The book opens as the Searcher, a raccoon, returns to Old Tree after a night of scavenging. Belly full, he climbs into the arms of Old Tree and falls deeply asleep. Throughout the day, a powerful storm swells the sea and shakes the ground. Fierce winds threaten to pull Old Tree up from the roots, but can’t. Old Tree holds firm and the Searcher sleeps through the storm, peacefully oblivious.

Old Tree is not simply a “giving” tree. Old Tree is a symbol of strength, protection, shelter, selflessness, and unconditional love. A twist at the end shows the Searcher is not oblivious to Old Tree’s generosity. They seem to honor each other in their nurturing relationship. One can draw parallels to any caring relationship, but particularly parents and children and our relationship with God.

Mr. McPhail tenderly conveys a symbiotic relationship featuring protection, gratitude, acceptance, and mutual kindness.

Encourage new parents, reassure a child, or simply tell someone you’ll always be there for them. Give them a copy of The Searcher and Old Tree.

The season of Advent, more than any other time in the church year, invites us to embrace the spiritual discipline of waiting. This Advent season, explore in community those things you are awaiting and the ways in which you await them, and discover spirituality inherent in the process of waiting. This group, facilitated by Amanda Akes, will creatively use Holly Whitcomb’s book, Seven Spiritual Gifts of Waiting, to create space for meditation, reflection, and discussion. Whitcomb’s book is not required for participation. Childcare will be provided.

We will be meeting in the Parish Hall on
December 9 at 7 pm
December 17 at 7 pm

First up, Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, a plainspoken book that extends the ideas first presented in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan heads straight into the confusion created by government sponsored nutritionists about the composition of a supposedly healthy diet. He distrusts this advice, pointing out that the political and economic winds seem to blow the healthy diet in different directions from year to year, depending at least on the most recent successful lobbyists. Simplicity and localness are his guide and he encourages us to spend more time and money on food, growing it ourselves, finding it grown locally, and preparing it at home. Michael Pollen lives in Berkeley, CA and is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Enough said.

Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket, by Michael Hallowell takes a strong position on the virtue of locally grown food. He explains the environmental consequences of food shipped all over the world in considerable detail. After reading this book, you will never happily eat a papaya in Boston in December again.

Weighing in to challenge the romance of locally grown food is Just Food by James E. McWilliams. “It’s so much sexier to reiterate the mantra of eating local, growing rooftop gardens, foraging for wild dandelion balls, and keeping backyard hens. And this is wonderful. We can keep things local—we should keep things local—but we must also stop insisting that our behavior is, if universalized, a viable answer to the world’s present and future problems,” he writes. McWilliams’ critique of the current assumptions of the “green culture” makes for thought-provoking reading.

For those who like to digest their issues wrapped in a good story, pick up Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life. Co-written with her husband and daughter, it chronicles one family’s experience eating exclusively locally in Appalachia. It’s a wonderful story with short segues to inform you on the issues and great recipes to make the whole topic more palatable.

For hungry readers, all four books provide food for thought.

In 2008 the Rev. Forrest Church, an author and a Unitarian minister in New York City, discovered that a cancer first diagnosed in 2006 had returned, and he now had just a few months to live. In a letter to his congregation he wrote, “In more than one respect, I feel very lucky” and promised to sum up his beliefs about love and death, the cornerstones of his long career as a minister, in one last book about this test—“the final exam” as he calls it—of his religious faith.

Love & Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow is that book—short, candid, and very eloquent. Rev. Church meditates on his experiences with the deaths of family members, including that of his father (Sen. Frank Church of Idaho), friends, and parishioners. He also ponders the public’s fascination with more-dramatic deaths, such as those who perished on the Titanic and the death of a celebrity like Princess Diana. Weaving these observations with portions of his sermons, he explains why he has come to believe that death’s purpose is to help us become compassionate and loving.

This realization came to Rev. Church slowly. He went through a divorce, struggled for years to find ways to comfort grieving parishioners, and became an alcoholic. On the road to sobriety he finally realized he would never be his father’s equal—and didn’t need to be. At that point, his “mantra” for finding balance and confronting his fears became “Want what you have. Do what you can. Be who you are.”

In other words, he advises, count your smallest blessings and be frequently grateful for them; do the little things—not the impossible—to show love and try to make amends if you need to (pick up the phone, write a note); and don’t try to be someone you’re not, but instead use your special gifts and talents realistically. Dying peacefully, he believes, requires living in ways that minimize the amount of unfinished business left in our relationships, by seeking and giving forgiveness and finding ways to love one another.

