A Beginner's Faith in Things Unseen

by John Hay

In A Beginner's Faith in Things Unseen John Hay writes from the vantage point of eighty, and like no other American writer on what he calls "the real world." Hay returns to memories of a boyhood divided between Manhattan and the deep woods of Sunapee New Hampshire, to a time when he knew "one should always be outdoors, with the unregistered and the unsigned."

He writes with precision and beauty of pilot whale strandings on Cape Cod's Outer Beach - and of the attendant human confusion and greed - and on the sweep of a century in which "our modern, owned world is going deaf from listening to its own answers." Hay keeps company with Maine barn swallows and finds in the Lakota Sioux Grass Dance a way to listen to the wind.

Always, through often uncannily affecting language, John Hay shows us just which ceremonies we all must attend to.

Genres: Nature

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

John Hay (August 31, 1915, Ipswich, Massachusetts – February 26, 2011, Bremen, Maine was an American author, naturalist, and conservation activist. Hay co-founded the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in Brewster, Massachusetts and served as its president from 1955 to 1980. He composed 18 books from his "writing shack" on Dry Hill at his home in Brewster, Massachusetts, including two autobiographies, A beginner's faith in things unseen (1995) and Mind the Gap: The Education of a Nature Writer. (2004).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ha...

Reviews

[Kate]

"In A Beginner's Faith in Things Unseen John Hay writes from the vantage point of eighty, and like no other American writer on what he calls "the real world." Hay returns to memories of a boyhood divided between Manhattan and the deep woods of Sunapee New Hampshire, to a time when he knew "one should always be outdoors, with the unregistered and the unsigned." He writes with precision and beauty of pilot whale strandings on Cape Cod's Outer Beach - and of the attendant human confusion and greed - and on the sweep of a century in which "our modern, owned world is going deaf from listening to its own answers." Hay keeps company with Maine barn swallows and finds in the Lakota Sioux Grass Dance a way to listen to the wind. Always, through often uncannily affecting language, John Hay shows us just which ceremonies we all must attend to."

A deliciously sweet little book, the author's childhood memories entangled with love of the land and anguish over the destruction modern society wreaks on it.

[Debbie]

I really didn’t know what to expect from this book, but it is mostly Hay lamenting about man’s lost connection with the natural world. Hay’s pessimism is evident throughout the book, as is his love of all nature.

A Tree and a Star - “ I am part of a world that concentrates more on its right to possess the earth than on cultivating right relationships with it. We ignore the deeper reality that a land is better known through respecting its mysteries than by putting it on a shopping list. “

Listening to the Wind -
“The countryside was no longer the safe haven it once had been, and now, where money is valued above life itself, society cannot discriminate between what is useful to it and what is not. Still, we have no other recourse but to follow the wind that leaves us behind but goes on its everlasting business of reconciling and begetting, carrying the signs of an enduring architecture around the globe.”

[Pablito]

The message: Nature illuminates us . . . but only if we take the time to observe and live in it.

The writing: meandering, and lacking transitions.

[John Fredrickson]

The cover of this book contains a reference to Rachel Carson, which I can definitely see, but it is Thoreau that came to my mind most frequently as I read this book. The book consists of 10 not very long chapters, each of which addresses some aspect of our relationship (or lack thereof) to some component of nature.

Hays' ruminations on the natural world of DC, Cape Cod, or Maine all take on a very intimate flavor. It is clear that he took the time to look at things himself (as opposed to just book-learning about things), but he is also quite knowledgeable about the things that he observes. There is a wonderful (literally!) sense of awe that comes through these pages, and it is reminiscent of a child's innocent appreciation of the natural wonders that surround.

On top of this sense of wonder, Hay's exhibits a dark sense of foreboding about the abuses, both deliberate and inadvertent, of our natural resources (hence the references to Carson).

[BGW]

What a lovely loosely organized collection of thoughts on the natural world in the American Northeast, made even more insightful by my current location (of course, I picked this book to read on the Cape by design). I hope to adopt Hay’s child-like curiosity and apply it to the everyday, where beauty surrounds us if we but look.

[Alice Eberhart-wright]

Just discovered Hay through this book, which makes me want to read more. It took me right back to our recent visit to Cape Cod, reawakened my deep seated belief that nature is our key to understanding the world, deepened my awareness of the importance of nature readings to relax me and take me away from the stresses of the day.
I liked his chapters devoted to a particular phenomenon, such as grasses. I found myself out in a tall grass prairie, could smell the smoke from spring burnings, imagined the days when Native Americans roamed the land not needing all the materialistic things that clutter our world. The book leaves sounds of ocean and birds and wind to carry me through the day.

[Andrea Taylor]

Beautiful!