Speak with the Earth and It Will Teach You | A Field Guide to the Bible (Cooperrider)

2023 Gold Winner of the Nautilus Book Award
for Religion & Spirituality 

The Christian Century Review

"Like Wendell Berry before him, Cooperrider understands the Bible as an outdoor book, open to the sky." Read the full review.

God's First Book: Nature

“I don’t think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is,” wrote Wendell Berry, and author Daniel Cooperrider illustrates his point with beautiful narrative—like a stroll through the woods that grounds the mind and body.

Speak with the Earth and It Will Teach You attends to the theological wonder of God's first book: nature. Examining creation through the lens of history, biblical story, philosophy, and a bit of hiking, author Daniel Cooperrider shares the renewing wisdom that comes when we study the earth and all its forms.

“We’ve thought that scripture was the key to understanding nature, and not vice versa. We’ve forgotten how the book of scripture—as beautiful as it can be—is but the slimmest of volumes that make up the shortest of chapters in the epic, sprawling tome that is the book of nature.” 

Speak with the Earth and It Will Teach You invites the reader on mindful adventures, traversing rivers and mountains, studying clouds and trees. The book includes Cooperrider's award-winning essay, "Cloud of Witnesses," from the 2022 Writer's Digest Writing Competition.

About the Author

Daniel Cooperrider is a writer, teacher, and pastor in the United Church of Christ. A fly-fisher and forager, Cooperrider lives with his spouse and their young one on the edge of the driftless region of Madison, WI, on ancestral Ho-Chunk land.

Paperback: 198 pages
ISBN 978-0-8298-0014-2
2022