Backpacking with the saints : wilderness hiking as spiritual practice

Backpacking with the saints Wilderness hiking as spiritual practice

Belden C. Lane, 1943-

Book - 2015

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Subjects
Nature > Religious aspects.
Wilderness (Theology)
Backpacking.
Books and reading > Religious aspects.
Spiritual life.
Published
New York, NY : Oxford University Press [2015]
Language
English
Main Author
Belden C. Lane, 1943- (author)
Physical Description
xviii, 266 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references ([233]-257) and index.
ISBN
9780199927814
  • Permissions
  • Prologue
  • Part 1. The Power of Wilderness and the Reading of Dangerous Texts
  • 1. The Allure of the Wild: Backpacking as Spiritual Practice
  • 2. The Risk-Taking Character of Wilderness Reading
  • Part 2. The Pattern of Wilderness Spirituality
  • First Leg: Departure (Leaving The Trailhead)
  • 3. Venturing Out: The Irish Wilderness and Columba of Iona
  • 4. Disillusionment: Laramie Peak and Thérèse of Lisieux
  • 5. Desire: Rockpile Mountain Wilderness and Thomas Traherne
  • Second Leg: Discipline (The Practice of the Wild)
  • 6. Solitude: Bell Mountain Wilderness and Søren Kierkegaard
  • 7. Traveling Light: Gunstock Hollow and Dag Hammarskjöld
  • 8. Mindfulness: Moonshine Hollow and Thich Nhat Hanh
  • Third Leg: Descent (When The Trail Gets Rough)
  • 9. Fear: The Maze in Canyonlands and John of the Cross
  • 10. Failure: Mt. Whitney and Martin Luther
  • 11. Dying: Mudlick Mountain Trail and The Cloud of Unknowing
  • Fourth Leg: Delight (Returning Home with Gifts)
  • 12. Discernment: Taum Sauk Mountain and Jelaluddin Rumi
  • 13. Community: Lower Rock Creek and Teilhard de Chardin
  • 14. Justice: The Meramec River at Times Beach and Mohandas Gandhi
  • 15. Holy Folly: Aravaipa Canyon and Thomas Merton
  • Fifth Leg: Reprise
  • Epilogue
  • Appendix: The Meanings of Wilderness
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

Lane, a professor of religion at St. Louis University, offers an attractively genre-­crossing companion for readers seeking inspiring meditation guidance. An experienced hiker, he takes introspective and celebratory spiritual illumination from a variety of mostly American wilderness areas, each hike accompanied by a meditative reading from such varied sources as John of the Cross, Kierkegaard, Teilhard de Chardin, and Gandhi. In describing his own life experiences as well as wilderness areas in the Ozarks, Aravaipa Canyon, and Ireland's revered retreat areas, he offers both practical advice (how to lighten a backpack) as well as gracefully tying back the solo hikes to experiences in leading men's recovery groups and his marriage. The carefully balanced writing about landscape, physical demands, spiritual awakenings, and literary companionship allows the reader to see, feel, and join in the meditation. An excellent companion to works on pilgrimage, such as Dispenza's The Way of the Traveler (1999).--Goldsmith, Francisca Copyright 2014 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Lane's work blends genres, combining the literature of the outdoors with the formal literature of the spiritual as he reviews the work of the world's prominent religious and spiritual writers and ties their insights to the features and experiences of exploring the natural world. A respected professor of theological studies at Saint Louis University and a frequent backpacker, Lane (The Solace of Fierce Landscapes) juxtaposes the academic with the personal, presenting brief historical summaries of thinkers like Rumi, Therese of Liseux, and Thich Nhat Hanh while using his own life experiences and backpacking trips to parallel certain spiritual insights from his reading. Lane's prose is lush and descriptive, but occasionally self-indulgent as he encounters the difficulties of expressing the sublime and the spiritual in words. The book also starts slowly, overly laden in theory. Yet it eventually becomes more compelling as the author situates his useful introduction to the joys of backpacking and the work of the featured thinkers in his open and tender detailing of his life's trajectory, creating pleasure for readers of all genres. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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