More Reviews

I hope you enjoyed my review of Cynthia Robinson Young’s book, Reflections of a Feral Mother. It had more views and likes than my posts typically receive. Today, I have a preview of Mark Anderson’s new book, Rescuing Jesus from American Christianity, as well as some reviews of older books that I believe are well worth a second read.

At the end of this week, I will have a guest post by a fellow Chattanooga Poet. I think you will enjoy the poems and comments included. I like that thought and hope to feature more fellow poets and authors in future posts.

Rescuing Jesus from American Christianity

This is the first one, a preview, since I have not read the full Text. This blurb comes from the rear cover text:

In this survey of the Sermon on the Mount, the author contrasts the Old Testament nationalistic kingdom of Israel with the New Covenant kingdom of Jesus. It is proposed that when people believe in the kingdom of God as Jesus taught, they will be less enticed by imitation kingdoms and that the kingdom of Jesus, which is one of love, is incompatible with the political empires of conquest.

“Both conservatives and liberals attempt to claim Jesus as their own, but Jesus will not be owned by either, so in the cultural wars for dominion, the best side to choose could be neither.”

Erosion: Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams is devoted to the preservation of public lands. She mourns the recent undoing of their protection. The final section tells us that the time for anger is past, and it is time for healing. She sees healing as restoration. She reveals a few bright spots of healing the landscape near the end of the book.

Family plays a part in this book, as is true for most of her books. She mourns the death of her brother Dan. His relationships with her father, deceased mother, and grandmother are also significant in the narrative. She speaks of her Mormon upbringing and her response to the Church’s views and policies toward women, as well as non-white and non-binary persons.

Bears Ears National Monument appears periodically in the book but is ever present in the subtext. She documents efforts to preserve the area going back to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, who served from 1933 to 1946. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall picked up the mission. President Obama finally preserved it as a National Monument in the final days of his administration. Donald Trump gutted the monument early in his administration. Williams mocks Trump’s statement that he was giving the land back to the American people, stating that it is public land and he cannot give us what is already ours. This review previously appeared on my website.

David George Haskell

Haskell was born in England and educated at the University of Cambridge. He came to America early on and has served as a professor at the University of the South in Sewanee. His title, The Songs of Trees, spans worldwide travel and received the 2018 John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burroughs_Medal.

In his earlier Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, The Forest Unseen, he describes the events of the natural world throughout the calendar year as they unfold on a square meter of land in a forested area owned by the University of the South.

From snails to lichen to horsehair worms, Haskell investigated the small world in an area he called the Mandala. He compared his work to the sand paintings of Tibetan monks in an introduction that promises much. The book delivers even more. With the meticulous mind of a scientist and the eye of a poet, Haskell is the perfect nature writer for the twenty-first century.

Haskell has released two more books since I wrote those words on my website, and I have heard that he is about to release another. You can read more about his work in my article published by The Hellbender Press.

Chattanooga Focus

I focused on Chattanooga Nature Writers in a previous Substack Article.