God-Tier Books: A Personal Library of Holy Scripture ‹ Literary Hub

Fun list here from Pseudo-Dionysis (I’m a fan with my philosophical ecological thinking, btw) to Meister Eckhardt to Kafka DeLillo)… I should make a list like this.

God-Tier Books: A Personal Library of Holy Scripture ‹ Literary Hub:

Meister Eckhardt was a German Catholic monk in the 11th century influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius. His writings were condemned by the church as heresy but found a fan centuries later in Martin Heidegger, which makes sense. Eckhardt’s commentaries on God and scripture are dense and recursive, breaking ideas into component parts, placing them onto higher and lower planes, making hierarchies and triads out of them until eventually becoming something like an investigation into being and nothingness themselves. Occasional gnomic jewels emerge from the tangle: “God is a word, a word unspoken.” “God is a word that speaks itself.” The mobius-thinking at times almost seems like Medieval Zen, what with the emphasis on emptiness and silent meditation, and in fact that was what the Church fathers objected to most: too much quiet, solitary contemplation, not enough pious instruction.

From Communion to Kenosis: Toward an Integral Ecology of the Cross

This paper develops the framework of an integral ecology of the cross by weaving together principles from integral ecology, Christian theology, and phenomenology. Building upon the five principles outlined in The Variety of Integral Ecologies (particularly communion, subjectivity, and agency), I argue that the theological concept of kenosis (self-emptying) and the practice of ecological intentionality offer essential deepening for ecological ethics and spiritual engagement. Drawing from thinkers such as Thomas Berry, Leonardo Boff, Catherine Keller, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Edith Stein, the paper proposes a vision of ecological participation grounded in humility, interdependence, and sacramental presence. A case study of fire, examined through Indigenous stewardship practices and Christian sacramental symbolism, serves as a focal point for integrating liturgical, ecological, and metaphysical dimensions. Reimagining the cross not as a symbol of abstract salvation but as a paradigm of relational descent, the paper invites faith communities and scholars alike to consider new modes of ecological formation rooted in attention, vulnerability, and shared becoming. In an age of planetary crisis, an integral ecology of the cross offers a constructive theological and ethical response: one that honors suffering, performs peace beyond the human, and nurtures communion in the face of collapse.