Peter Grimwood shares his thoughts on Kate Rigby’s new book of meditations on creation and crisis.
This is an extraordinarily creative book and the only dull thing about it is the title.
Kate Rigby, the author, is an Australian presently serving as a professor in the university of Cologne, specialising in multi-disciplinary environmental studies. What she has done is to offer us a modern version of an ancient form of meditation/reflection called the Hexameron. These are meditations on the six days of creation in Genesis 1. In her update, ancient authors are presented alongside twenty-first century contributions to the debate about the healing and restoration to wholeness of our common home.
Each day of the Creation story consists of a chapter in the book, and there is a concluding seventh chapter describing contemporary festivals, projects and acts of worship particularly those that have been pioneered and presented at St James Piccadilly in London. The range of authors cited across the six days is remarkably wide, ranging from St Ambrose via St Augustine, Basil of Caesarea, Abelard, Thomas Traherne and in our own time Norman Wirzba, Ruth Valerio and Lucy Winkett.
Meditations on Creation in an Era of Extinction would be a valuable resource for small group discussion particularly in the Lenten season.
Joy in Enough 