Journeys of Simplicity: Traveling Light with Thomas Merton, Bashō, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard & Others

by Philip Harnden

Book Overview

You are invited to consider a more graceful way of traveling through life. With arresting clarity, Journeys of Simplicity offers vignettes of forty travelers and the few, ordinary things they carried with them-from place to place, from day to day, from birth to death.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594731810
• ISBN13: 9781594731815
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Skylight Paths Publishing
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 7.2"

Customer Reviews

The Dream of Simplicity

Most of us are in risk of being overwhelmed by our pursuit of "stuff." Let's just take babies as an example. It appears that strollers for toddlers must now cover almost half an acre and contain sufficient storage for any possible medical or hygienic emergency. Young married couples feel the necessity to immediately buy a huge van that is effective only at cutting off the view of the hapless motorists behind you. Houses must be larger to contain the "stuff" we buy for our children. Why? Because if we don't, it means we don't love them, I suppose. I must not have been loved very much. My father was a poor factory worker who drove a 1949 Mercury coupé. During all my childhood, I remember only a handful of toys: a set of white plastic blocks that were similar to the Legos that came later, various toy soldiers, a small Lionel O-Gauge electric train set, a stamp collection, a cowboy cap pistol, and a Civil War hat (Union Army type). That hat I wore with a blue cub scout shirt with captain's bars sown on that made me look like the boy Dusty on the old Rin Tin Tin show that I loved to watch. Over the years, I seem to have gone astray somewhat. My apartment has well over 6,000 books in it. However much I resolve to cut down, I always find myself intrigued by another title that I must read. If I were to sit down and read all the books I own, I would have to live for hundreds of years more. This slim volume was one of my recent purchases. I sat down to read it almost at once and fell in love with it. JOURNEYS OF SIMPLICITY is a book of lists of stuff with which selected real and fictional people traveled through their lives. Some of the lists, such as the personal effects of Thomas Merton when he was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room after being electrocuted by his room fan, were heart-wrenching. In almost every case, they set off a little flash bulb of enlightenment. Each list was a window into a person's life (even if that "person" were Bilbo Baggins or Dostoyevsky's Father Zossima from THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV). If ever I became a truly enlightened person? What would be on my list. Let me guess: a box of loose black Indian tea, a pot to boil water, a few (far less than 6,000) good books, a sweater, a jacket, two or three changes of clothing including wool socks, stout walking shoes, reading glasses, a hat -- and that's about it. Oh yes, and one other thing -- a sense of wonder.