An Ironic Electronic Tribute

Today's the day that Henry David Thoreau's famous work "Walden" was published...in 1854.

For those of you who have forgotten your high school English classes, the long and short of it is that on July 4, 1845 to September 6, 1847, Mr. Thoreau headed off to live in a cabin he built on Walden Pond. He used his observations of the world around him to examine his own life...to truly reflect. He wrote his thoughts down and they were published some 7 years later.

I relate to him a bit. I try to live an examined life.

I don't relate to him a lot. The whole "Nature" thing sets me off and I absolutely adore creature comforts...more than I care to admit.

But, here's a quote I really like from the book.

"I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers...Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary and a dervis in the desert...

...Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to adquire any new value for each other."

And I wonder if because I relate so well to these lines if it's a healthy reality for one who works as a pastor. Funny, but I think it is. Without solitude (in whatever weird forms it takes for me) I think I'd be lousy as a pastor. I may be lousy at it anyway...but I hope I make the most of those intervals, so I have something of value to give others.

In honor of Mr. Thoreau today, how will you pay tribute? I think I'll be largely ignored in my own lifetime...