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Climbing Brandon: Science and Faith on…
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Climbing Brandon: Science and Faith on Ireland's Holy Mountain (edition 2004)

by Chet Raymo

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541475,696 (3.83)None
An acclaimed science writer celebrates an enduring symbol of Ireland's Celtic past, Christian tradition and love of nature. In this rich celebration of Mount Brandon, Raymo weaves together myth and science, folklore and natural history, spiritual and physical geographies. He takes us to a time when Mediterranean Christianity ran up against Celtic nature worship and the Irish forged a fusion of knowledge and faith that sustains us today.… (more)
Member:hayleyscomet
Title:Climbing Brandon: Science and Faith on Ireland's Holy Mountain
Authors:Chet Raymo
Info:Walker & Company (2004), Hardcover, 208 pages
Collections:Your library, Needs to Be Checked
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Tags:unread, spirituality

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Climbing Brandon: Science and Faith on Ireland's Holy Mountain by Chet Raymo

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Raymo is an essayist, science writer, fiction writer and philosopher, and author of the acclaimed column in the Boston Globe, "Science Musings," which is also online at www.sciencemusings.com, which I follow avidly. Raymo writes much in the style of the renowned anthropologist, science writer, ecologist, and poet, Lorne Eisley (whose STAR THROWER I can't recommend highly enough). I've been reading Raymo for years, having first discovered his fiction through the delightful DORK OF CORK (which I bought in a Cork bookshop!) and IN THE FALCON'S CLAW. I have been consistently thrilled with the scope of Raymo's curiosity and learning, but more than anything else, it's Raymo's beautiful prose, combined with his sense of awe,that keeps me coming back for inspiration. For example, "Knowledge is an island in an infinite sea of mystery; as the island grows, so does the shoreline along which we encounter the mysterious."

His reverence for the natural world is contagious and as I read I feel I am walking beside a trusted, deeply knowledgeable guide and mentor, listening to him chat about the plants I'm seeing, the rocks under my feet, the salt on my lips, the wonders of the ocean before me, the living history all around me. He is a splendid guide, and one who inspires delight and awe in the marvels of creation.

In this book, he concentrates on the early Irish Christian philosophy of the immanence of God as opposed the the Roman concept of transcendence, and contemplates what the world might have been, and might yet be like, if we adopted, as the early Irish Christians did, a celebratory sense of God's greatest revelation -- creation itself -- rather than asserting abstract dogma.

As always with Raymo, I come away with a new reading list as well - Columbanus, Augustine Hibernicus, John Carey, E.O. Wilson, Noel Dermot O'Donoghue, Marina Smyth...

All in all, a highly recommended read! ( )
  Laurenbdavis | May 13, 2009 |
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An acclaimed science writer celebrates an enduring symbol of Ireland's Celtic past, Christian tradition and love of nature. In this rich celebration of Mount Brandon, Raymo weaves together myth and science, folklore and natural history, spiritual and physical geographies. He takes us to a time when Mediterranean Christianity ran up against Celtic nature worship and the Irish forged a fusion of knowledge and faith that sustains us today.

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