Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places. We hope you'll enjoy these doorways into places that are both familiar and surprising, and we welcome your suggestions, stories, and photos. Click here to subscribe.

For Your Book List

Perhaps you are thinking about gifts these days, gifts to give to others for Christmas, Chanukah, or Kwanza... or books to put on your own wish-list. Here are a few suggestions for books that explore the themes of making beauty and finding joy in hard times in diverse ways:

Terry Tempest Williams, Finding Beauty in a Broken World. The always eloquent Williams interweaves three stories in this book: the art of mosaic, which she learned in Italy; time spent studying prairie dogs; and an extended trip to Rwanda a few years after the genocide with the artist Lily Yeh.

William R. Jordan, The Sunflower Forest. Co-director of DePaul University's Institute for Nature and Culture, poses exciting new approaches to the restoration of damaged places. He considers ecological shame, the need for ritual and performance as part of restoration work, and the idea that it's not so much land that we need to revitalize as our own ideas about land.

Carolyn Baker, Collapsing Consciously. Long an advocate of getting real about the inevitability of global warming, Baker offers both guidance in making that difficult adjustment and help for maintaining gratitude, beauty, friendship, and integrity during very difficult circumstances.

Andrew Blackwell, Visit Sunny Chernobyl. For sheer delight in armchair journeying, nothing beats this book. The author visits places most people avoid even looking at photos of, let alone spending real time in. He goes not only to Chernobyl but to the most polluted city in China, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and five other sites.

Radical Joy Revealed comes to you each week with inspiring stories, ideas for finding and making beauty in wounded places, and meaningful ways of living joyfully in hard times both personal and global. Please consider making a financial gift to help us continue to create Radical Joy Revealed for you.

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Radical Joy Revealed.

Radical Joy for Hard Times is a global community of people dedicated to finding and making beauty in wounded places. Reconnecting with these places, sharing our stories of loss, and making acts of beauty there, we transform the land, reconnect people and the places that nourish them, and empower ourselves to make a difference in the way we live on Earth.

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