To go back 30 years in one’s writing is an exercise fraught with the possibility that the material is very dated, but this book, Cloudhand, Clenched Fist, by Rhea Miller, is a large exception. Case in point a passage on page 22:

The more unstable a culture or institution, the more conservative it becomes. In an age when people are holding on for dear life, where people are filled with the fear of impending destruction of all that is familiar and dear to them, whether from war, poverty, or environmental disaster, it is no surprise to find so much resistance, so many clenched fists…As people struggle fiercely with feelings of powerlessness against change and search valiantly for solid ground, violence becomes exponential…

Rhea Miller was raised in the small towns of Iowa as the daughter of a rural Methodist minister. She earned a Masters of Divinity from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, served over a decade as a San Juan Island County commissioner, and she is the Community Liaison at the Lopez Island Community Land Trust.

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