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Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology
Listen to a short interview with Sarah McFarland Taylor Host: Chris Gondek - Producer: Heron & Crane
It is perhaps the critical issue of our time: How can we, as human beings, find ethical and sustainable ways to live with one another and with other living beings on this planet? Inviting us into the world of green sisters, this book provides compelling answers from a variety of religious communities.
Green sisters are environmentally active Catholic nuns who are working to heal the earth as they cultivate new forms of religious culture. Sarah Taylor approaches this world as an "intimate outsider." Neither Roman Catholic nor member of a religious order, she is a scholar well versed in both ethnography and American religious history who has also spent time shucking garlic and digging vegetable beds with the sisters. With her we encounter sisters in North America who are sod-busting the manicured lawns around their motherhouses to create community-supported organic gardens; building alternative housing structures and hermitages from renewable materials; adopting the "green" technology of composting toilets, solar panels, fluorescent lighting, and hybrid vehicles; and turning their community properties into land trusts with wildlife sanctuaries.
"Green Sisters" gives us a firsthand understanding of the practice and experience of women whose lives bring together Catholicism and ecology, orthodoxy and activism, traditional theology and a passionate mission to save the planet. As green sisters explore ways of living a meaningful religious life in the face of increased cultural diversity and ecological crisis, their story offers hope for the future--and for a deeper understanding of the connections between women, religion, ecology, and culture.
It is perhaps the critical issue of our time: How can we, as human beings, find ethical and sustainable ways to live with one another and with other living beings on this planet? Inviting us into the world of green sisters, this book provides compelling answers from a variety of religious communities.
Green sisters are environmentally active Catholic nuns who are working to heal the earth as they cultivate new forms of religious culture. Sarah Taylor approaches this world as an "intimate outsider." Neither Roman Catholic nor member of a religious order, she is a scholar well versed in both ethnography and American religious history who has also spent time shucking garlic and digging vegetable beds with the sisters. With her we encounter sisters in North America who are sod-busting the manicured lawns around their motherhouses to create community-supported organic gardens; building alternative housing structures and hermitages from renewable materials; adopting the "green" technology of composting toilets, solar panels, fluorescent lighting, and hybrid vehicles; and turning their community properties into land trusts with wildlife sanctuaries.
"Green Sisters" gives us a firsthand understanding of the practice and experience of women whose lives bring together Catholicism and ecology, orthodoxy and activism, traditional theology and a passionate mission to save the planet. As green sisters explore ways of living a meaningful religious life in the face of increased cultural diversity and ecological crisis, their story offers hope for the future--and for a deeper understanding of the connections between women, religion, ecology, and culture.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 29, 2016
Second reading: I trudged through the stiff writing again and managed to pull some great information out of this book. Honestly finding subjects of of the Index and flipping to them was much more pleasant than reading cover-to-cover.
First reading: When I first discovered this book I was very excited about the concept and I quickly borrowed it from my local public library. Taylor's data-oriented, technical writing in the preface was appropriate...and I was so disappointed to discover this writing style continued throughout the book. The disjointed sentences and stiff descriptions run counterintuitively to the fluid material. Reading about sisters' rituals written in detail akin to labspeak made them seem ridiculous and alien.
I really wanted to enjoy this book, but the writing ruined it for me
First reading: When I first discovered this book I was very excited about the concept and I quickly borrowed it from my local public library. Taylor's data-oriented, technical writing in the preface was appropriate...and I was so disappointed to discover this writing style continued throughout the book. The disjointed sentences and stiff descriptions run counterintuitively to the fluid material. Reading about sisters' rituals written in detail akin to labspeak made them seem ridiculous and alien.
I really wanted to enjoy this book, but the writing ruined it for me
September 4, 2007
A fascinating topic! Looks at communities of Catholic sisters and nuns who are embracing a green lifestyle. Extremely interesting, unfortunately it is highly academic which dramatically limits its audience. I'd love to read a similar account written for the general public.
April 8, 2010
interesting topic. I was encouraged to read that many Catholic nuns have taken on environmental issues as central causes to their orders and are living environmentally sustainable lives. The book was a bit scholarly and hard to read though.
February 9, 2008
Only a few brave academics probably enjoy reading someone's thesis, but excerpts gave insight into a subculture I never knew existed but if I was catholic would probably be a part of. ;-)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews