Happy Birthday, Henry!

Photo of replica of Thoreau's cabin: image by FourPeaks

July 12 (1817) is the birthday of Henry David Thoreau - an important man to many and certainly in my neck of the (Walden) woods.

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life.
And see if I could not learn what it had to teach
and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived.
-Henry David Thoreau in Walden

It was on July 4th, 1845 that Thoreau took up residence in his cabin on Walden Pond. Thoreau spent under $30.00 to build his modest home whose footprint was 10'x15'. With only two knives and forks, one spoon, three plates and a single cup he wasn't planning on doing a lot of entertaining! In his garden he raised beans. Indeed: a simple life...

Take a few moments with this simple poem... Have you found Walden where you are?

Going To Walden

It isn't very far as highways lie.
I might be back by nightfall, having seen
The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.
Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.
They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:
How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool
To miss a day away in the cool country.
Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,
Going to Walden is not so easy a thing
As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult
Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

-Mary Oliver in the collection, New and Selected Poems: Volume One


-ConcordPastor