[Natural] Theology Thursday takes a look at Tinker Creek's Pilgrim

I am reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek for the first time. If this is new to you, as it was to me until about 10 years ago, it is a sort of natural theology written by Annie Dillard and published in 1974. The next year it won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction and has been a celebrated title ever since.

Dillard is considered a modern-day Thoreau. I first ran across her when reading the late Eugene Peterson of The Message fame. His sharing of Dillard's work evoked wonder, and I've been interested since then.

The pique increased when I learned Annie had written the book in the very neighborhood where we lived for 5 years. The Tinker Creek of which she writes ran along our back property line. We mowed many yards for neighbors whose property bordered the creek and I passed her ex-husband's house many times, unknowing.

So you may imagine my interest when in the first chapter she describes the location of her house in relation to the Creek. I pulled up a map to take a look and discovered she apparently lived across the creek from where we used to mow. I could see the island of which she spoke and saw a nearby home where I once trimmed trees for an elderly couple after a storm. The house where Annie's first husband lived at his death last year is in a spot which would not align itself with her description so I assume 50 years ago they lived a few houses away. Of course, directions can be strange, but that's the best reckoning I can make of it.

But it doesn't matter a whole lot. The creek is there, as is the island. I am finding her account to be a very good read, the work of a young, hard-working writer with a great deal of gift. I look forward to reading it over the next couple of weeks.

Takeaway from today? She has a good grasp of various allusions in literature and elsewhere and uses them well. I especially like one Einstein line: “nature conceals her mystery by means of her essential grandeur, not by her cunning.” This reminds me of a comment on beauty I heard earlier today to the effect we recognize beauty unawares and its power shapes us and sways us to love the good. The grandeur of nature participates in the mystery, is the mystery and it draws us in, unwitting.

I hope to write perhaps a two-part essay about the book on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of its publishing, March 13. We'll see how it goes. I may share a few reflections here.

A winter view of Tinker Creek.