Into the Woods: Exploring Henry David Thoreau

Into the Woods: Exploring Henry David Thoreau
Program Leader: Bruce Johnson

Explore the life, writings, and ideas of Henry David Thoreau, including Walden, while delving into his connections with Transcendentalist thinkers and reflecting on the art of living deliberately.

Reflecting on his two-year experiment in “simple living” at Walden Pond, Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” In this program, we’ll delve into Thoreau’s life, his connections with Transcendentalist thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, and explore a selection of his writings, including his masterpiece, Walden. No prior study of Thoreau is required—just curiosity and a love of ideas.

Bruce Johnson is a Unitarian Universalist minister with more than forty years of experience serving congregations in New England and the Midwest. Officially retired from full-time ministry in 2023, he currently serves as a quarter-time consulting minister for the Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Houghton, MI. He has been drawn to Thoreau since first encountering his work as a teenager.