First Church of the Higher Elevation: Mountains, Prayer, and Presence

This reissue of Anderson's thematically connected essays (originally published in 2007) offers a spiritually penetrating look at the mountains of the American West. Exterior wildness has an interior correlate, he writes, and both spaces promote an exploration %E2%80%9Cthat nudges us toward wholeness." His essays join a body of literature (by such writers as Annie Dillard and Terry Tempest Williams) that studies the relationship between spirit and the outdoors. Anderson has a keen eye for informed detail about the flora and fauna of mountain terrain, but most of the book's appeal lies in his descriptions of relationships with people in his life: his wife, their child, and a larger-than-life second cousin, a gun-toting, whiskey-drinking old Jesuit priest. One strong essay (%E2%80%9CInto the Big Empty") describes a solo retreat, but he's no Thoreau, alone in nature. A short foreword by Quaker author Paul Lacey elegantly connects the book to a larger spiritual literary tradition. While readers impatient with mystic meandering ought to look elsewhere, those who love nature, especially above the treeline, will be fed by this contemplative book. (Apr.)