Some thoughts from Wendell Berry (from a variety of sources)...
"I don't think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is a "hypaethral book," such as Thoreau talked about - a book open to the sky. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it.
Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread.
Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of
the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm
world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at
the turning of water into wine - which was, after all, a very small
miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which
water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes..."
"No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it.
Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity. We thus come again to the paradox that one can become whole only by the responsible acceptance of one's partiality..."
“There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot...”
“I thought, [God] must forebear to reveal His power and glory by presenting Himself as Himself, and must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of His creatures. Those who wish to see Him must see Him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world.”
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Blessed Winter Season!
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