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 challenges [...]
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 »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.