Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau...not bad company at all

If you are an author, there are many reasons to avoid the reader reviews on your Amazon page. Most importantly, what you've written is in the past, and there's nothing you can do about it now.  You write something, send it out into the world, and what the reader sees in it is up to them.  There's also the comfortable truth that not every book is for every writer.  Three of my favorite authors are Howard Frank Mosher, John Irving, and Tom Robbins, but I've not liked everything they've written. And lastly, it's human tendency to pay more attention to the negative than the positive, even if the positive far outweighs the opposite. 

Recently, though, when a friend informed me Following Atticus attained the Amazon milestone of receiving 1,000 reviews, I went to the page and read a few of the comments.  The one that caught my attention was not negative, but rather a mediocre review. The woman gave it three stars out of five. She wrote about how tough it was to rate our story. She called it "well written" and "an obviously loving story about a man and his remarkable dog". But in her opinion the Following Atticus "was WAY too pantheistic for me".

A smile spread across my face as I read this, and again later while contemplating her words during a lengthy walk in the frozen woods with Atticus while we kept company with the Swift River.

When a hardcore, Bible-toting politician in Newburyport once noted to me that I mentioned God in my writing but didn't go to church, she stated she was confused and wanted to know what religion I practiced.  I told her I didn't practice any religion. But she pushed, and she pulled and she demanded an answer.  Finally, I conceded by telling her while I refuse to claim any religion, if I was forced to choose one I'm closest to being a pantheist.

Madame Politician then stalked off in utter disgust, (to pray for my soul, I imagined at the time). A few days later her husband approached me with the same disgust in his face and voice to say he couldn’t believe I told his wife that I worshipped panties.  And this, in part, should tell you why I stopped covering politicians and went to the woods, where I feel a sense of God in everything around me.  Including during a walk along the Swift River with Atticus by my side.

Earlier this year, when Pete Seeger died, a popular quote of his circulated and it sums up how a lot of people who love the White Mountains feel. He said, "Every time I'm in the woods I feel like I'm in church." 

Can I get an "amen"?

There's is not a person who loves the woods who cannot relate to that sentiment.  Many of the prophets of old found God while submerged in nature.  It was Emerson, who along with his peers Thoreau and Hawthorne knew this region well, pointed out that we need not rely on the thoughts of prophets of old, but on our own senses and sensibilities to see a personal God. He wrote: "The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes.  Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?  Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?"

That personal experience is where I find my religion.  It's while walking an earthen path deep in the Pemigewasset Wilderness, standing atop lofty Mount Lafayette while being tossed to and fro by a strong wind, sitting by a crystal clear stream tucked away somewhere in the magical Sandwich Range, or encountering a bear in our backyard. 

Raised a Catholic, it took me a while to trust my personal experience. Being a political reporter, it took me a while to see the same divisions that bring out the petty in our politicians, bring out the petty in various religions.  I despise that people use God as a reason to argue or fight or to go to war over.  This has led to my decision to leave out the middle man and find God on my own.  (At this point, I have to add that I have no issue with the route others choose as long as they hopefully attempt to practice the Golden Rule – treat others as you wish to be treated.) 

While I have read the Bible, I also read the poetry of Wordsworth, Whitman, and Oliver; the essays of Emerson, Thoreau, and Muir, and most importantly, I pay heed to my own feelings as Atticus and I continue to tramp through this special place we call home. 

How fortunate are we to have our own Garden of Eden, recognized as such by many of the great White Mountain Artists who flocked here in the 1800s? 

The White Mountain National Forest takes up more land than does all of Rhode Island. That’s one heck of a big church. 

I’m not a theologian. If you were to call me anything, you could say I am a
nemophilist. I love the forest for its enchantment and serenity, and everywhere I look in the natural world I see and hear the song of God.  And that, by rough definition, is a pantheist.

I like that I keep company with the likes of Lao Tzu, Spinoza, Heraclitus, Georg Hegel, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ludwig van Beethoven, William Jennings Bryant, Claude Debussy, Carl Jung, Albert Einstein, D.H. Lawrence, and Ansel Adams, just to name a few who are associated with pantheism.  More importantly, I like that I can see the Divine anywhere, and not just because I was conditioned to.

Now, as the temperature climbs into the twenties and that, in combination with the lack of wind, has it feeling even warmer during this incredibly frigid winter, you’ll have to excuse me.  Will (and his poor ancient skin) needs his bath.  Later I will escape with Atticus to church.  We’re off on an eight mile woods walk today, where every step will be a prayer, and we’ll be filled with the grace of nature.