Brendan O’Donnell’s Rain from a Rainless Sky (Bright Rock Press, 2006) is a theological meditation on sagebrush.
Writing in understated prose as stark as the landscapes where sagebrush thrives, O’Donnell weaves together a biblical theology of trees and weeds, reflections on Gene Robinson and Peter Akinola, and a travelogue of Eastern Washington from the Palouse to the Yakima Valley into a unique work of “theological botany.”
There is real botany too, of the amateur naturalist variety that once thrived. O’Donnell smells sagebrush, scratches it with his thumbnail, tugs at it, gives its scientific and Indian names, describes its properties and environnement, and even tastes it (accidentally).
Above all, O’Donnell stares at sagebrush and its surroundings, and wonders about a God who allows weeds in His world and thorns in his church.
(Full disclosure: O’Donnell is a former student and friend, and the book was published by another former student and friend, Peter Roise. Check out www.brightrockpress.com for more.)
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