More on bare feet; also, bears

As a kind of appendix to the previous post, read this poem.  I can't take credit for finding it, since it was my mom who found it and sent it to me.

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes." 

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

God is in nature.  People who see life, verdancy (looked it up in the OED, promise it's a word), abundance, both happiness and pleasure, and beauty in nature are perceiving God... 

So what do lots of people do when they go outside and it's a beautiful day, and the grass is green and lush under their feet?  They take their shoes off.  Instinctively, almost.  You go to the beach, you see the shifting sand, you take your shoes off.  Why?  Because you want to feel it, you want to sense it.  More than that, you want to be part of it, you want to become Nature again.  You see the life, the strength, the calm, the fury, the beauty of nature and you want to touch it.  

Or, in my reckoning, you see God and want to draw near unto Him.

In other news, I've been watching tons of Man vs. Wild recently with Bear Grylls.  Bear Grylls is pretty much a stud and this may sound nerdy, but I recently found out that he's like the Chief Scout of the Scouting Organization.  He's the real thing, I feel like.  Most of all, he's an adventurer and he absolutely loves the outdoors.  He's a lucky son of a gun who gets to go to ridiculously cool places and just bushwhack around for a week or so while getting filmed doing crazy stuff.  Anyway, I'm sort of living vicariously through him.  My favorites: the cold places.  Loved him in Scotland, Ireland, the Arctic Circle, Alaska, and now I'm watching Iceland.

Before I go on to more bears, I will mention that last semester I got obsessed with watching Lost and watched all six seasons.  I will probably blog about Lost, as lame as it might be to blog about how a TV show changed your perspective on life in some ways.  (Also I'm going to blog about why I think I should get married and have kids.  Bet you can't even wait.)

Now for other Bears.  I just started reading this book called Mark of the Grizzly.  It is way too much awesomeness.  I love this book for several reasons.  One, it is super outdoorsy in theme, mood, feeling, and content.  Two, the grizzly bear encounters are gruesome and gnarly, but most of the time exhibit true courage and amazing endurance on the part of mauling survivors.  Three, it talks about bears, the backcountry, and the bush.  Nature and its natural inhabitants.  I feel like I'm learning some primal wisdom here by reading about the grizzlies and about the land they live in.

The book is, I repeat, awesome and entertaining, and takes my mind off people's technical problems when I'm at work.  It's just kind of therapeutic.  So, that's it for my report on bears and Bear.