundation for a movement that is rapidly emerging even within the Christian tradition, and the title captures the core of it. With scholarly acumen and relatable storytelling, Wheeler shows how radical kinship is more than a trendy metaphor. Rather, the practice of living in kindred relationship with all other beings is the loom itself that weaves our life together on this planet. Beyond metaphor, beyond stewardship or sustainability, not only does Wheeler draw the threads of wisdom from across disciplines to rewild the Christian story; she also offers practical ways to rewild our daily lives and spiritual practices at a time when nothing is more important.”
“Reading classic Christian spiritual traditions in light of our current planetary crisis and in conversation with contemporary ecopsychology, ecophilosophy, and ecological knowledge, Rachel Wheeler invites us to reimagine our relationship to our planetary home and embrace the radically interrelated intimacy that humans share with the rest of the Earth community. In this book Wheeler outlines the shape of a “kincentric ecospirituality.” This is truly an important book for all who are discerning what and how we are called to be in this new climate for spirituality.”
“A spirited, sobering, and ultimately hopeful meditation on how we might live in greater kinship with all of creation. Compelling in its range of ideas, the book’s artistry carries through its tone: Wheeler’s gentle but urgent voice strikes a chord in our era of anxiety, endangerment, and loss.”
“The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things.”
“within the mesh of the web, Himself woven within it, yet seeing it, seeing it whole. Every sorrow and desolation He saw, and sorrowed in kinship.”
“Our words can be an antidote to human exceptionalism, to unthinking exploitation, an antidote to loneliness, an opening to kinship.”
“Remember you are of the Earth, and with the Earth you will be transformed.”
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