Trail of Tears: The PBS Documentary
I have found the first episodes of PBS’s series “We Shall Remain” on the American Experience to be visually as well as historically very well done. Their most recent airing, the Cherokee and the Trail of Tears, was obviously especially engaging, because I could wrestle with their decisions. It used to be that film was [...]
Upcoming Performances
I am pleased that Barbara Bates Smith and I have been invited to present our dramatic readings from Red Clay, Blood River at the Moss Memorial Library, Hayesville, NC, on Saturday, July 11, at 2 pm. We will be accompanied by Marsha Reynolds and her daughter Rebecca on flute and drum.
On War and the Soul
When I wrote up my reflections on military trauma after the JustPeace Conference, I had not yet read Edward Tick’s book, War and the Soul: Healing our Nation’s Veterans from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (Quest Books, 2005). It further deepens and expands some of the key themes I raised in that earlier piece. It also [...]
Military Trauma, Ethics, and Conflict Transformation
“Trauma Healing: Preparing Churches to Receive Returning Military Personnel” was the focus of the JustPeace Gathering I attended on April 1-2 in Nashville, TN. JustPeace is the Mediation and Conflict Transformation movement within the United Methodist Church. While JustPeace members seek to prevent the tragic failure of human reason, imagination, and compassion that is war, [...]
keep looking »About 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...
About 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.
Click to read more...