A Memoir of Christianity Via Negativa
Devastated and spiritually diminished by his mother’s declining health, Belden Lane searched for meaning by escaping for hikes in the wilderness. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes documents the worldview that Lane developed through his trips and through deep scholarship. Landing on the concept of Christianity via negativa, Lane found and argues in this work that God appears through absence: silence, desolate spaces, and death. As much as it is a story about emptiness, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes is as much a promise of hope: Lane describes the freedom one can find in giving up the ‘false self’- the version of personhood that is only concerned with appearances- and surrendering to the vastness and holiness of negative space. Lane combines thoughtfulness and emotion by drawing from the works of renowned Christian authors like St. John of the Cross, Simone Weil, and Edward Abbey, as well as his deeply personal experience of questioning and grief.
Belden C. Lane is a professor of Theology at Saint Louis University. He is the author of several books, including Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice and Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality. His interests include wilderness backpacking, desert spirituality, and storytelling.
Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:
“Lane, a Presbyterian minister teaching theology at a Catholic University, makes some of the rich tradition of the Christian people available to us in a uniquely powerful way because he has allowed it to live in his own life and has an artist’s ability to make that experience present to us. This is theology at its most fruitful best and an exquisitely beautiful read.”
-M. Basil Pennington
“This is a beautifully written book in which the author describes and unfolds the mutually illuminating interaction in himself between his profound sensitivity to place, especially the hard places of this earth, and his experience of one of the hardest of life’s losses. Lane uses his wide and deep knowledge of the mystical tradition to interpret this experience in such a way that the reader is enlightened and encouraged. Reading this book is an experience of the human engagement with the Mystery of God as lived by the author.”
– Sandra M. Schneiders. Professor of New Testament and Christian Spirituality, The Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley
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