Becoming Rooted - by Randy Woodley (Hardcover)

About the Book

Randy Woodley, an activist, scholar, and Cherokee descendant, guides us on a one-hundred-day journey to reconnect with the land around us, with the people native to that land, and with ourselves. Meditations, epigraphs, and ideas for reflection and action help us become rooted in our relationship with creation and Creator.

Book Synopsis

What does it mean to become rooted in the land? How can we become better relatives to our greatest teacher, the Earth? Becoming Rooted invites us to live out a deeply spiritual relationship with the whole community of creation and with Creator.

Through meditations and ideas for reflection and action, Randy Woodley, an activist, author, scholar, and Cherokee descendant, recognized by the Keetoowah Band, guides us on a one-hundred-day journey to reconnect with the Earth. Woodley invites us to come away from the American dream--otherwise known as an Indigenous nightmare--and get in touch with the water, land, plants, and creatures around us, with the people who lived on that land for thousands of years prior to Europeans' arrival, and with ourselves. In walking toward the harmony way, we honor balance, wholeness, and connection.

Creation is always teaching us. Our task is to look, and to listen, and to live well. She is teaching us now.

Review Quotes

"In a world sick with domination, striving, and consumption, Randy Woodley's Becoming Rooted offers a strong dose of very good medicine. This is a must-read for everyone who longs for peace." --Lisa Sharon Harper, president and founder of Freedom Road and author of The Very Good Gospel and Fortune

"As we hope to enter intentionally into a healing relationship with the earth, Woodley's stories and reminders can inspire us to get there." --Kaitlin Curtice, author of Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

"At a time when more than a few Christian leaders are being called out for their exclusionary and intolerant political positions and support of autocratic-leaning politicians in this country and around the world, we couldn't be more thankful to Randy for providing a good stark reminder of who Jesus was, why he attained prophet status, and how all of us could scarcely find a better way to live our lives than his example." ----Foreword

"Woodley's work is inspiring and compelling, drawing us out of the Western mechanistic logics that lead to ecological devastation and possible extinction and into Indigenous-oriented worldviews grounded in harmony and balance with all creation." --Drew G. I. Hart, assistant professor of theology at Messiah University and author of Who Will Be a Witness? Igniting Activism for God's Justice, Love, and Deliverance

"Randy Woodley reminds us that we all have an understanding of what it means to be indigenous to a spiritual place. Through slowly unfolding layers of meaning he shows us where we may discover that place for ourselves." --Steven Charleston, elder of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, retired Episcopal bishop of Alaska, and author of Ladder to the Light

"Becoming Rooted offers us a precious way back into the land: a way into restoration and reciprocity, a way into healing ourselves and the land, a way of belonging again, a way of finding out who we are. Randy Woodley takes us by the hand and walks with us for the first one hundred days. We begin to think and feel differently, our senses gain new direction, and we start to gain roots. The law of the land becomes our most fundamental law, and we move as the land moves. After reading this book, we know enough to keep on the journey, to pay attention, to look and listen for the signs. Unless we become rooted, there is no future even for our next three generations. I am so grateful for this book and for the life and work of Randy Woodley." --Cláudio Carvalhaes, associate professor of worship, Union Theological Seminary

"Becoming Rooted draws you deeper into relationship with the land where you live. Few of us live in the place we were born, but these reflections take you past that disconnection and help you notice the world around you in new ways." --Patty Krawec, Anishnaabe author and co-host of the Medicine for the Resistance podcast

"During this season of complete disruption in our world, nothing seems more sacred and more helpful than a book drawing us to the land--the land God created and called good. Words, models, products, theologies, and practices can seem empty when surrounded by hostility and pain. We need a book that guides us to be better earth dwellers, that apprentices us in the values God wrote into creation. Becoming Rooted is that book." --MaryKate Morse, spiritual director, seminary professor, and author of Lifelong Leadership and other books