Our library in Hewett Centre is open every Sunday after service during Coffee Hour in Hewett Centre, and our Library Team offers related reading lists based on the topic of Sunday service. Here is their list for the upcoming service featuring Tamiko Suzuki, on Sunday, April 27, 2025 at 11 a.m. All are welcome in Hewett Centre after the Sunday service to check out some books and to have coffee and conversation.
VanU library books related to this Sunday’s sermon:
1. Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World, by Karen Armstrong, 2023, 202 ARM [From LibraryThing: “A profound exploration of the spiritual power of nature–and an urgent call to reclaim that power in everyday life. Since the beginning of time, humankind has looked upon nature and seen the divine. In the writings of the great thinkers across religions, the natural world inspires everything from fear, to awe, to tranquil contemplation; God, or however one defined the sublime, was present in everything. … In this short but deeply powerful book, the best-selling historian of religion Karen Armstrong re-sacralizes nature for modern times.”].
2. Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, 1997, 818.3 THO [From LibraryThing: “In 1845 Henry David Thoreau, one of the principal New England Transcendentalists, left the town for the country. Beside the lake of Walden, he built himself a log cabin and returned to nature, to observe and reflect while surviving on eight dollars a year. From this experience emerged one of the great classics of American literature, a deeply personal reaction against the commercialism and materialism that he saw as the main impulses of mid-19th century America.”].
3. For the Love of Trees An Arboreal Odyssey, by Roy Forster, 2010, 709.2 FOR [From Elisabeth C. Miller Library, an excerpt from the Fall 2014 Arboretum Bulletin: “Roy Forster was the first curator and director of the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia, designing much of the plantings that help make this one of the outstanding botanical gardens in our region. “For the Love of Trees” is in some ways his autobiography, but in a most unusual format, as he uses his own paintings to tell most of that story.
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Throughout, Forster shares his philosophy on trees, which is also his philosophy on life. He describes the profits of his life as a tree planter in public landscapes: “The rewards are of a different kind, consisting mainly in the joy of observing the vigorous growth of the trees over the decades of life, knowing they will be there long after the planter is gone. There is a kind of love in that.”].
4. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2015, 305 KIM [From LibraryThing: “… As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as “the younger brothers of creation.” As she explores these themes, she circles toward a central argument: The awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other beings, we can begin to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return”].
5. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, by J. E. Lovelock, 1987, 113 LOV [From LibraryThing: “… Jim Lovelock puts forward his idea that life on earth functions as a single organism. Written for non-scientists, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the earth’s living matter of air, ocean, and land surfaces forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.”].
6. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv, 2008, 155.41 LOU [From LibraryThing: “I like to play indoors better because that’s where all the electrical outlets are, reports a fourth grader. But it’s not only computers, television, and video games that are keeping kids inside. It’s also their parents’ fears of traffic, strangers, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus; their schools’ emphasis on more and more homework; their structured schedules; and their lack of access to natural areas. Local governments, neighborhood associations, and even organizations devoted to the outdoors are placing legal and regulatory constraints on many wild spaces, sometimes making natural play a crime.
As children’s connections to nature diminish and the social, psychological, and spiritual implications become apparent, new research shows that nature can offer powerful therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that childhood experiences in nature stimulate creativity.
In Last Child in the Woods, Louv talks with parents, children, teachers, scientists, religious leaders, child-development researchers, and environmentalists who recognize the threat and offer solutions. Louv shows us an alternative future, one in which parents help their kids experience the natural world more deeply – and find the joy of family connectedness in the process. …”].
7. The Animal World of Albert Schweitzer: Jungle Insights into Reverence for Life, by Albert Schweitzer, 1996, 921 SCH [From LibraryThing, what’s on the book jacket: “… These anecdotes culminate in a group of brief, moving essays and meditations in which Schweitzer seeks to place humanity’s legitimate self-interest within the larger context of a natural world in which all life is sacred. In this time of heated animal rights activism and heightened environmental awareness, Albert Schweitzer’s observations reveal him to be a man of concrete moral intelligence – and thoroughly contemporary in his concerns.”].
8. The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places, by Gary Paul Nabhan and Stephen Trimble, 1994, 155.4 NAB [Published by Beacon Press. From LibraryThing: “What may happen now that so many more children are denied exposure to wilderness than at any other time in human history?”].
9. The Way of the Earth: Encounters With Nature in Ancient and Contemporary Thought, by T. C. McLuhan, 1994, 113.09 McL [From LibraryThing, about what’s on the book jacket: “This book draws upon both ancient and contemporary sources to examine the significance of the earth from the perspective of six different cultures and how these spiritual traditions have valued, perceived, and understood the earth. At first glance the peoples of aboriginal Australia, Japan, Greece, Africa, South America, and Native North America couldn’t be more different. But by taking a closer look, the author shows that there are many more similarities than differences- all revere mountains as a source of inspiration and holiness, all feel a spiritual connection to the soil itself, all create art and literature to celebrate their connection to the land, and all see themselves as inextricable from the land they call home. This unique volume explores how human beings across the planet and across time have felt about the earth and nature, and how they have understood it, related to it, and celebrated it in their literature, mythology, religion, and art. It demonstrates that no matter where on the planet we exist, and no matter what time period we live, we all have a profound connection to the earth.”].
10. Before They’re Gone: A Family’s Year-Long Quest to Explore America’s Most Endangered National Parks, by Michael Lanza, 2013, 333.720973 LAN [From LibraryThing, what’s on the book jacket: “… Through these poignant and humorous adventures, Lanza shares the beauty of each place and shows how his children connect with nature when given “unscripted” time. Ultimately, he writes, this is more their story than his, for whatever comes of our changing world, they are the ones who will live in it.”].
11. Emerson’s Angle of Vision; Man and Nature in American Experience, by Sherman Paul, 1952, 921 EM [Gift of Christine Peirce Douglas in memory of her son, Lionel Peirce Douglas.]