The Understory

An Invitation to Rootedness and Resilience from the Forest Floor

By: Lore Ferguson Wilbert

Narrated by: Rachel Perry

"Walk in the woods with me."

That's the invitation award-winning author Lore Ferguson Wilbert extends to listeners in The Understory.

On this journey, Wilbert shares her story of alienation and disorientation after years of religious and political unrest in the evangelical church. In doing so, she looks to an unlikely place—the forest—to learn how to live and even thrive when everything seems to be falling apart.

What can we learn from eroding soil, the decomposition process, the time it takes to grow lichen, the beauty of fiddlehead ferns, the regeneration of self-sowing seeds, and walking through the mud? Here, among the understory of the forest, Wilbert discovers rich metaphors for living a rooted and flourishing life within the complex ecosystems of our world. Her tenderness and honesty will help listeners grieve, remember, hope, and press on with resilience.

©2024 Lore Ferguson Wilbert (P)2024 eChristian

Soft voice

Spoken like hearing a secret the entire time- hard to stay engaged. Otherwise, very meaningful allegories from the forest and christianity and new growth

Beautiful in spite of the narrator

Lore’s writing is a refuge to me and I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in this beautiful book. I especially appreciated her thoughtfulness as she navigate grief and loss, and her vulnerability in sharing that with the reader.

The narrator was a bad fit for this book. And I’m not sure what happened to the producer as the issues with the narrator should’ve been picked up during the recording. Her pace was incredibly slow, and her breathy style was almost too irritating to listen to.