Blog
Welcome to the new Yale Forum Blog!
We will be sharing a variety of original content including interviews, reviews, reports from the field, new and enhanced resources on the Forum website, content from our new video podcast series, FORE Spotlights, and much more.
Check back every Tuesday and Thursday for new content.
In keeping with our theme for 2023, this Earth Day we'd like to share with you Seeds of Hope: how nature inspires scientists to confront climate change.
On Earth Day last year, the Washington Post published this series of brief reflections by climate scientists and conservationists about what keeps them going and inspires them to do the work they do, even when the overall picture feels bleak. These offerings come from across the globe by environmentalists and researchers from places such as ...
This episode of Spotlights features Gopal D. Patel, a faith-based environmental activist, campaigner, and consultant. He is co-Founder and Director of Bhumi Global, an international Hindu faith-inspired NGO that works to promote environmental care. He is also a senior advisor for the Center for Earth Ethics, co-chair of the United Nations Multi-faith Advisory Council, and an advisor to the World Wildlife Fund Beliefs and Values Programme. We discuss his personal experience of Hinduism, his background with multi-faith dialogue, and the...
Today, we have a guest post by Charlie Bartlett and Iyad Abu Moghli of the UNEP Faith for Earth Coalition on the activity surrounding, and actions coming out, of the recent UN 2023 Water Conference. For more information about their work, see the links in the story or go to the Faith for Earth site. Please also see the list of additional resources at the end.
Faith organizations are already engaged in water action, but can they do more?
Humanity is facing...
Tomorrow is Good Friday—the time of profound grief—and Easter will arrive soon after, bringing the uplifting energy of celebration and renewal.
As a child, many of my peers detested Good Friday, finding it dark, depressing, demoralizing. They dreaded it and just wanted to rush past it to Easter Sunday, open their baskets of candy, don their new dresses and hats for church, and leave all of that gloom behind. But I waited eagerly for it every year, as it was the only day we were allowed to...
This episode of Spotlights features Barbara Mahany, a freelance journalist, essayist, collector of stories, and author of five books. She discusses her latest book, The Book of Nature: The Astonishing Beauty of God’s First Sacred Text (Broadleaf Books, 2023). We talk about the myriad ways of reading the natural world and discovering its sacredness through practices of attention, including perspectives from religions, poetry, nature writing, and sciences.
More information can be found on the publisher's website: https://...
Today, we're pleased to feature a new book by Kathleen Deignan CND and Libby Osgood CND: Teilhard De Chardin: A Book of Hours from Orbis Books. The publisher states: “This Book of Hours is divided into eight days, and further subdivided into Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Dark. The first seven days follow weekly evolutionary themes and conclude with an eighth day, “Tomorrow,” to honor Teilhard’s vision of the future.” You can read a sample of the book or view the table of contents....
As some of you may have already heard through our social media channels, Oxford recently published our complete overhaul of the Oxford Religion & Ecology Bibliography. This is more than just an update–it includes many brand new sections and hundreds of new titles. The Forum team created the original version, which was released back in 2012, and were pleased to bring you this greatly updated and enhanced version 11 years later.
Oxford Bibliographies is available by subscription only,...
This episode of Spotlights features Mallory McDuff. She is an author, educator, and mother, teaching environmental education at Warren Wilson College outside Asheville, North Carolina. Her writing stems from ordinary life–raising children and teaching students–amidst the enormity of our uncertain times, especially our changing climate. She talks about her new book, Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice (Broadleaf Books, 2023). The book tells stories about women of diverse ages, backgrounds, and...
The vernal equinox will take place at 5:24pm EST this coming Monday, March 20. And in honor of this important turning point of the year, we wanted to share a few celebratory offerings to hopefully enhance your joy of the season.
First, who can not feel the running of the sap, the bursting of the buds, and the return of lifeblood coursing through and all around us when listening to “La Primavera” from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. This spirited rendition comes from Voices of Music, a San Francisco...
Today we'd like to share some thoughts from the poet May Sarton on despair–what many see as the shadow side of Hope, our theme for this year.
In addition to her poems and novels, she penned and published a number of reflective journals throughout her lifetime. At the age of 60, she released Journal of a Solitude, in which she explores despair and aloneness–the challenges of them, yes, but even more so, the gifts to be found in them. And therein lies a great portion of the remedy...