Going Green

Let’s dish on social consciousness, spiritual integrity and intellectual discernment with a side of good judgment and common sense, shall we?  There are some great books I’ve been perusing lately, that I'd like to share:

Serve God Save the Planet; A Christian Call to Action by J. Matthew Sleeth, MD

Sleeth does a fabulous job outlining scriptural lessons of personal responsibility, simplicity and stewardship that we can apply to modern life.  He lays out the rationale for environmentally responsible life changes and a how-to guide for making those changes.  This book is both inspiring and convicting.

Food & Faith; Justice, Joy and daily bread with Wendell Berry, Thomas Moor, Elizabeth Johnson, John Robbins and others

This book is a great resource examining food choices through the lens of faith.  It explores the meaning of our meals: sacramental characters, connections to health, the demise of the family farm, organisms and world hunger.  It’s more of a resource book than a page-turner, but I’ve found it to be very enlightening, especially in relation to animal cruelty and genetically modified food.  Also, it’s more reflective than preachy in tone.

The Gospel According to America; A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea by David Dark

A good friend of mine wrote this book.  After spending the day with him and his lovely family at my pool yesterday, I plucked it off the bookshelf and began a journey with David into the modern-day culture of Christian America.  David is an unassuming sage, providing fodder for lively conversation about what it means to be Christian and American in this “weird moment” in which we live. 

He writes in his introduction:  In my own media consumption, my desire for a good story or a truthful word isn’t divided between the entertaining and the informative.  It’s the truthful that I’m looking for… and the truthful account, comedy, celebration, or lamentation is good news because it acknowledges the beautiful or the tragic of lived human experience.  It’s gospel, because it’s true.  And of course, learning to desire truthfulness more than self-assurance or the facts-on-the-ground more than what would suit our preferred versions of reality is an ongoing work of prayer and confession never unrelated to listening and watching well…  It’s a great dose of intellectual acumen and culturally iconic moments and meanings—all laced with spiritual reality and integration.  I’m looking forward to reading more.

Happy socially conscientious reading my friends.  Remember to recycle, conserve energy and water, consider others, waste not and just think before you do things. (Do you really need a bag to carry that book home from the bookstore, that you'll most likely just throw away ?) It's the little things my friends, that make the bigger differences -in both our social and personal economies. 

This is a part of Watercooler Wednesday!!