DEVOTIONALS AND OTHER daily readings can set and solidify intentions in a new year, enrich liturgical seasons, or serve as a spiritual touchpoint during hectic days. Two new books set out to root such soul work in a deepened relationship with creation. Christian theologian and scholar Randy Woodley is a Cherokee descendant recognized by the Keetoowah Band. He and his wife, Edith, an Eastern Shoshone tribal member, develop and teach sustainable Earth care based on traditional Indigenous practices in North America. Along with skill-sharing, they “hope to help others love the land on which they live.” In Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth, Woodley notes that even those of us who are not Indigenous have ancestors who likely lived somewhere for generations in community with the soil, water, plants, and animals around them.
Woodley has written 100 short daily meditations, each with a suggestion for reflection or action, to encourage all of us to “recover or discover” these values of living in harmony and balance with creation. He draws on Indigenous thought and practice, past pastoral experience, lessons from the natural world, and insightful critiques of the so-called American Dream. Through beautiful descriptions, such as how American violet seeds are dispersed by slugs and ants—“Then in the spring, another field adorns itself with food, medicine, and beauty”—and more somber reflections on the physical and spiritual toll of destructive systems, Woodley models a humble, prophetic invitation: “To accept our place as simple human beings—beings who share a world with every seen and unseen creature in this vast community of creation—is to embrace our deepest spirituality.”
UNITED METHODIST PASTOR Kara Eidson notes that “with my hands in the earth, I feel more deeply connected to creation, and thereby more connected to God, our Creator.” Inspired by that and the centrality of food as sustenance and celebration in the human experience, she has written A Time to Grow: Lenten Lessons from the Garden to the Table. This versatile guide can inform worship planning, small group study, or individual reflection and prayer. Eidson offers longer reflections for all the Sundays of Lent and Easter day, plus Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday. Short daily devotionals complete the 40 days of Lent. A closing chapter includes practical resources, including suggestions for congregation-wide Lenten activities, sermon prompts, liturgy, altar art, and children’s time. Like Woodley, Eidson taps into what she’s learned from nature to illuminate spiritual truths, from an Ash Wednesday reflection on soil to a story of blueberry bush-gnawing rabbits. She wrestles with how unjust economic systems and industrial food production leave people hungry (despite ample resources) while damaging creation.
While spiritual growth can sometimes be cast as a solitary and disembodied task, these two books remind us that our bodies and souls are intertwined, that community extends to all of creation, and that to deepen our connection to the ground beneath us and the people and wonder around us is to deepen our connection to God.
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