Rev. Church provides down-to-earth advice for those who are terminally ill, those visiting them in the hospital (in the “Bedside Manners” chapter), and those trying to care for them at home. One surprise for him, for example, was realizing that he had made peace with his death long before his four children and wife had. He knew he had to help them face their sadness and regrets, and he discusses how to have and manage such difficult but ultimately rewarding conversations.

He also writes very movingly about Jesus’ crucifixion, fear, and anguish—and about the essence of resurrection, “the saving gift of Jesus’ love, transcending the power of death.” Church believes that we, too, will transcend death, if only we will try while we still have some time. “Life is a gift, not a given. The path of life is strewn with trapdoors. Every day is a miracle,” he writes. For Church, our life after death hinges on our ability to create—as Jesus did—a legacy of love while we’re living.

This is a practical, wise, and deeply compassionate book. You can also read a (highly condensed) version of the book’s key concepts in Rev. Church’s article “Moving from Crisis to Awakening,” in Business Week. The book is available from Robbins Library in Arlington.

Here are a few quotable quotes:
We belong before we believe. —Joanna Wragg, Diocese of Southeast Florida
We believe that love without justice is cheap sentimentality. — Carter Heyward, Diocese of Massachusetts

Ours is the perfect church for people who aren’t perfect. —John F. Schwaller, Diocese of Minnesota

From smells and bell to speaking in tongues—we have it all. —Sheena A. Lawrence, Diocese of Atlanta

Tired of fire and brimstone? Try incense. —Louie Crew, Diocese of Newark

God loves you and there’s not a thing you can do to change that. —Tom Van Culin, Diocese of Hawaii

It’s a church where you can come in without leaving your brain at the door and then have the opportunity to love all those who came in with their “wrong” ideas. —Leo Frade, Diocese of Southeast Florida

Catholic without the pope and with women; protestant without the gloom. —Catherine Gallouet, Diocese of Rochester

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Life in a small house set in a place and time apart, and rambles in the outdoors are the fabric for the observations and reflections that are threaded throughout. I’m not sure there is a ‘Tinker Creek’ – but as I recall her place descriptions, I think of a wooded and well-watered eastern landscape, perhaps more mid-Atlantic than New England, but not unfamiliar in its plants, animals and topography to a ‘Yankee.’

Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge. Williams is a southwestern writer, native to Utah, and interleaves environmental change with personal challenge – the rising of Great Salt Lake, her mother’s breast cancer, and the nuclear history of the region. Her personal grappling with Mormonism, feminism and family is movingly described in the ‘The Clan of One-Breasted Women.’

Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early. I gave this book of poetry to my daughter’s high school posse when they graduated, hoping (if they ever read it!) to keep them in mind of their childhoods in the outdoors. They are all graduating from college this year. This volume of my favorite poet’s work includes a number of poems that speak to her life and surroundings on Cape Cod, as well as to her questions, revelations and struggles with God and with the church. For those who are already Oliver readers, Thomas Mann has written about her poetry in God of Dirt: Mary Oliver and the Other Book of God.

Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer. A novel, and one of my favorites. I’ve read it twice, listened to it on CD (lovely, listenable recording), and even used it as a classroom text; maybe I’ll read it again this summer. The setting is the forested hills and farmed valleys of Kentucky. There are several main characters I think of as archetypes of human relationship to the natural world. The story alternates point-of-view, and at first you may feel distracted by putting down and picking up the threads of each story. Part of coming into a place is learning how all the stories fit together.

bell hooks, Belonging. I’m a bit hesitant to recommend this, because I am still reading it; I’m using it in my Ecological Thought class this summer. Belonging is a series of somewhat autobiographical essays about coming home to rural Kentucky after decades away–away from this geographic place, and away from hooks’ childhood social status as a poor black child in a rural and racist environment. It’s not well edited, and reads a bit like transcripts of talks she has given. ‘Spirit’ in this book includes both hooks’ references to the role of religion in her family and upbringing, an evangelical faith which seemed as out of place as her color, accent and origins when she went off to college at Stanford and throughout much of her academic career; as well as the spirit of challenge in hooks’ explicit confrontation of the ‘isms’ and ‘archies’ that are used to oppress people and the earth.

