In the biblical Flood narrative, the rainbow was the sign of God's covenant promise to never again to destroy the Earth with flood waters. The rainbow served to remind God of God's own bond with Earth. "My rainbow," says Habel, "represents my covenant promise to explore my bonds with Earth, my spiritual connections with creation." Each colour represents an often-overlooked aspect of creation and inspires the reader to consider our place in nature.
Using poetry and prose, Norman Habel journeys deep into his personal experiences of the sacred in nature, from his initial sense of alienation from Earth to his eventual "homecoming." Along the way, he investigates seven wonders of nature and their spiritual dimensions or mysteries. He explores biblical texts that praise or suppress creation and examines each mystery through the lens of ecology and his own experiences.
Ultimately his goal is to discern how to sustain each mystery and its spiritual dimension. The book includes a suggested workshop outline, and seven rites to explore mystery in nature.
Dr. Norman Habel hails from a farm community in Australia where he first met nature in a local bushland. He has led the move to include The Season of Creation as part of the church year. See seasonofcreation.com. Among other works, he has recently published An Inconvenient Text: Is a Green Reading of the Bible Possible? and the first volume in the new Earth Bible Commentary series, entitled The Birth, the Curse and the Greening of Earth.