Nature of God

Ranging the world, Perkins explores nature not as a naturalist but as a seeker. Seeking understanding, seeking greater meaning . . . Ultimately, always, seeking God. Come with him to a small island to consider the value of living small lives. Or, partake in a modern day search for Moby Dick. Watch a brutal seal slaughter and force yourself to understand why it had to be. Pet a whale, coddle a trembling dolphin, bury your face in the only flowers that have a color named after them. Agree with or argue an impassioned rant against big cities. Debate Thoreau; realize that what he said was often not at all what he did. Perch atop a glacial erratic and confess that you too are one. Puzzle why a priest would be in the business of selling animal penis bones. Remember the man whose award-winning, audience-winning TV show was nothing but him before a blackboard talking God. Let Hopi Indians lead you down into their most sacred space at the oldest settlement in America. Seek out the unlikely lifeform that is likely the oldest extant on our continent. Consider two Harry Trumans and suffer their heroic losses. Meet the man who created the Tufted Guzzard and the Stuffed Ormie and was the greatest nature writer readers never thought as a nature writer. Attend a Camp for Overprivileged Kids for whom Stephen King wasn't scary enough. Learn the perils of life at minus 55 degrees. Stare down the most dangerous beast in our land, eye to eye. Then become him. Do a worldwide telecast of an event that terrorizes natives while thrilling scientists. Watch a hurricane destroy your house by a dam site. Walk miles along a beach of death, not knowing why. Walk then a beach of erupting life, reveling in birth. Live through the mind-numbing tremors of an historic earthquake. Witness a courtroom case where the defendant on trial is The Dark. Meet a girl too young to be so old, too beautiful to be so cursed. A passing acquaintance who could never be anything more. And, finally, an Epigram on Epitaphs. May all this seeking and consequent finding -- voiced in both present and past, prose and poetry -- carry a reader ever closer to Ultimate Answers. (And, along the way, great enjoyment.)