Tag Archives: John Gatta

Stranger Than Fiction’s Easter Message

By Robin Bates | Published: April 6, 2024

The film “Stranger Than Fiction” has a profound Lenten/Easter theme.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Easter, Green Gospel, Lent, Stranger Than Fiction | Comments closed

Strow the Way, Plants of the Day

By Robin Bates | Published: March 23, 2024

Vaughan’s “Palm Sunday” draws its energy from spring growth.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Green Gospel, Henry Vaughan, Nature, Palm Sunday | Comments closed

The Green Power of Imagining

By Robin Bates | Published: March 10, 2024

In “Secret Garden,” healing begins with imagining a hopeful future. It’s a lesson for dealing with our environmental challenges.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Francis Hodgson Burnett, Green Gospel, hope, imagining and the imagination, Secret Garden | Comments closed

Earth-Hearted Hope for Dark Times

By Robin Bates | Published: March 6, 2024

How to maintain hope in the face of catastrophic climate change? Hope is key, as Emily Dickinson and John Muir understood.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Hope is the thing with feathers", climate change, despair, Donald Trump, Emily Dickinson, Environmentalism, global warming, Green Gospel, hope, John Muir | Comments closed

Imagining a New Creation

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2024

In “Green Gospel,” Gatta imagines notions of sin and salvation applied to nature.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Then Will Come Soft Rain", "What stood will stand, Green Gospel, John Milton, Nature, Paradise Lost, Sarah Teasdale, though all be fallen", Wendell Berry | Comments closed

Every Stone and Every Star a Tongue

By Robin Bates | Published: February 24, 2024

17th century poet Traherne as an early version of Green Gospel, a recent book by John Gatta.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Dumbness", "Sand Is Endless", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Environmentalism, Green Gospel, Nature, Thomas Traherne, Trinity, Walking, William Blake | Comments closed

The Transfiguration’s Green Promise

By Robin Bates | Published: February 10, 2024

Christian environmental scholar Gatta believes the Transfiguration story offers a religious paradigm for environmentalists.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged " Transfiguration, "World Is Charged", Gerard Manley Hopkins, Teilhard de Chardin | Comments closed

Aslan as Eco Warrior

By Robin Bates | Published: August 26, 2021

Lewis’s Aslan is a bold creative stroke that opens up environmental possibilities for Christianity.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged animal rights, C. S. Lewis, climate change, Environmentalism, Imagination, Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Magician's Nephew, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, theology | Comments closed

Returning to the Misty Past

By Robin Bates | Published: October 18, 2018

John Gatta’s “Spirits of Place” is helping me understand why I have chosen to retire in my home town. Wordsworth, Stowe, Homer, and Frost help out as well.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Death of the Hired Man", "Pulley", George Herbert, Harriet Beecher Stowe, home, Homer, Odyssey, retirement, Robert Frost, Sewanee, Tintern Abbey, Uncle Tom's Cabin, William Wordsworth | Comments closed