A Colored Man's Love Affair With Nature

                                                                                   Drew Lanham 

 I've written about Drew Lanham, the ornithologist whose memoir  The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature I found meaningful. In that book he talks about eventually moving away from what was often the harsh religion of his upbringing . Just the same, there is a deeply spiritual quality to his descriptions of the ways in which he sees and hears the natural world and birds in particular. 

In his book and elsewhere he has written about the realities of "birding while Black," knowing that there are dangers inherit in being a Black man roaming the countryside in ways which would rarely occur to someone who is White. He reflected on this when Christian Cooper, a Black man and a birder, was threatened by a White woman in New York City's Central Park last year. 

As we enter Black History month I will mention a wonderful interview with Lantham on NPR's, On Being just a few days ago.  https://onbeing.org/programs/drew-lanham-i-worship-every-bird-that-i-see/ In that exchange with Krista Tippet he reflected:

As much as I ran from my grandmother’s first Sunday God, I worship every bird that I see. And wildness is a wayward weed, but it’s also worthy of adoration and worship. So each time I see in those things that are flying or that are wild and free, I see a bit of me in that. And then that whole creation story my grandmother used to tell me about, I become a part of that, and I get to evolve through it. 

I commend the entire interview to you, in all it's poetic wisdom. While I'm still firmly Christian, my Groundling reverence for Creator and Creation resonates with Lanham's outlook.