"Out Walking" by John Leax

 

I’ve read Nightwatch, the young adult novel by John Leax (1943-2924), and I’ve read his collection of short essays on writing, Grace is Where I Live and Remembering Jesus: Sonnets and Songs, one of his poetry collections. And now I’ve figuratively walked with him through the woods and fields, called Remnant Acres, near where he lived in upstate New York.

Out Walking: Reflections on Our Place in the Natural World is a collection of essays first published as columns in the Wellsville (NY) Daily Reporter. It is also a collection of poems on the same natural theme, because Leax found that nature spoke of God and faith and sometimes that discovery could only be expressed in poetry.

The subjects of each essay and poem are simple – a dead squirrel, a heron, stones, salamanders, the kitchen garden (and protecting it against the birds and critters), fishing, watching the moon, and more. Yet in simplicity one often finds clarity and truth, and Leax finds it in abundance. What he finds moves him to praise and prayer.

A prayer for order

Father of all creatures,

whose dwelling extends beyond this world,

let no one trivialize your being.

Let your order prevail.

Let your intentions come to be

for creation and for yourself.

Give us, each day, no more than we need,

and forgive us when we take for ourselves

the well being of others,

as we forgive others who seek to take ours.

Lead us away from our dreams of power

that we might be whole,

satisfied in you.

John Leax

It’s not my imagination that in this poem I find echoes of the Lord’s Prayer in the New Testament.

From 1968 to 2009, John Leax (1943-2024) was an English professor and poet-in-residence at Houghton College in New York. He was a poet, an essayist, and the author of one novel, Nightwatch. Leax’s poetry collections include “Reaching into Silence,” “The Task of Adam,” “Sonnets and Songs,” and “Country Labors.” His non-fiction writing and essay collections include “Grace Is Where I Live,” “In Season and Out,” “Standing Ground: A Personal Story of Faith and Environmentalism,” “120 Significant Things Men Should Know…but Never Ask About,” and “Out Walking: Reflections on Our Place in the Natural World.”

Out Walking is a quiet, thoughtful, faithful work, a guide to what the natural order can and should mean. It may be a slim volume (140 pages), but it is packed with insight and truth.

Related:

Grace Is Where I Live by John Leax.

Nightwatch by John Leax.

Some Monday Readings

Darker – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

Bone Into Stone: On translating Ovid’s Metamorphosis – Jhumpa Lahiri at The Dial.

Not So Close: Two different looks at Henry David Thoreau – Ashley Barnes at Commonweal.

The Importance of Walking a Battlefield – Doug Crenshaw at Emerging Civil War.

The Inflection Point – Michael Oren at Clarity.

If you suffer

After I Peter 4:12-19 

If you suffer

for his name’s sake,

be unashamed,

be alert, be awake.

 

If suffering comes,

then glorify God;

trust your creator,

continue to do good.

 

Your behavior is spared

from judgment to come;

the godless will perish,

all, not only some.

 

Hold fast to your Lord,

stay strong in the word;

your suffering is short,

your cries have been heard.

 

Photograph by Abishek via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

Do ye the little things – David Warren at Essays in Idleness.

Glorious, Obvious Difference: The Complementary Souls of Men and Women – David Mathis at Desiring God.

Following No Other Way – Nathan Beacom at Comment Magazine.

Own Your Faith – Jacob Crouch.

Stones and Fonts – Barb Drummond at Curious Histories.

Saturday Good Reads - March 1, 2025

Pew Research has issued its periodic study on religion in the United States, and it appears something is changing. The decline of Christianity appears to have leveled off, and the reason might be due to the growing interest by young men.  

The memo heard round the world: Jeff Bezos told the Washington Post staff this week that the opinion page would have two pillars – personal liberties and free markets. Reaction was swift. Some 75,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions; the journalism community was outraged. 

Add that to the upheaval going on in television news and commentary – in just the past week, Joy Reid lost her show on MSNBC, Lester Holt announced his retirement from NBC, and Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar learned their contracts on The View would not be renewed. The media landscape is fundamentally changing. 

 

As I was working on my novel Brookhaven, published in December, I accidentally rediscovered Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It wasn’t that he’d gone anywhere, but since the advent of modernism a century ago, his poetry hasn’t been held in the same regard it was in the 19^th century. What happened for me was to see the 2022 movie I Heard the Bellsand reread Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2020) by Nicholas Basbanes. And then a character in the story began to recite Longfellow. This week, at Poems Ancient and Modern, Sally Thomas looks at Longfellow’s poem “The Children’s Hour,” and I find myself becoming re-enchanted.

 

More Good Reads

 

Israel

 

The Life and Death of the Oldest Hostage in Gaza – Matti Friedman at The Free Press.

 

American Psychological Association Slammed for ‘Virulent’ Jew Hate – Sally Satel at The Free Press.

 

British Stuff

 

Cloud control – Abhishek Saha at The Critic Magazine.

 

In the Roof of St. Paul’s Cathedral – Spitalfields Life.

 

Ex-church of England head Carey among clergy facing possible punishment over abuse scandal – Muvija M at Reuters.

 

Faith

 

The Depth of J.I. Packer’s Legacy – John Piper at Desiring God.

 

Good to Go – Mark Daniels.

 

Dumb Church – Stephen McAlpine.

 

Poetry

 

Detective Fiction Is the Purest Literature We Have – poem by Elizabeth Scott Tervo at An Unexpected Journal.

 

“The Leaden-Eyed,” poem by Vachel Lindsay – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Desert Power – Erik Coonce at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

The 3 Lost Pieces of a Good Romance – Chloe Ann at The Radical Reader.

 

Understanding Evil with Cormac McCarthy and John Frame – Seth Troutt at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Right is Changing Cancel Culture’s Rules – Christopher Rufo.

 

Adults with Disabilities Deserve to Work – Jill Escher at The Free Press.

 

The Documentary That Investigates Jerry Lewis’ Never Released Nazi Camp Clown Movie – Keith Roysdon at CrimeReads.

American Stuff

 

Grief in the White House – David Bannon at Front Porch Republic. 

 

Thomas Jefferson’s Library – Neely Tucker at Library of Congress Blogs.

 

Lincoln’s “Second thoughts” on the Emancipation Proclamation – Kevin Donovan at Emerging Civil War.

 

Art

 

A Van Gogh drawing – with what is almost certainly the artist’s fingerprint – goes to auction at Sotheby’s – Martin Baily at The Art Newspaper.

 

Inside the Shadowy World of a Notorious Art Looter Who Evaded Justice – Min Chen at Artnet.

 

By focusing on Edvard Munch’s portraiture, London’s National Gallery reveals a different side of the Norwegian Expressionist – Alexander Morrison at The Art Newspaper.

 

Run and Run – Matt Papa, Matt Boswell

 Painting: Man Reading, oil on canvas (1851) by Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891), The Clark Museum, Williamstown, Mass.