Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
As winter recedes and the soil starts to stir with the promise of new life, gardeners everywhere feel the tug of something ancient and holy—a call to return to the earth, to begin again. In this powerful devotional, readers are invited to engage with gardening as a spiritual practice just as the Easter season begins.
Eastertide—the 40 days following Easter Sunday—is a season of resurrection, hope, and unfolding life. It also just so happens to align perfectly with the start of the gardening season, when seeds go into the soil and the promise of new life takes root. In this unique devotional, Schaper draws rich parallels between the work of tending a garden and the sacred process of tending the soul. With honesty, warmth, and just the right amount of dirt under her fingernails, she offers 40 heartwarming reflections that speak to the cycles of life, loss, growth, and grace. Each devotion pairs spiritual insight with a practical gardening tip, creating a daily rhythm of faith and action—of listening and planting, weeding and wondering, composting and hoping.
Whether you’re a lifelong gardener or simply someone longing to grow something beautiful—in the soil or in your spirit—Rooted in the Resurrection will inspire you to welcome the season of Easter not just as a date on the calendar, but as a way of life. Here, in these pages, is an invitation to rise with the earth, to believe again in small beginnings, and to meet God among the shoots, blossoms, and even the weeds.
“Donna has a green thumb and a green soul. See what happens when you get that green? Things grow.”
"As someone who regularly needs reminders of how often I ignore the constant resurrections happening around me, this collection is a much-needed wake up call. I might not have the green thumb that Schaper has, but anyone willing to get their hands, hearts, and spirits messy with the work of spiritual growth will find plenty to dig here."
“Reading Donna Schaper’s Rooted in the Resurrection in any season brings a humble, practical, joyful, inward presence to the daily devotion of growing things—not least, oneself. Again and again, Schaper’s meditations lift up the soul within as well the soul worn sore by the facts of injustice and suffering. Connecting these worlds to our gardens for the forty days of Eastertide, this well-shaped volume can keep the reader grounded and alive, blessed and prepared for what may come. As surely as the force that through the green fuse drives, Rooted will draw up your faith that you have and need a place of rest; that what is great is working out of sight; that our efforts often fail; that death is not the last word. One of Schaper’s forty prayers opens, ‘God of many gardens and one great love . . .’ That spirit—all-embracing, all-hoping, in the dirt—will bring the reader home.”
“Calling it a ‘garden memoir,’ Donna Schaper manages to take her personal experiences with gardens and make deep connections to ancient scripture and the resurrection story. Suddenly, these words and stories come to life in a new way, just like new shoots in a garden. Who knew gardens had so much to teach us besides growing things? My favorite 'day,' is titled Lettuce: Pro’s and Con’s. I laughed out loud numerous times! This is a wonderful story about growing lettuce varieties, vanity, abundance, focus and fragility, giving and receiving… if we are just open to the wonders of our daily lives, and what gardening can teach us. This book is a joy to read, and I will read it many times over and so will you.”
“Rooted in the Resurrection is a singular gift: whimsical daily wisdom magpie’d from the depths of the Christian tradition as well as the several inches of humus just outside the door of your home. Anchored in the everyday, these devotionals will pull you into eternity in two minutes they take to read–and the practical gardening tips will let you taste heaven in a perfect cherry tomato. This book is for everyone, from those with unerring faith in the cosmos and its Creator, to those dancing with every kind of doubt. Best of all, it will bring you to your knees, again and again, as you touch the earth, our Mother.”