An extended review of a 2024 book by Leah Reesor-Keller
Note: Our print issue contains a shorter version of this review. Faith Today welcomes your thoughts on any of our reviews. We also welcome suggestions of other Canadian Christian books to review: Contact us.
Herald Press, 2024. 208 pages. $29 (ebook $21)
I found myself reading the final pages of Tending Tomorrow in a puddle of sunshine on front steps – it seemed a perfect way to finish a book about gritty hope in the face of a changing climate and a changing world. Tending Tomorrow encourages the reader to contemplate the past and the future, and to bask in the beauty of the world presently.
Leah Reesor-Keller, who will end her term as Kairos Canada’s Transitional Executive Director this summer, writes eloquently about the need to think through our cultural, theological and personal histories as we examine not what we will do in the face of global upheaval, but who we will be.
Tending Tomorrow is equal parts spiritual and cultural memoir (Reesor-Keller reflecting on her own experience growing up in the Swiss Mennonite culture and Anabaptist faith) and future-looking treatise as it navigates through themes of naming privilege, retelling old stories in new ways, reimagining what future actions and structures may look like, and learning from Indigenous wisdom and the natural world as we reimagine the future of the church.
Reesor-Keller’s project is clear. She is painting a landscape in which readers can make sense of themselves and where they are coming from in such a way as to propel them forward in the direction of communal flourishing. She calls the project “a rewilding that seeds many possibilities, creating space for different visions of flourishing to take root.”
Tending Tomorrow meanders through our changing climate, coming to terms with the legacies of settler-colonialism in Canada, and other global challenges in a faithful and creative way. Rather than berating the reader with factoids about climate change or calls to change behaviours, the text is invitational and self-reflective, leaving an expansive space for the reader to find herself between the lines and write her own story there.
Reesor-Keller structures the book through re-words: Redreaming, Retelling, Renewing, Reimagining and Rewilding. Each thematic section brings the reader into a new facet of looking back to look forward, dreaming of a future where all creation flourishes. This is not a naive image. Reesor-Keller lays the groundwork for the reader to dream of such a future and actually see an active path that might lead there.
Some of the topics explored may be new or even difficult for readers of Faith Today. One may feel tentative or even resistant to some of what Reesor-Keller asks of her readers – to reflect on layers of privilege, and to begin to make amends for the harms done by many of our ancestors.
I was caught off-guard by her use of the term “shame-work” to describe that process. On a video call, I asked her why she found the term useful. While guilt may connote wrongful action and shame wrongful being, she chooses to call the work of naming and repairing harm “shame work” because the fundamental existence of people like her, a white settler person, is founded on settler-colonialism.
I found this response helpful – guilt would be for her own actions, but shame, referencing identity, figures more into her presence on this land in this time with the resources she has. Facets of who she is are based on the oppression of others. Her encouragement is to acknowledge these historical wrongs, but to not let ourselves be paralyzed. Instead, she says, “find ways to walk forward into new ways of being.”
Tending Tomorrow is a book for Christians who want to honestly engage questions of spiritual and cultural identity in the face of a changing world so that they can build a better future together. It may even help generations engage these topics together. I have ordered a copy for my own grandmother, hoping we can talk about these topics with honesty and care.
Tending Tomorrow is a lyrically written wander through important themes and questions. Though I was occasionally annoyed by its lack of clear thesis, I nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed the read. This book has made me reflect on my own Russian Mennonite heritage and imagine new ways forward in the church, the environment and society more broadly.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to engage these questions honestly, and especially to groups or pairs ready to work through it together.
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