Ebook: Placemaker: cultivating places of comfort, beauty, and peace

In Placemaker, Christie Purifoy invites us to notice our soul's desire for beauty, our need to create and to be created again and again. As she reflects on the joys and sorrows of two decades as a placemaker and her recent years living in and restoring a Pennsylvania farmhouse, Christie shows us that we are all gardeners. No matter our vocation, we spend much of our lives tending, keeping, and caring. In each act of creation, we reflect the image of God. In each moment of making beauty, we realize that beauty is a mystery to receive. Weaving together her family's journey with stories of botanical marvels and the histories of the flawed yet inspiring placemakers who shaped the land generations ago, Christie calls us to cultivate orchards and communities, to clap our hands along with the trees of the fields. Placemaker is a timely yet timeless reminder that the cultivation of good and beautiful places is not a retreat from the real world but a holy pursuit of a world that is more real than we know. A call to tend the soul, the land, and the places we share with one another. A reminder that we are always headed home.;Introduction: Forests and orchards: our invitation to live as placemakers -- Chapter 1: Citrus Grove: Receiving the gift of limits -- Chapter 2: Pine Tree: Choosing to want -- Chapter 3: Saucer Magnolia: Listening to a place -- Chapter 4: Honey Locust: Gaining and losing the city -- Chapter 5: Penn's Woods: The abundance of empty places -- Chapter 6: Old-growth Forest: How to be a neighbor -- Chapter 7: Queen Palm: Letting go of a former home -- Chapter 8: Crape Myrtle and Chestnut: Searching for a new home -- Chapter 9: Silver Maple: The price of a place -- Chapter 10: Norway Maple: Placemaking around the table -- Chapter 11: Rainbow Eucalyptus and Roses: A place for those who mourn -- Chapter 12: Arboretum: The place where we cultivate peace -- Acknowledgments -- Notes.