The North Carolina Wall, Linville Gorge
“The trail ended abruptly at the overlook.
It never failed to take her breath away:
a cliff face where the forest simply opened
and the mountain dropped away at your feet,
hundreds of feet of limestone wall
that would be a tough scramble even for a squirrel.”
Barbara Kingsolver, 1955-
“A Prodigal Summer”
“When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening
than to be told that you should be contented with your lot?”
Kathleen Norris, b. 1947
Best-selling author of The Cloister Walk,
Dakota, and Amazing Grace
“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be,
since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”
Thomas à Kempis, 1380-1471
Imitation of Christ, c.1420
“I still find each day too short
for all the thoughts I want to think,
all the walks I want to take,
all the books I want to read
and all the friends I want to see.”
John Burroughs, 1837-1921
American naturalist and essayist
“How is it that our memory is good enough
to retain the least triviality that happens to us,
and yet not good enough to recollect
how often we have told it to the same person?”
François Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 1630-1680
French author of maxims and memoirs
“I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath
of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it,
as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets.
It has given me blessed release from care and worry
and the troubled thinking of our modern day.
It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful.”
Hamlin Garland, 1860-1940,
American novelist, poet, essayist
Price Lake, m. 296.7 on the Blue Ridge Parkway
“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”
Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955
Modernist poet
“This signature on each soul may be a product of
heredity and environment, but that only means
that heredity and environment are among
the instruments whereby God creates a soul.”
C. S. Lewis, 1898-1963
Irish author and scholar
Farm on the Watauga River near Siam & Wilbur Dam
“It is not always granted to the sower to live to see the harvest.
All work that is worth anything is done in faith.”
Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965
French theologian, philosopher, physician
1952 Nobel Peace prize winner
Price Lake Trail, m. 297 on the Blue Ridge Parkway
“The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August,
and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair
amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., 1809-1894
One of best regarded American poets of 19th cty.
Big Bald near Wolf Laurel, NC
“Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move,
my thoughts begin to flow.”
Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862
American author, naturalist, philosopher
Best known for “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience”
“For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser,
depending on others to give you an identity.
You need not look at that only in a negative way.
You wanted to give your heart to others,
and you did so quickly and easily.
But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props
and trust that God is enough for you.
You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.”
Henri Nouwen, 1932-1996
“Nothing is so fatiguing as the
eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”
William James, 1842-1910
Pioneering Psychologist and Philosopher
“I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits,
unless I spend four hours a day at least –
and it is commonly more than that –
sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields,
absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”
Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862
American author, naturalist, philosopher
Best known for “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience”
“Language… has created the word ‘loneliness’
to express the pain of being alone.
And it has created the word ‘solitude’
to express the glory of being alone.”
Paul Johannes Tillich, 1886-1965
German-American theologian
“The Eternal Now”
“Colors once brilliant are now blended and pale
wings so fragile in autumn’s warm wind
are now shattered and broken, never to mend
torn from the spirit — simple and warm
left broken and battered by autumn’s storm
Butterfly body, warm gentle thing
once hidden by brilliance of butterfly wings
now forgotten and lonely on God’s warm earth
so soon after coming from butterfly birth
not valiant, not victorious, not courageous or strong
butterflies never live very long.”
“I am not bound for any public place,
but for ground of my own where
I have planted vines and orchard trees,
and in the heat of the day climbed up
into the healing shadow of the woods.”
Wendell Berry, b. 1934
Author, cultural and economic critic, farmer
“Whenever the pressure of our complex city life
thins my blood and benumbs my brain,
I seek relief in the trail.”
Hamlin Garland, 1860-1940,
American novelist, poet, essayist
“Each has his past shut in him
like the leaves of a book
known to him by heart
and his friends can only read the title.”
Virginia Woolf, 1882-1941
English novelist and essayist
“The sun shines and warms and lights us and
we have no curiosity to know why this is so;
but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger,
and mosquitoes and silly people.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882
Sunset viewed from Roan High Bluff
“I gave in, and admitted that God was God.”
C. S. Lewis, 1898-1963
Irish author and scholar
“Happy insect! what can be In happiness compared to thee?
Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning’s gentle wine!
Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill;
‘Tis fill’d wherever thou dost tread, Nature’s self’s thy Ganymede.”
Abraham Cowley, 1616-1667
English poet
“Anacreontiques (no. 10, Grasshopper)”
“We are not called to be successful, or even influential.
We are called to be faithful. Be sure to include some element
of community salting as a part of your walk of faith,
and you will gain the joy that always comes with obedience.”
Bob Briner, 1935-1999
Emmy Award-winning television producer and author
