Editor's letter: On top of Bear Mountain

last updated 8 January 2015

At the summit of Bear Mountain in upstate New York, there are majestic views of the Ramapo Mountains and the Hudson Highlands. Some 1,300 feet above the Hudson River, big birds of prey drift on the thermals, and the wind feels fresh and clean in your face. In such a setting, it’s easy to commune with one’s better angels, which is why I go there each season. It’s akin to a religious experience, and as close to church as I’ve been getting in my adult years. Which, I suppose, qualifies me as a member of the Nones, or the religiously unaffiliated—a group now growing faster than any religion in the U.S. (see Briefing). We’ve been claimed by the atheists, but I’m more in sync with the pantheists or casual Buddhists. I’d also include in my tribe the Hudson River School of painters, who found transcendence in the beauty of the wilderness and the vastness of creation. For Thomas Cole, the founder of the school, nature was the “visible hand of God.”

So I was ready for some quiet contemplation when I arrived atop the mountain on a beautiful Easter Sunday. But sadly, it was too late in the morning for that. My fellow celebrants had already arrived: motorcyclists revving their engines; tourists talking away in Spanish, German, and Japanese; hikers on their iPhones; babies crying. For a moment I longed for the dark hush of church and the smell of incense. But then I looked up and saw the sun, high in the sky, shining down on all of us, and realized that there is also something spiritual in losing oneself in the joyful din of humanity on a spring weekend.