Spiritual Heroes: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson: America's Founding Spiritual Seeker

By Jennifer Revill

 "The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul."‍

Three days before last Christmas, I drove the twenty-five miles from my home to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts to visit the grave of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerging from the warmth of the car into the frigid air, I stood for a long moment, breathing in the scents of frozen soil and the low-hanging hemlock branches. Of its own accord, my internal compass began to swing northward, and I turned and lifted my eyes to Author’s Ridge, where Emerson’s family and many other Transcendental luminaries are laid to rest.

Sleepy Hollow, like many so-called lawn cemeteries of 19th century New England, was designed to be both hallowed resting place and natural oasis. The layout of the grave sites and memorials attends carefully to the natural swells of the land, the growth patterns of the trees, and the natural connection points to the streets and footpaths of the town. Emerson, at that time a resident of Concord, gave the principal address at the cemetery’s dedication ceremony in 1855. He also frequently took evening strolls along the cemetery paths.

I climbed the steep hill to Author’s Ridge and stepped over the chain surrounding the Emerson family plot. In its center, like an oversized jewel, stands a waist-high uncarved chunk of rose quartz stone marking Emerson’s grave. Burnished by the late afternoon light, the massive stone seemed to glow. I rested my hand upon it, and read the simple epitaph on its brass plaque: “The passive Master lent his hand/To the vast soul that o’er him planned.”

I have always held dear the things of the 19th century. The history, the artifacts, and the ideals of that time call to my heart. I live in a house that began its life as a blacksmith shop and forge in 1855. I cherish books and textiles and antiques from that time, and I regularly sing a style of music from the Victorian era. Early American cemeteries are particular places of reverence for me. And here, beside the remains of the great man, with the wind rushing past and the trees rustling overhead, I paid my tribute, feeling Mr. Emerson’s wise presence amidst the encompassing wisdom of Nature and of God.

I learned of Emerson as most Americans probably do, from my tenth grade English textbook. It had a paragraph or two about the Transcendentalist movement in the United States and a grainy portrait of the man looking impossibly formidable and remote. It was only later, as I was finding my way as a Unitarian Universalist, that I experienced him as more than a historical figure. In learning of his life and ministry, and absorbing the spiritual brilliance that spilled out of him like a fountain of light, he came to be a mentor, muse, and inspiration in my life.

“Is not prayer a study of truth? A venture of the soul into the unfound infinite? No one ever prayed heartily without learning something.”  ‍

Emerson was born in in Boston in 1803, the son and grandson of ministers. He attended Harvard College followed by a year of divinity studies there, and was appointed pastor of Boston's Second Church (formerly Congregational, then Unitarian) in 1826. But by 1832 he had resigned from the ministry, after struggling with its traditional Christian precepts and no longer able to deliver communion with a clear conscience. He spent the remainder of his life writing, giving public lectures, and preaching sporadically. Emerson eventually settled in Concord in the fall of 1834 with his wife, Lidian, and resided there until his death.

Emerson’s evolving theology challenged sacrosanct Christian beliefs, and framed a new philosophy that eventually became known as Transcendentalism, an idealistic philosophical and social movement centered on the immanence of divinity and on personal responsibility for one’s own spiritual life. His exhaustive study of both Christian and Eastern (in particular Hindu) theology and his observations of society and culture supported his writing and teaching on many topics that were, at the time, both subversive and electrifying. His lectures and writings found a particular audience among young, spiritually-oriented men and women who were intellectually restless and dissatisfied with the standard answers of their churches.

I myself was raised mostly outside of traditional religion, and have always felt the strongest kinship with people who are spiritually independent, never churched or formerly churched, who are seeking the messages and blessing of the Divine less through their engagement with religious tradition than through their own experience. There was far less tolerance for overt spiritual independence in Emerson’s time than there is today, that is certain. But Emerson spoke fearlessly and directly to those who were questioning traditional religion but still yearning for a connection with divine wisdom. (I suppose these were the “spiritual but not religious” folks of their time!) His theology did not reject God; rather, he reimagined the divine as something found within each person, not dictated or constrained by dogma. He articulated a fresh and inclusive new language of freedom and reverence, offering bold permission to question authority and frame one’s own beliefs.‍

His theology did not reject God; rather, he reimagined the divine as something found within each person, not dictated or constrained by dogma. He articulated a fresh and inclusive new language of freedom and reverence, offering bold permission to question authority and frame one’s own beliefs.‍

“Within us is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty, the eternal One.” ‍

In a time increasingly disconnected from nature, for those of us feeling spiritually adrift in a digital landscape, his reverence for the natural world speaks directly to our spiritual longing for a deeper connection to the earth. His seminal essay, Nature, doesn't just describe forests and fields; it invites the reader to encounter the sacred in ordinary landscape, in silence, and within the self. Perhaps Emerson’s most profound gift to contemporary seekers is his validation that we are all capable of honoring our own beliefs as truth. Rather than depending on external validation, we can rely upon the sacred autonomy of spirit acting within us. He challenges us to do our own profound soul work.

Some years ago, moved by Emerson’s courageous decision to resign his formal ministry so he could better follow his personal truth, I wrote what amounts to a fangirl poem about him entitled “Emerson’s Overcoats” which was recently honored in a local poetry contest. Here are the final stanzas of that poem.

They were his flock. And they wanted church.
He was Harvard Divinity, after all. He was their gate of heaven,
trusted to reach up for God’s word, give it a spit polish,
and hand it over.
They also wanted communion, from Waldo’s own hand.
There was to be no compromise.
But he could no longer do what religion commanded.
He closed his eyes,
put hands to temples. Hands. Temples. Which were which?
Where was the altar, if not inside Man’s own chest?  
Communion could be had this moment, any moment.
A bird on a branch: there.
An egg, symbol of the universe, turning slowly in its boiling:
there too. "Every day,"
he had written, “and every act betrays the ill-concealed deity."
God was everywhere,
and not even trying to hide.
So, he slipped the robe from his shoulders,
and stepped from the pulpit. But his work
was still the Lord’s. He later wrote, “Only so much do I know,
as I have lived."  
And later: “Thus of their own volition, souls proceed into heaven,
or into hell.”

The greatness of God lives also within our own hearts; and Emerson’s wisdom helps us know that we are both empowered and obliged to be wise stewards of that greatness in our own lives.

But if a [person] would be alone, let [them] look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between [them] and what [they] touch. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give [humanity], in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would [someone] believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

                                                 ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature