Last Child in the Woods Revisited

Last time I wrote about this book, I was nearly done. And then the book needed to be returned, so I rushed one morning to read the last section. This section, "To Be Amazed," was touching enough that it deserved another post. I was particularly impressed by two quotes that I'll attempt to put into context below.

"To Be Amazed" looks at the link between nature and spirituality (and a tiny bit to theology). The naming of the section is linked to a quote by Prof Abraham Joshua Heschel:

"our goal should be to live life in radical amazement... Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed" (p 286).

Louv goes on to discuss that many of us seek nature for our children because we ourselves have had some of our most spiritual moments in nature. He quotes Paul Gorman (who is affilated with some sort of nonprofit - National Relgious Partnership for the Environment maybe?):

"The purpose of creation is really to bring us... closer to the creator. As a parent, you don't encourage children to experience nature because it's pretty, but because your children are exposed to something larger and longer standing than their [immediate] existence" (p 296).

And that about sums up why I read this book.