Acadia National Park: A Soul and Spirit Stretching Place
The current issue of Chebacco focuses on the history of religion on Maine’s largest island and includes my essay on religion in Acadia National Park.
Montana Masons in the civilizing of Yellowstone
Montana’s leading citizens sought to civilize Yellowstone by claiming it as a park, not a wild and dangerous land but a place of democratic enjoyment and wonder for generations to come.
Columbusing Yellowstone
Nathaniel P. Langford and other members of the 1870 Washburn-Doane expedition “Columbused” Yellowstone by “discovering” it as a “park.”
Devil’s Slide or Angel’s Ascent?
Devil’s Slide north of Yellowstone National Park has unsettled the religious imaginations of visitors since the nineteenth century.
Warren Angus Ferris, Yellowstone’s first tourist
Warren Angus Ferris visited Yellowstone in 1834 as the first tourist to experience the thermal features, and the first person known to use the Icelandic word “geyser” to describe them.
A challenge comes to its successful but inglorious end: daily post 105 of 105
This is the end of my writing challenge, but not completing the exercise does not in any way feel like failure.
Canary in the coal mine: national parks and the future of the earth
As the parks go, so goes the future of the earth. The sad state of national parks predicts an ominous outlook for the earth and the communities that rely on it.
Looking for a place of rest on a winter night
This excerpt from an epic retelling of the Christian biblical narrative offers a poetic interpretation of the traditional Christmas advent story.
The first day of winter
Watching the nearly full moon set, we felt the first hints of morning light following the solstice. Slowly the first day of the new year cut through the night’s frost to brighten a new season.
Tourists all the time
To the extent that we have all become consumers in every facet of our modern lives, we live in the touristic ethos of consumerism. All of us are tourists all of the time.
Advice for a better life
Learning to write well, creatively, productively applies as well to learning to live well, creatively, productively.
Great teachers need great students
Great teachers lead their students into new fields to stand beneath rushing waters and feel the possibilities of the worlds they inhabit.