Water At The Roots
$16.00
In a society uprooted by war, industrialization, hate-filled ideology, and dehumanizing technology, a revolutionary farmer-poet reconnects his people to the land and one another.
Something of a British Wendell Berry, Philip Britts (1917-1949) was a soft-spoken West Country farmer, poet, activist, and mystic. Even as his country plunged headlong into a second world war, he sought a way of life where people could work together in harmony with nature and one another. He found an answer, though it would cost him his land and his life.
These were years of turbulence and disillusionment, in Europe and beyond. Why had progress brought with it so much suffering? Britts saw that in losing our connection to nature and the earth, we are losing our humanity – our connection to one another. He watched as his friends in the peace movement, socialist circles, and Christian churches joined the battle against Hitler, but he refused to resort to violence. Instead he threw himself into an attempt to live out the radical demands of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount on a personal and local level in community.
Britts’s story is no romantic agrarian elegy, but a life lived in the thick of history. The international pacifist community he joined, the Bruderhof, was soon forced to flee Europe. Now the earth he tilled was no longer the moist soil of his homeland, but a harsh tropical climate of drought, locusts, and blight. A highly trained horticulturalist, he loved working the land and discovering new wonders of nature, “to see in growing corn the fingerprints of God.” And his expertise and research helped alleviate hunger in Paraguay and Brazil. But now the soil was also shoveled over babies’ graves, and soon Britts himself contracted a rare tropical disease that would take his life at the age of thirty-one, leaving behind a wife and three young children.
Philip Britts’s generation faced great dangers and upheavals, as does ours. His response – to root himself in God, to dedicate himself to a community, to restore the land he farmed, and to use his gift with words to turn people from their madness – speaks into our age just as forcefully. The life he chose, as well as his poetry, remain a prophetic challenge in a time still wracked by war, racism, nationalism, materialism, and ecological devastation. Britts’s insights into our relationship with the natural environment are particularly poignant now that we are even more aware of its fragility.
In a world of concrete and p
in stock within 3-5 days of online purchase
SKU (ISBN): 9780874861280
ISBN10: 0874861284
Philip Britts
Binding: Trade Paper
Published: March 2018
Publisher: Plough Publishing House
Related products
-
Women Of The Bible Speak
$26.99The women of the Bible lived timeless stories–by examining them, we can understand what it means to be a woman of faith.
People unfamiliar with Scripture often assume that women play a small, secondary role in the Bible. But in fact, they were central figures in numerous Biblical tales. It was Queen Esther’s bravery at a vital point in history which saved her entire people. The Bible contains warriors like Jael, judges like Deborah, and prophets like Miriam. The first person to witness Jesus’ resurrection was Mary Magdalene, who promptly became the first Christian evangelist, eager to share the news which would change the world forever.
In The Women of the Bible Speak, Fox News Channel’s Shannon Bream opens up the lives of sixteen of these Biblical women, arranging them into pairs and contrasting their journeys. In pairing their stories, Shannon helps us reflect not only on the meaning of each individual’s life, but on how they relate to each other and to us.
From the shepherdesses of ancient Israel who helped raise the future leaders of the people of God, to the courageous early Christians, the narrative of the Bible offers us many vivid and fascinating female characters. In their lives we can see common struggles to resist bitterness, despair, and pride, and to instead find their true selves in faith, hope, and love. In studying these heroes of the faith, we can find wisdom and warnings for how to better navigate our own faith journeys.
The Women of the Bible Speak outlines the lessons we can take from the valor of Esther, the hope of Hannah, the audacity of Rahab, and the faith of Mary. In broadening each woman’s individual story, Shannon offers us a deeper understanding of each, and wisdom and insights that can transform our own lives today.
Add to cart2 in stock
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.