The OIKOS Word on Ecology
Posted on | February 27, 2009 | 1 Comment
Environmental concerns reach back to my earliest years, when I spent my summers on a family farm in northern Virginia and even formed a “Nature Club” when I was about ten years old. Twenty-five years ago, my wife Sylvia and I launched “The OIKOS Project on Work, Family and Faith” to provide a lens for looking at our connections not only with the earth but with our other crucial relationships. We drew on the ancient Greek word written in English as “oikos,” meaning the household, from which we get our words economics, ecology, and ecumenical. Over the next ten years we conducted numerous workshops and retreats on this theme, as well as engaging in research and writing. Over the past 15 years I have continued to teach, write, and construct worship in this area. For more on this Project visit our website, www.WisdomsTable.net, and click on “Ethics Interests.”
The Oikos perspective always asks that we look at the connections between earth, our work, our family life, and our faith. Each implies the other. Each assumes the other. This has led me not only to academic writing but also to my recent novel, Red Clay, Blood River. I will continue to reflect on these connections here
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William J. Everett
In my teaching career I authored eight books and numerous articles in social ethics and religion. After over thirty years of academic work — in Germany, India, and South Africa as well as in the United States — I wanted to turn my hand to a poetically written novel to probe the issues of ecological and human reconciliation.
When I am not writing, I create furniture for worship settings. For more about my work, go to www.WisdomsTable.net, where you will also find galleries of artwork by my wife Sylvia, whose ancestors were the original inspiration for Red Clay, Blood River. Click to read my complete bio...
Red Clay Blood River
Red Clay, Blood River is a story told by Earth about two brothers from Germany and an enslaved South African woman whose lives bind together America’s “Trail of Tears” and South Africa’s simultaneous “Great Trek” of 1838. Memories of their journeys through oppression, estrangement and reconciliation reverberate in the lives of three contemporary students brought together by their interests in ecology. Through their often difficult friendship and a surprising discovery they begin to unravel the mystery of their estrangements, struggles, and deep connections to each other and to the earth.
Based on extensive research in the United States, South Africa, and England, this book takes readers through a sweeping saga of love and conflict in the context of emigration, invasion, slavery, and exploitation. Through its stories we are invited to see our fractured human history from within the sensibilities of an earth that seeks the flourishing of all creatures and transcends their deaths within its life.
I welcome you to read Excerpts from Red Clay Blood River.
You can also view some Reader's Responses to the book.
If you are already reading Red Clay, Blood River, check out the Reader's Guide and Glossary of Names.
If you are in a Book Club, go to the Guide for Discussion Groups.
If you want to know more about people who helped me in writing this book check out the People Present at the Creation.
May 15th, 2009 @ 11:50 pm
Bill,
Your work with the OIKOS project concluded my third year at Candler in 1989, but it has opened a way of understanding and framing relationship ever since. I thank you. I am thrilled to find you blog site and see that are continuing to unfold and express yourself in ways that continue to speak to my own journey, and again I thank you for sharing.
Blessings and hopeful conversations, may the continue
John
Blue Ridge, GA