There are so many books and articles about climate change now. This one is special in its blending of practicality and poetry. It doesn’t get much more practical than, what do we tell the kids? How do we change our behavior in front of our children?
Author Lydia Wylie-Kellermann does this with a deft touch. She is a mother, writer, activist, and director of Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center in Bangor, Pennsylvania. She explains, “My children summoned this book out of me.”
She writes about growing up in northern Michigan, spending time outdoors in lakes, and among creatures of all kinds. She writes also about the grief and anxiety we all carry, feeling inside us what’s happening to the planet we share.
There are beautiful, original blessings at the end of each short chapter, including “A Blessing for You Now,” at the end of chapter 1, and then this one at the end of chapter 3, a powerful, reflective chapter called “Can’t Save What You Don’t Love”:
“A Blessing for Transformation
“May you ride
on the wings of curiosity.
May wonderment
lead to listening,
lead to learning,
lead to loving.
And let that change
everything.”
Subsequent topics include the importance of facing the truth, joining communities, resisting climate injustice where we find it, and the importance of teaching our children well (because most of us aren’t accustomed to telling kids that we aren’t in control).
Wylie-Kellermann’s conclusion reads like Saint Francis of Assisi translated into the language of twenty-first century ecological spirituality: “Let us sing to the trees. And dance under the stars. Let us tend to gardens. And walk gently in the grasses…. And if all else fails, or when all this is done, may we meet sister death with welcome. In our own death or in the death of humanity, our bodies will tend the earth.”
