30 Hours in Paradise

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I have just returned from my long solo hike through the Tonto National Forest. It strikes me that no matter how many forwarded e-mails about God my well-intentioned, but overly optimistic friends and family members send me, it is in the quiet, solitary places of the world where I find the peace that they seek in churches and in old, dusty stories. I do not hold nature in reverence, but I am forever awed by it; its scope and its power. It is the only nourishment that my soul has ever longed for, and the only tonic that has quenched its thirst.