Soil and Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith
“A profound, moving treatise on finding God in gardening.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred))“Fred Bahnson had me at the hairy vetch and crimson clover. He bumped me off the couch and into the garden even before I could finish the book. I’m all for seekers who sit around asking, ‘What does it mean to be fully alive?’ But it’s even better when they stop asking and start doing. Faith, it turns out, is not unlike a hand-cranked spreader. Works on all kinds of soil. Plants where you put it. Amen.” (Rhoda Janzenauthor of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress)“This book is profoundly, beautifully down to earth, which is almost certainly where we all need to spend more time on a planet in crisis.” (Bill McKibbenauthor of Oil and Honey and Eaarth)“Fred Bahnson believes that faith is expressed in the work of our hands as well as our minds and hearts, and that in community we can meet the needs of a hungry world. After reading his beautifully written book, I believe these things, too, and see new ways to put my beliefs into action.Soil and Sacramentis about new life—for ourselves, our descendants, and the earth on which we all depend. Read it, let it move you, and shelve it next to Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and Kathleen Norris.” (Parker J. Palmerauthor of Healing the Heart of Democracy and A Hidden Wholeness)“Soil and Sacramentis a journey of return toward the founding Christian fact: spiritual life is not divorced from natural life, it is natural life bowing to an extra-natural, life-giving, never-ending miracle.” (David James Duncanauthor of The Brothers K and The River Why)“This is a very moving as well as a wonderfully intelligent meditation on what is involved in care for our earth. Fred Bahnson succeeds in showing how our practices of cultivating the environment and producing our food can become an integral part of a ‘gospel for all creation.’ In a culture obsessed with both growth and control, his spiritual insight is a gentle but clear challenge.” (Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury)“This is a spiritual memoir with real dirt under its fingernails, as deep and gritty and rich as well-tended soil—or Holy Scripture. Fred Bahnson's vision matters, and the work he writes so beautifully and unsentimentally about has the power to change communities. An important and moving book.” (Sara Milesauthor of Take This Bread and City of God)“Like Anne Lamott’s spiritual writing, Bahnson’s essays introduce people of deep faith, imprisoned pasts, ticklish humor, and hope-filled vision, farmer/priests being church by feeding the hungry and praying in the dirt.” (Publishers Weekly)