Earth Speaks in Haiti
All our careful plans and fervent hopes are devastated by one brief shudder in earth’s crust. In the face of such appalling suffering and destruction, an offering of words seems an obscene gesture. Yet words must come, not only to spurn on our action, but to reconstruct the world of meaning which a cataclysm threatens. [...]
Bishop Spong’s “Eternal Life”
Bishop John Shelby Spong, as you blogees may remember, was with us for a most stimulating and engaging weekend in September. His lectures were based on his latest (and he says last!) book, Eternal Life: A New Vision (Harper, 2009). I have finally had a chance to read it fairly carefully. Written in his own [...]
Connecting with Health Care
I often return to Lanier Johnson’s comment in Red Clay, Blood River that “Connection is the name of the ecological game.” (p. 32) The angry debates over reforming our health care system are another key in which to play this theme. Our bodies are the very basis of [...]
David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous
Many readers of Red Clay, Blood River have been struck by the voice of Earth as narrator. It is Earth’s memory in which we find our own. It is in Earth’s life that we find the deeper sources of our human reconciliation. For me, this was a literary exploration following intuitions sensitized by years of [...]
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...