Henry David Thoreau
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My Summer with Montaigne—Update.
Montaigne, “the greatest writer of any time, anywhere.” Orson Welles First a little housekeeping. With Labor Day behind us, you are perhaps wondering about my summer project, is it coming to an end? After all, I titled it, “My Summer with Montaigne”. Truth be told, I feel as if I’ve hardly scratched the surface. Continue reading
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“What does your spiritual life look like?”
“Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?” ~ Henry David Thoreau A couple weeks ago while sitting quietly in contemplation overlooking an alpine lake a woman approached and asked, “What does your spiritual life look like?” There were a few utterances between us leading up to this most personal—and frankly, interesting—question. Continue reading
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Authenticity, and other over-used words.
I heard recently, during the current impeachment hearings, someone accuse so-and-so of “lacking authenticity.” It caught my ear. Several years ago I was deeply hung-up in the pursuit of authenticity, or at least a workable explanation of what truly it is. Eventually I walked away, vowing never to use the word again. It seemed too Continue reading
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Life Studies
I study lives. My text book is the biography. The first grown-up book I read was a biography of Mark Twain. I was, I think, in 6th grade. The most recent book read, finished a couple days ago, is Robert D. Richardson Jr.’s biography of Emerson, subtitled The Mind on Fire. Before that, earlier this Continue reading
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Reading and New Travels
“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering….” wrote Thoreau. Continue reading
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Snow Under Boot
Maybe a walk in the woods should remain largely and exactly that: a walk in the woods. Continue reading