The future of religious life is GREEN according to Harvard scholar Sarah McFarland Taylor in her new book Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology (Harvard Press, 2007). Taylor spent a number of years visiting many of the ecology and spirituality centers sponsored by women's religious orders in North America and declares the future is Green. As a scholar and not a Catholic, Taylor takes a balanced look at the scope and influence of new ministries which frequently base their vision and mission on the writings of Thomas Berry.



Taylor used on-line interviews, personal visits and individual surveys to determine the scope and impact of more than fifty ecology, spirituality and farming centers sponsored by women religious. She concludes that "the success or failure...to attract new vocations into the movement will be a harbinger of how this movement will affect the revitalization and reinvention of Catholic religious life in the Twenty-first century.



In her analysis Taylor uses the notion of "reinhabiting" both the earth and religious communities. Reinhabiting is a term used with another ecological term "bioregionalism" to describe how to live in place, how to be live in a certain "home" as a measure of sustainability. The author suggests that the Green sisters are re-visioning both their relationship with the earth and the founding values of their religious communities. A prime example of this notion of reinhabiting is the way in which many of the participating religious orders are re-inventing the purpose and mission of motherhouse properties owned by the religious orders by turning them into earth conscious spirituality centers.



Taylor does a good job of placing the green sisters movement in the historical context of the activities of women religious in North America beginning with the very difficult pioneering efforts of founders arriving from Europe in the 1800's through the civil rights movement, the sanctuary movement and ongoing social justice activities throughout their history. The development of the Grail movement is cited as one example of the early involvement of women in combining concern for the earth with the liturgical movement and ritual.



The development of Green Mountains monastery in Vermont in the last ten years is given a lot of attention by Taylor. Some who have made an environmental retreat directed by the co-founders of this new monastery, Gail Worcelo and Bernadette Bostwick may be familiar with this initiative. Green Mountain Monastery is an example of a new religious order based completely on the ecological values espoused by Thomas Berry including new definitions of the traditional three vows.



Many of the examples of earth related spirituality centers cited by Taylor drew inspiration from Genesis Farm, one of the early efforts of a women's religious order to use farm land as a place to combine cosmology, sustainable farming practice and spirituality.



One chapter is devoted to the efforts of a Canadian religious order to organize the preservation of heirloom seeds as a counter balance to the large scale industrialization of farming through the use of genetically modified seeds which contain terminator genes which prevent planting again after the first crop.



Generally, Taylor shows how "it ain't easy being green" by noting the resistance from both church and culture which is directed toward some of the efforts of women religious pioneering in alternative perspectives on both religion and ecology. It is not as if this is anything new since historically women religious have always been fighting for voice in a male dominated church.



Read Green Sisters to be inspired by strong efforts to give meaning to the three vows for women religious at a time when doubt seems to hinder new growth and new vision among male religious.