Researchers are my heroes, Sandra. As a (former) journalist I can just sort of imagine the kind of work and time you put into the works of art that are your books. Thank you for all of us in the sometimes very muddy trenches.

I hope that organic farming is underway on your family homestead, as I know you’ve wished and worked for that. And I can’t wait to start Having Faith this winter.

I still feel that way, but I’ve discovered over the years that more story and less science is more appealing to my readers. Having Faith involved about same amount of research as Living Downstream (i.e. voluminous), but more of it is relegated to the footnotes, and, consequently, there is less biology and organic chemistry to slog through in the chapters.

I’d be honored to send you a copy if you provide me your mailing address. Organic farmers are my heroes.

If you or your own readers are interested in some of the more spiritual elements of my work as an author, as I see them, they are profiled in this month’s issue of the on-line magazine, terrain.org.

I’ve just finished a big monograph on the falling age of puberty in U.S. girls. Childhood obesity and farm chemicals are part of this story. Starting in early Sept., copies will be available free of charge from the Breast Cancer Fund: http://www.breastcancerfund.org.

Thanks for all you do, Kriss. You are part of the solution, and you don’t need to read my books to know this. Best wishes for quickly receding flood waters. Gratefully, Sandra

Fear, guilt, geez… don’t I know them, too…
Isn’t it amazing how quickly they undercut our knowledge of a Good God?

Working in organic farming, or in environmental studies, or in parenthood, it’s pretty easy to get bogged down in the negatives. The challenge is to balance exercising our Right to Know with our enjoyment of All the Things that Go Right in spite of the lurking dangers.

We have a copy of Having Faith. The Nelson Institute For Environmental Studies where Andy works got rid of their library and being the bibliophile that Andy is,he saved many of the books. I started to read it early in my pregnancy with Gwenna. It is a beautiful and sensitively written work.

I stopped reading it because of my own fear. For various reasons I was so worried that something was going to happen to our little one. There was the ADVANCED MATERNAL AGE….the fact that I prayed for two weeks that I would not be pregnant…I knew that the baby I was carrying was a blessing but I thought God wanted to punish me for my ingratitude. Bad theology, I know. but it was where I was and reading Having Faith was giving me too many things to worry about.

I would like to read it this winter though. Perhaps we could read it together and discuss it on Andy’s blog http://www.readingcirclebooks.com. At this point the site is a bit naked but he is developing it to be a place where books can be discussed…It is a small part of a long term dream.

The half of the book that I did read is simply wonderful. I was afraid that it would not be readable….but even the research that she does is compassionate.

It would have been wonderful to have heard Steingraber speak. I am not sure if I am up to reading Living Downstream. I am having a hard time with even the “lite” fare these days.