(Every so often I read something that’s impossible to summarize in a 300-word blog like this. Today’s entry solves that dilemma—sortof—by offering you my recommendation about a book that might be helpful (and hopeful) for your possible worries about global warming.
I’m working my way through the final pages of a book that attracted me while I was roaming our library’s New Books shelf. The title and subtitle are justifiably alarming, but also hopeful: Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety. The author, Dr. Britt Wray, is a transplanted Canadian young adult who directs Stanford University’s Initiative on Climate Change and Mental Health.
Wray approaches this subject with authority because of her extensive knowledge and life-experiences. Her writing comes from inside her soul—she’s wrestled with these ideas for a long time. She cites an array of other thinkers—scientists, philosophers, therapists, public figures—whose wisdom cuts through the fog that can obscure what we most hope to find: Someone who can lead our souls out of anxiety’s life-defeating maze.
Her intellectual and emotional honesty takes us toward what’s necessary for our futures: Seeing ourselves as agents of change in this matter. Not yielding completely to despair or mindless hedonism. Balancing hope and fear. Working alongside like-minded others.
Thankfully, this book encourages slow reading, underlining, note-taking, re-reading of passages. Her insights are rich with meaning and possibility. Wray shows the honest kind of reflection that’s grounded in the realities of everyday decision-making—In her case, whether to have children.
One insight I missed: Solid connections to spiritual truth. Although she circles around some of the concepts of Scripture, readers have to connect those dots ourselves. Given the long history of unhelpful Christian theology in this matter, though, it’s probably better that we supply newer streams of theological relevance.
I recommend this book for its application to your life as an agent of God’s will. To be direct: This feels like part of the Holy Spirit’s continuing inspiration for my sometimes-weary spirit….
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