Can we recover a sense of place? Or, to use the more explicitly religious terms in which the question is often framed, can we recover an awareness of the places we inhabit as charged with the presence of the holy? Can we recover an attitude of respect and responsibility for these places? Such questions are at once ethical, ecological, spiritual and poetic in character. Which is why the religiously sensitive work of contemporary writers and poets of the natural world such as Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, Mary Oliver, Denise Levertov, Wendell Berry, Thomas Merton and Norman Maclean has such significance at the present moment.

In this project, I propose to examine the spirituality of place implicit in this literature with three primary goals in mind: (1) To contextualize it within the disciplines of Christian spirituality and theology and within the wider conversation about place and identity currently underway within American culture; (2) to identify and articulate some of its major spiritual themes through a critical, interdisciplinary reading of representative texts; (3) to reflect on it theologically from the perspective of Christian .spirituality in order to assess how it might help ground and renew the way American Christians experience the places they inhabit and deepen their sense of commitment to the communities of which they are a part.