Faith & Life Inspirational Message

Reading the title of this inspiration piece probably makes no sense until you get an appropriate context.   The context comes as I begin re-reading a classic book for me, namely, Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek .   I have used this book in a course I teach and I always love returning to the pages of this contemporary contemplative of nature.   I don’t know how else to put it, except to say Annie Dillard is an exciting writer.   Originally appearing in 1974, the book reads as if it were published only yesterday.             The reader would not know it, but Annie Dillard summarizes the entire book in a paragraph in the first chapter.   I would not have known this until a second or third read of the book.   This summarization comes in a paragraph where Annie describes where she lives.   Quite simply she says, “I live by a creek, Tinker Creek, in a valley in Virginia’s Blue Ridge.”   A...

Even though I grew up on a farm in Indiana and spent a great deal of time outside, I would not say I am as attuned to nature as one might expect.   In some ways it is a little disappointing to realize this and admit it.   Of course when I was outside, I was surely aware of the weather.   If it is raining, you don’t need a very high IQ to know it is raining!   Awareness of the weather, however, does not mean you are generally aware of nature.             Every time I come back to Annie Dillard’s great book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek , I am reminded of my off-and-on relationship with nature.   I realize again how much I miss on a walk across campus.   I lament at how unconscious I apparently am so much of the time.   At one level, this is sad because it means I am capable of so much more.   At another level, it is funny.   It is funny because I sometimes think I am fairly aware and, th...