Terry Tempest Williams is the Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah. In 2006, she received the Robert Marshall Award from the Wilderness Society, the highest honor given to an American citizen. She is the author of many acclaimed books including Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, and An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field.
This 3 1/4 hour audio program is a 3 CD author-abridged version of Finding Beauty in a Broken World in which she catches the meaning of beauty in three of her personal experiences. Williams discusses a workshop in Ravenna, Italy, where she learned the art of mosaics; her participation in a research project studying threatened prairie dogs in Bryce Canyon National Park; and a trip to Rwanda, Africa, to help build a memorial to the million victims of genocide. In all three experiences, she pays close attention to her emotions and to the inroads of beauty into her soul and psyche.
Williams realizes that it is possible to create wholeness from the bits and pieces of our fragmented lives. She also concludes that beauty is "the work of daring contemplation that inspires action." It is not possible to stand on the sidelines when there is so much suffering and loss in the world.
