A Haunting Reverence: Meditations on a Northern Land (Univ of Minnesota PR) [Paperback]

Kent Nerburn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1999

Citing a need for a contemplative reckoning between humankind and nature, author Kent Nerburn invites readers to leave the banter abd laughter of daily discourse behind and to tune into a quieter voice--that of God within the land. In this volume, he guides the willing toward nature's lessons and the emotions nature provokes.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Essays reflect on living in a Northern landscape, presenting Nerburn's insights on the Northern environments which have shaped his life and which so influence the dreams and lives of all. This could have also been featured under 'nature writing' or 'literary' sections but is mentioned here for its underlying spiritual tone. -- Midwest Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816633843
• ISBN-13: 978-0816633845
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,275,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars why doesn't anyone know about this book?, May 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Haunting Reverence: Meditations on a Northern Land (Univ of Minnesota PR) (Paperback)

I found this book by accident. I liked the title and I love nature writing. But this isn't nature writing like anything I have ever read. This is some of the most beautiful poetry and storytelling I have ever read. It is the most spiritual nature writing I have ever read. This book took me to a place like prayer. Kent Nerburn is a genius.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple beautiful scenes of wandering & solitudes of Jesus, February 6, 2006

By 

Fred W. Hood - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Haunting Reverence: Meditations on a Northern Land (Hardcover)

When I picked-up this book from our best-reader Friend, who gave us a chapter from SIMPLE TRUTHS, I expected it to be equally as simply written! Not simple in the ways of writing or organized! Since his Prologue, entitled "A CANTICLE OF ECHOES, Kent grasped my attention with his first quote from a - Pueblo saying, "We do not own the land. We belong to it. And by our sweat & breath shall she know us, and welcome us upon our return."

Kent begins: "We are children on this land a shadow on the still life of time.." Employing words as far more than commentary to his Pueblo saying. He measures words economically descibing past generations "whose arrival is scribed upon the line of history...(yet not adrift) on winds of story, or float upon the shrouds of myth!" I read in his brevity, layers of past, present & future!

From earlier pages he takes us back to BURIAL, "My home is over there. Now I remember it." - A Tewa song..."I am standing before a northern lake on a windswept point of land as a young Indian boy is lowered into the earth by his friends and family.

"It is a strange and lonely funeral-- they all are in their own way...In the Indians who made their home here-- like my young departed friend-- Something lives that invests this harsh land with spiritual values."

Kent never misses chances to relate the present back to the past history of his Northern Lands, even in his continued quoting of Indian Tribes: As in NATVITY: "What is life?...It is the breath of the buffalo in the winter time..." A Blackfeet death oration. After a gripping mysterious picture of a giant buffalo, Kent is at home with his short Essays based on, BLUE, JANUARY, URN, COPSE, GOOD FRIDAY, OFFERING, WIND. Poignant quotations are adopted from Sioux, Papago, Iroquois, Delaware & Crow Tribes. There are parallels between his essays based on tribal quotes and Haunting Reverence of Christian worship in all Nerburn's books... newly birthed from his majors of Religion and Art!

He refers to religion in MEMORY of TREES, "I see men but they look like trees, walking." Again in Solitudes: "The holy silence is God's voice." Golden treasures wait being discovered! Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood "Barbara377" (Fayetteville, GA United States)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read Book, July 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Haunting Reverence: Meditations on a Northern Land (Univ of Minnesota PR) (Paperback)

I loved this book; it is about nature, spirituality and seeing things in a new way. The author helps one to see and feel what he is.....I have used many of his books as gifts...they are a forever treasure.