Making Hope: Practices, Prayers, and Parables for a Changing Climate - by O'Neil Van Horn (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Making Hope explores the hope that various slow, still, and often quiet practices can cultivate. It's a book about how the things we do--like sewing and fixing and patching and planting--can reshape our narratives, serving as new parables that might help us make hope. In other words, this is a book about learning from doing--prayerfully. The cultural stories of this present moment--like that of capitalism, consumerism, anti-Black racism, misogyny, anthropocentrism, and the like--are not innocent of provoking anthropogenic climate change. This book questions the principles of our many contemporary stories--such as what they instill in us, how they instruct us to live, why they're so powerful, and so on--and seeks to offer alternatives.

About the Author

O'neil Van Horn is assistant professor of theology, Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH. He holds a PhD in philosophical and theological studies in religion from Drew University (2021) and was recently a Louisville Scholar (Louisville Institute, 2021-2023). His research interests include ecotheology, environmental philosophy, and environmental justice. He is the author of On the Ground: Terrestrial Theopoetics and Planetary Politics. He has a background in organic agriculture and continues to practice small-scale efforts toward sustainability and self-sufficiency.