Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land by Norman Wirzba (review)

Reviewed by: Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land by Norman Wirzba Matt Boswell (bio) Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land. By Norman Wirzba. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022. 264 pp. $29.00. I am a resident of Camas, Washington, deliberately. I live near the Quaker meeting I pastor—a four-minute drive or fifteen-minute walk—but also a two-hour drive (or less) to Wy'east, Loowit, Klickitat, and Seekseekqua (or, by their settler names, Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Jefferson, respectively). I am also two hours from several Pacific coast trails and only minutes from the Columbia River Gorge. I live in a hiker's paradise and do not take that reality for granted. As often as I can, I am on the trail: exploring new trails and expanding my sense of community, each trail's ecosystem feeling like a new friend; and returning to trails that have left an impression on me, each visit like a reunion with old friends. I have come to recognize that I do not just "love" hiking or "love" these places, either in the sense of intense enjoyment or responsive care, even if these trails do give me pleasure or motivate me to consider my responsibility to protect and nurture these spaces. It feels more fitting to say that I have fallen in love with these places. I want to be with them. I want them to flourish. I recount hiking stories and share pictures on my social media accounts, inviting others into my joy and hoping they'll want to "come and see" for themselves, if possible. Given how revitalizing and clarifying these hikes are, I have come to need them. And, with more time, I have come to understand the patterns and particularities of these trails' ecosystems. How do I know I am smitten? One of my favorite wildflowers is the Columbia (tiger) lily, an orange, brown-spotted, downward-facing wildflower that thrives in subalpine meadows and forests. Their presence is delightfully unpredictable; I can hike a seven-mile trail and encounter only a single trailside Columbia lily, then drive past hundreds of them thriving in a roadside thicket. In June 2022, I discovered a single Columbia lily in Lacamas Park, a roughly 300-acre, trail-laden forest park of creeks, waterfalls, and wildflowers within Camas city limits. This park is known for its annual May bloom of purple Camas lilies, but this was the first Columbia lily I had seen in my seven years of living in Camas. A year later, in June 2023, I navigated the forest trails to this same spot, hoping to find that lily again. It took some searching, but when I found it, I broke the calm silence of the forest with a guttural and visceral "YES!!!" My shout reflected an interconnected set of feelings and impulses. Ecstasy. Relief. Protective concern. Attention. Reverence. Eagerness to share the good news with others. Innocent disregard for the spectacle, my exuberance may have seemed to the pair of hikers resting on a nearby rock. Many Quakers like to speak of "that of God" in all things, appealing to our theological cornerstone to inspire and guide our love for ourselves and others. I notice that of God in my compulsion toward and affection for these trails. I notice that of God in the life I find there. I notice that of God in the space between us, the connective and dynamic force between myself and these nonhuman others [End Page 344] that enables me to receive the nourishment of nature while also recognizing my—our—responsibility to nurture these spaces. My hopeful quest for this particular Columbia lily and response to finding it reflect an ever-deepening relationship with the land I inhabit. This relationship has developed through conscious, intentional effort but also through an openness to simply receiving what is there. In short, I am falling in love. Ecotheology is having a moment. Given increasing and appropriate concern over the well-being of the Earth and the lives likely to be most affected by climate change and the destruction of ecosystems, this surge in literature...