Grand Canyon Celebration: A Father-Son Journey of Discovery

Rating:
Summary: An adventure through internal and external time and space
Review: This book is a fine journey through internal and external space, past and present time. If you loved "The Man Who Walked Through Time" by Colin Fletcher, you will love this book. If you like learning history, geology and geography as stories about people, places, and creatures, you will like this book. If tensions between the rational scientist/humanist approach to life and the more spiritually-based approaches of those who are drawn to mysticism or earth-based religion spark your interest - you will like this book. And finally, if you are moved by the sincere effort of a parent and child to live in a caring, thoughtful, respectful relationship with each other, you will be moved by this book.

Michael Quinn Patton is an outstanding story-teller who pokes fun at himself as a father, hiker, scientist, man and human being throughout. The book describes his fascinating journey through the Grand Canyon as a coming of age ritual with his 18 year old son and a friend who serves as guide. Along the way, Michael weaves in ancient mythology, stories of the knights of the Round Table, the geology and geography of the canyon, his friend's teachings based upon Native American spirituality, his own approach to religion as a humanist Unitarian Universalist, and much more.

Both serious and comical in nature, this is a fine tale of one family's approach to raising children well, having great adventures, and ultimately understanding deeply that parents must turn their children loose with trust in their ability to act with wisdom, make mistakes, continue growing, and live their lives as they choose.

My favorite parts included (1)the journey to and from Merlin Falls, containing a classic example of "jumping off the 100 foot pole without knowing where you will land" as father and son face unexpected danger together, and (2)an adventure in emergency car repair that the author compares to making love in a touching yet hysterically funny way.

This would be a great book for parents and teens to read together and discuss, as well as a terrific story for people who are teens or older to enjoy and digest by themselves.

Rating:
Summary: An adventure through internal and external time and space
Review: This book is a fine journey through internal and external space, past and present time. If you loved "The Man Who Walked Through Time" by Colin Fletcher, you will love this book. If you like learning history, geology and geography as stories about people, places, and creatures, you will like this book. If tensions between the rational scientist/humanist approach to life and the more spiritually-based approaches of those who are drawn to mysticism or earth-based religion spark your interest - you will like this book. And finally, if you are moved by the sincere effort of a parent and child to live in a caring, thoughtful, respectful relationship with each other, you will be moved by this book.

Michael Quinn Patton is an outstanding story-teller who pokes fun at himself as a father, hiker, scientist, man and human being throughout. The book describes his fascinating journey through the Grand Canyon as a coming of age ritual with his 18 year old son and a friend who serves as guide. Along the way, Michael weaves in ancient mythology, stories of the knights of the Round Table, the geology and geography of the canyon, his friend's teachings based upon Native American spirituality, his own approach to religion as a humanist Unitarian Universalist, and much more.

Both serious and comical in nature, this is a fine tale of one family's approach to raising children well, having great adventures, and ultimately understanding deeply that parents must turn their children loose with trust in their ability to act with wisdom, make mistakes, continue growing, and live their lives as they choose.

My favorite parts included (1)the journey to and from Merlin Falls, containing a classic example of "jumping off the 100 foot pole without knowing where you will land" as father and son face unexpected danger together, and (2)an adventure in emergency car repair that the author compares to making love in a touching yet hysterically funny way.

This would be a great book for parents and teens to read together and discuss, as well as a terrific story for people who are teens or older to enjoy and digest by themselves.

Rating:
Summary: diving into the Grand Canyon and the father-son relationship
Review: This is a book that takes you inside: inside the Grand Canyon; inside a father-son relationship; and inside the struggle to make meaning and to take understanding from life transitions. As Patton shares the cacophony of voices in his head -- past and present, his own and his father's, the landscape's and the academy's -- he reminds us of the the turbulence beneath our own surfaces. By paying attention to those voices, even when they confuse and confound, he reminds us of the gifts to be found when we are willing to live in the tension of not knowing.

I was drawn into the story, carried along by the fine writing and the wilderness adventures. I wanted to find out how this experience played itself out for Patton and his son. What would this ritual ultimately look like? Whose sensibilities would most inform it?

I was also drawn into the emotional and intellectual challenges Patton faces as he tries to create a meaningful experience for an 18 year old. Where is the fit of tradition? How can we create meaning without falling prey to mystical mumbo jumbo?

The answers they reach together are not a prescription for initiation rituals for the new age. They are, instead, an invitation for thoughtful inquiry into our own values and history. The answers challenge us to pose our own questions -- and to be relentless critical inquirers.