May Day Flowers
A rose by any other name still means that April showers have yielded to May flowers.
Similar Posts
“Only God Can Create A National Park”
There has been a persistent sense among many Americans that national parks are special places, even sacred. It was Horace Albright, the second Director of the National Park Service, who said in 1930 that “Only God can create a national park.” Such theologically tinged interpretations, of course, borrow on the leftover patriotism of nineteenth-century Manifest Destiny. This story of the…
Do National Parks Have a Role in an Agrarian Future?
A few years ago I listened in on a conversation with poet, novelist, and essayist Wendell Berry, introduced that day as “without question the leading agrarian of our time.” He suggested a definition of this term agrarian as a “love for farming” that includes an inclination to put land first as our highest value. “Access to land,” Berry surmised, “provides…
A Middle Way beyond Anger and Sadness
We have much to be angry about, and good reason to be sad. But neither sadness nor anger alone have much effect for lasting change in the world.
From Ashes to Dust, from Soil to Trees
Despite who we have been or may yet become, every one of us becomes the forest, struggling to embrace a perfect balance of being.
Reading the map: opportunities and challenges of technology in the outdoors
Technology can enhance our lives, but something is lost as well. And relying too much on technological solutions can actually be dangerous, especially with outdoor recreation.
Religion in the National Parks
Religion has been an implied value in America’s national park idea from the time of the earliest nineteenth-century parks to the present. But the religious element usually remains buried in visitors’ private aesthetic responses to park experiences and attractions. Rarely do specific theological views appear in the parks, even in unofficial activities or park uses. Certainly, the National Park Service…