Margaret Visser, The Geometry of Love: Time, Space, Mystery and Meaning in an Ordinary Church. If Visser considers Sant’Agnese fuori la Mura, a 14th-century church outside Rome, as ‘ordinary’ one wonders what she finds extraordinary. For those who, like me, haven’t traveled in Europe, the place seems exotic! For those of you who are traveling, Visser’s book is guide to ‘deep travel—using a focus on one place to explore the universal themes listed in the book’s title. Reading this lovely book is like walking into this church, and into the past, as Visser explores its history and architecture in counterpoint with the symbolism and theology of the structure. This isn’t a book to rush through. Save it for a hot, humid day when the thought of leaving a crowded, dusty street for a cool, stone stairway that leads you down through centuries to a small chapel where you can wander with this talented guide at your leisure, and take the discoveries at your own pace.

Gunilla Norris, Being Home. In the spirit of the ‘stay-cation’, I can recommend this and any other of Norris’ books of meditations for their simplicity and spiritual potency. Taken like vitamins, one a day, you’ll find that a little reading goes a long way. Being Home includes short (1-2 page) meditations on daily activities, from Making the Bed and Sorting Wash, from Opening the Window in the morning to Locking the Door at night, that guide us in recognizing the sacred in the everyday, in the place where we live. I also recommend Norris’ other books: Being Bread, Invitation to Silence, and Simple Ways Toward the Sacred.

This wonderfully illustrated book is a conversation starter. Like any good conversation it is about questions, not answers. It is a way to open up your child’s questions about people who are different from them. It is a continuation of what we began recently in Sunday School. Mary Knab, our resident professor of physical therapy, generously came along and answered questions on physical disabilities. What’s it like to walk with crutches? Why do some people walk differently or talk like that? If your leg breaks and it can get better, how come your spinal cord can’t?

For children to include others they need not to be afraid. Talk with them. Answer their questions. Start with a good story. As you know, you’ll probably learn a lot yourself!

We meet a colorful array of odds and sods who might be cousins of the Vicar of Dibley’s crowd. They each read whatever book they were assigned and then offer rather startling opinions on the classics. There is Isola, who has a home-made potion for whatever ails you, and is disgusted by the way those Brontë girls were always cleaning up after their dissolute brother. Eben is a a fisherman who loves Shakespeare and Will Thisbee is a rag-and-bone man who created the famous potato peel pie. When Julia goes to Guernsey to meet them in person, she discovers a community knitted together by the profound care of community as they endured the privations and hardships of wartime. It is a graceful, redemptive story, well told and thoroughly entertaining.

Says Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, “I can’t remember the last time I discovered a novel as smart and delightful as this one. Treat yourself to this book, please—I can’t recommend it highly enough.” But more importantly, the Rector spotted it on a parishioner’s side table, right next to Team of Rivals. Read that, too, but you’ll smile more with the Potato Peel Pie people.

Week Two, with Karen King, March 12: Martyrdom in the early Church
Its historical context, and a look at some of the writings of and about the earliest Christian martyrs. What does it mean for us now to embrace a faith whose creed and biblical canon was shaped by and fixed during a time of violence, and the possibility of martyrdom.

Week Three, with Karen King, March 19: Resurrection Faith
How do Jews, Christians and Muslims talk about resurrection? Karen will have recently returned from a seminar in Jerusalem in which Jews, Christians and Muslims, themselves living with the ever-present threat of violence, religiously approach life and death.

Week Four, March 26: The Holy Week Story
Who are the many characters in the events of the Holy Week and how did their choices reflect their best effort to be faithful to God and to one another in a time of crisis?

Week Five, April 2: Wrap Up
What are we prepared to say about Jesus’ choices in his ministry and especially during Holy Week? Which of those choices are we called to imitate? What does it mean for us, in 21st century America, to “take up our cross” and follow?

We will meet each week from 7:30-9:00. Child care will be provided.

Katniss Everdeen, the unfortunately named heroine, is a 16-year-old who lives in one of thirteen impoverished districts that ring the capital. She supplements her widowed mother and sister’s diets by hunting with a bow and arrow. One day, her sister is chosen to represent the district in the Hunger Games and Katniss volunteers to take her place. The premise of the Hunger Games is simple. As punishment for the uprising, each of the districts must send one boy and one girl as “tributes” to play in the Hunger Games. The twenty-four tributes are imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena containing multiple hazards. The competition lasts several weeks and the participants must fight to the death. The last one standing wins, bringing rewards such as food to the district. The Games look a bit like the Olympics and reality TV but their purpose is to demonstrate the total control of the rulers. Worst of all, the populace is forced to treat these games as a festival, “a time for repentance as well as thanks.”

Pretty dark, eh? It is an absorbing read for a young person—the rector consumed it in one long snowstorm—but presents a deeply troubling picture of our future that ought to be challenged. It demands serious discussion, between adults and young people, of the mythic world as well as our own.