« Back to Issue 57

Places of Enchantment: Meeting God in Landscapes

Reviewed by Julian Reindorp.

This is a remarkably rich book for anyone who has ever felt something of God in nature. Its author is Rector of Hexham Abbey in Northumberland, and before ordination he was an ecologist.

He explores how we find God in land, forest, river, mountain, desert, garden, sea and sky. Poets, artists, writers, the Bible, events past and present, are all quarried to illustrate his themes. Four pages of index as well as well as twelve pages of notes show the breadth of his reading. We are taken to different parts of the world, from the giant Redwoods of California, to the Highlands of Scotland, from South America, to the beauty and misuse of the river Jordan.

He wants to bring together the riches of our more formal liturgies with the experiences of finding God in landscapes, rather than just left to New Age interest. Beauty and justice, our inner and outer world are all explored. But the author is clear “that without a community this experience is an aesthetic that can lead nowhere, lacking any connection to a greater narrative or a continuous tradition, or the challenge that moves us beyond being 'nice' or 'emotionally moving'”(p.140). We will buy a copy for Christmas for my farmer and shepherd father in law who lives in the Highlands. A book to reflect on and return to.