Wild's book names spiritual roots
Sacred Journey: Gift of Earth and Spirit (Trafford, 2007) by Robert Wild, 133 pages, $19.

Review by William Vinton Derby

If 2007 has been the year for reading "green" into everything, then Robert Wild's book is nicely positioned to help its readers act out greenly, making what might be a fad more a formula for learning, action, and worship.

Wild, a longtime Anglican priest in Western Canada, now makes his home on Salt Spring Island. The book is written in a broad, easy, almost conversational style but its task is serious and comprehensive. "The task of this small book is to name the spiritual roots of the human adventure and to discern how these roots might be nurtured so as to serve the well being of humans and of Earth."

This book is a sequel to "Sacred Presence: in Search of the New Story" and has some overlap in its concerns and views. Here, Wild also has drawn on a varied series of writers and sources, traditional and scientific, to engage the reader while presenting personal anecdotes, journal insights with Scriptural and poetical citations and provoking questions for discussion and action at the end of each chapter.

While there is a prophetic tone as he discusses earth and eco- theological issues, there is a contemplative balance: he spends some time considering Soul and its relation to the Sacred Mystery, to self and others before providing a sourcebook of voices from the Psalms and Bonhoeffer to Teilhard and Thomas Berry.

Some of the book's most interesting insights derive from his own application of the words and practices Wild has integrated into his own daily life and actions. Moral choices and their possibility are never far below the surface of his inquiry or discovery, whether in retelling the Christ story, or providing a critique of capitalism and globalization. And he adds to the equation personal, pragmatic and happy insights (see the section on "the art of wool-gathering").

While the book can be of use to any one wishing to take their ecological concerns and explore the contexts for our contemporary spiritual crisis and conflict, it is organized to provide the kind of practical resources-prayers and Eucharistic liturgy-that might assist and strengthen a study group or task force that had a God-centered identity as well as social righteousness plank in its platform.

Reverence, mystery, and the sense of the sacred are put together with the critique of secular progress and moral peril, but the center holds in the Sacred Story, while his enterprise of enquiry and challenge advances in the trajectories of his wise and creative questions.

William Derby is rector of St.Thomas/St. Tomas, Vancouver.

East Side Cat's story
Paws: The Spiritual Journey of a Downtown Eastside Cat by Betty Vogel (Trafford Publishing, 2007). Illustrated by Nancy and Sandra Walton; Photographs by Patrick O'Leary, 26 pages, $16.

Review by David Dranchuk

Are cats like people, or people like cats? Paws is a former alley cat who lives at the senior s residence adjacent to St. Euphrosia, an Anglo-Catholic church in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Paws spends a lot of time at St. Euphrosia. An avid mouser, she is a member of the all female ACC (Anglican Church Cats), whose mission is to dispatch church mice to heaven "and other philanthropic endeavours". She absorbs the Christian atmosphere, but isn't much of a spiritual kitty. She is self-centered and opinionated.

Frideswide, Paws' friend, is the contemplative cat across the street at clergy house. She has been ACC president for as long as any cat can remember. Trained to be ascetic, she devotes much time to prayer and carefully avoids the company of male cats. She is well known as a spiritual director for cats.

Paws begins a spiritual journey. She remains a recalcitrant. But she finds redemption. If cats can be redeemed, there must be hope for us humans.

The author, Betty Vogel, the illustrators, and the photographer, are all parishioners or associated with St. James, the diocese's Anglo-Catholic parish in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. A cat named Paws continues to reign over St. Luke's Court on the parish grounds.

David Dranchuk is Diocesan Coordinator for Social Ministry and a fervent cat lover.