Books offer practical, spiritual lessons on ecological challenges

“Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology,” by Sarah McFarland Taylor. Harvard University Press (Cambridge, Mass., 2007). 363 pp., $29.95. “Earth and Word: Classic Sermons on Saving the Planet,” edited by David Rhoads. Continuum (New York, 2007). 320 pp., $24.95.

Reviewed by Brian T. Olszewski

Catholic News Service

When Kermit the Frog sang “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green” to “Sesame Street” viewers in 1970, he wasn’t warning them about the ecological challenges that the world would be facing at the end of the second millennium and the start of the third. Yet, the opening line of Joe Raposo’s tune could well describe what communities of religious who have made a commitment to promoting and living the green life face.

It might also be a subtitle for “Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology,” Sarah McFarland Taylor’s extensive look at how several communities of religious women throughout the U.S. have linked the soil with the sacred. In other words, their service to the people of God is rooted in the land they occupy.

How deeply the assistant professor in the religion department at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., delved into her topic is indicated by the on-site observation, participation and interviews with some of the “green” sisters, as well as extensive electronic communication with those whose companion planting of religious life and respect for the earth have given another dimension to religious life.

Those who ask “What is the church doing about the environment?” will find a detailed story of faith told with the right balance of the nuns’ own words and background provided by the author. Together, they narrate a recent, but important, chapter in U.S. church history.

Taylor’s final chapter is a critical part of the text as it addresses questions and criticisms to which the “green sisters” are subjected. In particular, there is the accusation that their commitment to protecting the earth is a thinly disguised link to New Age beliefs. Taylor lets the religious address these concerns, and they do so in a noncontentious manner.

For decades, the words and work of Dominican Sister Miriam MacGillis, co-founder of Genesis Farm in New Jersey, and Passionist Father Thomas Berry, founder of the Riverdale Center of Religious Research in New York, have been answers to “What is the church doing about the environment?” Pope John Paul II continued to provide answers when he devoted his 1990 World Peace Day message to care for the environment, linking ecological destruction with a lack of respect for life. In recent months, Pope Benedict XVI also has made references to the environment.

What Taylor’s work demonstrates is that the health of the environment and educating the faithful about it will be the role of a growing number of U.S. religious women. What they have to say is important reading.

David Rhoads’ volume, “Earth and Word: Classic Sermons on Saving the Planet,” is a good resource for church leaders who are called upon to preach about “green” issues. The 36 “sermons”-- one has to wonder what earned them the “classic” designation -- were given by a scholarly group representing numerous faith traditions and based upon a variety of Old and New Testament passages.

Those who do not preach but who merely wish to reflect upon the connection between Scripture and earth will find inspiration among the words, although it’s not a page turner. Rather, it is material that should be taken a dose at a time, particularly as a spiritual antidote to polluted air, water and soil.