Two Fundamentalisms
I have been reading Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God during the Senate hearings for Elena Kagan, Obama’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court. In both cases I was absorbed by their struggle with fundamentalism. While Fundamentalism in America has a number of facets, it always exhibits a commitment to certain key tenets and a [...]
Ligaments of Love
Ligaments of love hold life erect, pump tendrils out across the clearing where the giant tree has fallen. In dappled light we gather, sing, let weeping like lianas fall to ground, touch earth, sink new root, receive the sun, let life ascend, grow back. It’s love that gives a funeral its birth. *** This poem [...]
Dirt and Life
Thanks to recommendations from two friends, I have been enjoying the writings of Barry Lopez and William Bryant Logan. North Carolina poet Kay Byer, after hearing about the ecological framework of Red Clay, Blood River, suggested I read Lopez’s collection, Vintage Lopez. I then went on to his About This Life, a collection of essays. [...]
Body Match
For many years Sylvia and I have kept a list of body types that seem matched in happy conjugation, as if drawn together by a magnetism created solely by their size, shape, and body mass. We have absolutely no scientific evidence to support the hypothesis that this bodily conjunction is a prime ingredient in mate [...]
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. READ MORE...
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.