Dear Henry:
You’ve
only written to me a handful of times but I want you to know what you’ve
done. When I read Walden I was just another person.
All I cared to do was amass what I could to feel successful, fulfilled,
and complete. I read what you wrote me
because I wanted to read American classics.
Nothing else has affected me like you.
The rest were all books. You wrote
me a letter.
I
wonder Henry, if you would see simplicity when you walked in my door. You had the stillness of solitude. I have a wife, kids, work outside the home,
and college at night. I will not trade
them, but they are far from simplicity.
So I ask you, Henry, am I doing alright?
Every morning when I walk out to my car I watch my small farm clamor
around me and I appreciate them. I don’t
curse the fir needles on my car. I
notice the grass turn from green to brown and back to green, finally to be
covered under frost in the dead of winter.
I look at the fruit trees I planted and the simple garden and delight in
their growth; then I look at the fir trees planted by God and realize how
little I am master of Nature. You see,
you forced me to take heed of nature all around me. Portland is my Concord, the pond is the cross
streets of 179th Avenue and Washington Street; that is where my
house is, my cabin. You understand.
Henry, I
have to say in all I have learned from you I have something against you. In all I learned from you about simplicity I
am burdened to achieve this feat. The
promises of convenience tie me down until I am eventually wrapped in a tangled
net of empty assurances that my life will be better once I have their
products. I try to clip the web but it
is so difficult. So what I have against
you is that you made me see that there is a hole in the net. On the other side of that hole is a place
that is full of God and Nature. That
humanity’s problems can’t be solved by wars and that the mere thought of
claiming a country outside of the very place you live is futile at best. I feel the net tighten and I put my finger in
the webbing and tug. Perhaps there are
some that don’t see it as a net. They
may see it as a blanket and they wrap themselves in the warmth of consuming all
the trappings of commerce. I know I’m
being strangled. You showed me this
burden, this truth. Therefore I hold
something against you.
The truth
is; I love you. I can no more hold my
burden against you than I could be angry at a botanist for telling me some
plant I wanted to eat was poison. I love
you for telling me that I was poisoning myself and I love that you did it one
hundred fifty years in advance. I love
that when I talk about you the people I love smile and the people I hate roll
their eyes. I wish we could save them
all. That simply isn’t going to happen;
maybe I shouldn’t judge the saved and unsaved.
This is no religion. If you were
writing doctrine then I don’t want it. I
don’t want to make your words theology.
Eventually they would get dogmatic and cold. I do want to tell you how I love you and your
words. Thank you for they have changed my life.
Simply yours,
Matt
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