I can smell when it’s going to snow.  A peculiar statement by all accounts, but for one who was reared in Bedford, Massachusetts—a town that borders Concord—snow is something of a birthright.  And yet, if asked to describe what “it’s about to snow” smells like, I would be at a loss to describe it.  I have never given serious study to the sensory memory of snow or any number of the smells, sounds, tastes, feelings, or sights of New England that I possess, consciously and unconsciously, in my body and soul.

One who has given serious study to the language, not just of senses, but the sensing act and the phenomenon or matter sensed, is Henry David Thoreau.  I argue that the language he employs is theological in nature and practically so.  In many ways, the thrust of this article aligns with the work of many recent scholars engaged in Thoreau studies or studies of Transcendentalism, who have sought to correct false impressions of Thoreau as “anti-“ or “a-religious” or as a reclusive navel-gazer with no eye to the real-world effect of his works on his community and his readership.  His open anti-clericalism and on-paper apostasy from his local Unitarian congregation in Concord notwithstanding, Thoreau’s works are suffused with religious language, references, and doctrines collected from an eclectic array of influences, including the lingering effects of Puritan culture and the liberal Christianity of his current Concord context. 

Taking matters a step further, I argue that he is engaged in composing a “theology of wildness,” which is concerned primarily with seeking divinity or “wildness” in the self and in nature.  As an incarnational theology premised upon the Unitarian rejection of total depravity, Thoreau believes the bodily senses are themselves capable of discerning God in the world.  They are not “fallen” in a traditional sense, though they are atrophied from lack of exercise or use.  The senses must be trained to “see God,” and they must be trained equally and with an eye to the fact that the senses operate best when they operate in harmony.  Thoreau’s writings, particularly and ironically his later works which reflect his so-called “scientific” turn, evoke his own efforts to harmonize his senses and, in so doing, create his own set of doctrines that address the relationship between the divine and the mundane, the wild and the domesticated.  Further, the character and tone of these works highlights his clear hope that his journey of wild discovery will not be undertaken by him alone.  In his readers, he imagines a community of “sensers,” a school of wild theologians, who together might write the book of wild nature.

Lydia Willsky-Ciollo’s full article “May we not see God?”: Henry David Thoreau’s Doctrine of Spiritual Senses is currently free to access on the Harvard Theological Review.