Having a new book published is like bringing a new child into the world. It’s been a long labor, too! But a labor of love for both me and my co-editor, Jay McDaniel—along with artist Vivian Dong. We are thrilled that Process Century Press has not only published our book, but included it in an important series called Toward Ecological Civilization. This series will be highlighted at the 10th Annual International Whitehead Conference, “Seizing an Alternative,” next week in Claremont California.
These essays on beauty, ecology, and spirituality are not academic papers by any means! We intentionally chose the path of brevity, readability, and fun—and hopefully a path which you will find to be “beautiful and pleasant and joyful and familiar” (Meister Eckhart).
We are writers from around the world from many different religious traditions. Our Chinese writers give us an especially rich, multicultural look at China’s vision of “ecological civilization.”
Yes, a good number of my own essays are included in this volume, but the exciting part for me is sharing the pages with luminaries like John B. Cobb Jr., to whom the book is dedicated, and host of wonderful writers and thinkers, some of whom I have admired for years, including my co-editor, Professor Jay McDaniel.
About the Book:
“We live in an extraordinary moment in history—an oddly beautiful time—painted with the starkly contrasting colors of undeniable loss and rich possibility. The Universe is rife with freshness, and we are part of the adventure: part of the urgent call to return to the wisdom of the Earth and replant ourselves in Beauty.” So write the editors in their introduction to this rich collection of essays by scholars, writers, artists, activists, educators, and clergy who have been influenced by the thinking of Alfred North Whitehead. Coming from a variety of cultural and religious traditions, the essays are all about the Beauty that flourishes in the fertile soil of sustainable community, relational thinking, imagination, creativity, the arts, stories of everyday people, as well as in our creative action toward the healing of our planet.
“This is a book bathed in beauty and compassion; a book spanning continents and cultures, a book combining deepest intellectual rigor with passionate care for the Earth: a book whose ardent plea is to save the planet. Each brief essay is complete in itself, but also lures us to read the next, and the next, drawing us into increased commitment for actions that can make a difference to the fate of this earth and all its creatures.” ~Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, Professor Emerita, Claremont School of Theology
Patricia Adams Farmer 