Songs That Are To Come

Years after rejecting the Catholic faith of her childhood, the author shows up at an "environmental spirituality" center--and it's run by Catholic nuns. She has spent two decades in the trenches of environmental activism, and wonders why the same problems persist. Why don't people "get it"? She isn't sure she trusts these nuns--after all, she grew up with nuns, even wanted to be one, and remembers their strictness and rigidity. But these women, most of them older, are a surprise. They're funny, educated, and irreverent. Most surprisingly, they're teaching that the Earth is sacred and that religion must catch up to what science has learned about our evolving Universe. As she spends time with them, she learns the "New Story" they're teaching--how the Universe evolved, how we belong to it, and how Earth is "our primary Scripture." She questions them about whether we need redemption, whether Jesus was God, and how a story can change how we live on Earth. Songs That Are To Come tells both an intimate childhood experience of convents and a compact, vivid tale of evolutionary history, showing us the cultural story we've inherited and the science-based one we need to embody.

Maria Theresa Stadtmueller received an MFA from The University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program and has studied theology and religious history. A former stand-up comic, she has published in major literary journals and blogs at www.MeetYourMyth.com. She lives on a farm in Vermont with her husband and rescued animals.