Strength for What Lies Ahead

Thoughtful conversations these days reveal tremendous anxiety about the multiple crises we humans are facing. Our physical climate is deteriorating, as evidenced by the increasing frequency of flooding, wildfires, sea level rise, climate refugees, and species extinction. We've lived through a paradigm-shifting public health crisis, and can expect more viral episodes in future. In the U.S. particularly, income inequality and poverty are at a level not seen since just before the Great Depression, what we might call the crisis of capitalism. Mounting political instability marches across the globe.

We may try to distract ourselves by keeping busy with the myriad needs of daily life. Or lose ourselves to despair. But the more these crises impinge on our daily routines, they more they demand attention. Things are likely to get bad. In many places of the world, they are bad.

"Strength for What Lies Ahead" proposes practical strategies for dealing with these challenging times, individual and social measures that can help us navigate the waters ahead. Hopeful in tone, the book offers tools to restore balance, create justice, find peace, and cultivate resilience. In other words, tools for coping, and tools for action.

Wide-ranging in scope, the focus is both on collective strategies such as economic democracy, building community, and resilient food systems, and personal ones such as spiritual practice and emotional resilience. I have divided the book into eleven sections, moving from the personal to the collective: A New Relational Story; Spiritual Practice; Emotional Resilience; Physical Health; Joy and Beauty; Building Community; Ecological Action; Relief and Disaster Planning; Food Systems: Economic Democracy; and Leadership.I draw on the latest research and reporting on many crisis-related issues. I have conducted interviews with a number of experts: an eminent professor of futures studies; an educator who specializes in balance; director of a relief and development agency; a climate activist; a meditation teacher; and a grief counselor. I also include the thoughts of everyday people who shared with me their anxiety and creative insights around climate change and other crises.

My work as a spiritual director feeds the narrative, allowing me to offer tools for emotional and spiritual resilience. I tap into my experience in community-building and creativity with the Community Sing movement and economic justice activism. Volunteering in a prison for seven years has given me perspective on the fundamental values required to change one's life direction.

Grounded in the understanding that our current crises have a similar cause - the treatment of the earth and other human beings without the care and respect they deserve - the book argues that we must embrace a more interconnected approach to living in the world.

Author: Andy C. Douglas
Publisher: Innerworld Publications
Published: 06/26/2026
Pages: 334
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.75d
ISBN: 9781881717966

About the Author
Douglas, Andy C.: - Andy Douglas is a graduate of the University of Iowa's MFA program in Nonfiction Writing, where he received the Marcus Bach Fellowship for Writing about Religion and Culture. He has taught creative writing in various venues. He lives in Iowa City, with his wife Carol, where he is active in the Community Sing movement, and with economic justice and prison justice issues. This is his fourth book.To learn more, go to andydouglas.net