Deep Into the Thicket...:Nature Writing, Holy Writing
Location
Massey Board Room
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
14-9-2009 12:00 PM
Description
Contemporary American thought has lost Walden in the same way it lost Eden, but the idea of their pristine beauty and unvanquished potential remains embedded in the cultural imagination, beckoning us to something living deep within ourselves. This is a deeply spiritual and vexing problem-the search for a haven dismissed by our intellectual minds. In the 1500s, St. John of the Cross offered his view when he wrote ... "To the mountain and to the hill/To where the pure water flows/And further, deep into the thicket .... " As was the case for European and American transcendentalists, nature was a metaphor for the soul that "transcended" the ordinary but was manifest to humans only through the ordinary. This talk addresses how spiritual writing faces the loss of the ideal represented by Eden and Walden, while at the same time, longing for it.
Recommended Citation
Pinter, Robbie, "Deep Into the Thicket...:Nature Writing, Holy Writing" (2009). Humanities Symposium. 3.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2009/2009/3
Deep Into the Thicket...:Nature Writing, Holy Writing
Massey Board Room
Contemporary American thought has lost Walden in the same way it lost Eden, but the idea of their pristine beauty and unvanquished potential remains embedded in the cultural imagination, beckoning us to something living deep within ourselves. This is a deeply spiritual and vexing problem-the search for a haven dismissed by our intellectual minds. In the 1500s, St. John of the Cross offered his view when he wrote ... "To the mountain and to the hill/To where the pure water flows/And further, deep into the thicket .... " As was the case for European and American transcendentalists, nature was a metaphor for the soul that "transcended" the ordinary but was manifest to humans only through the ordinary. This talk addresses how spiritual writing faces the loss of the ideal represented by Eden and Walden, while at the same time, longing for it.
Comments
Convo: AL