Despite torrential rains and flash flood warnings, the Monadnock Summer Lyceum hosted its fourth speaker of 2023.
Matthew Myer Boulton, an actor, minister, academic and most recently filmmaker, spoke to more than 100 in-person attendees on Sunday morning. The talk, titled “Nature Writing, Nature Walking: Spirituality and the Living World,” addressed several schools of thought surrounding nature walking and the human impact on the environment.
Boulton, a graduate and current faculty member of the Harvard Divinity School, has shifted his focus toward the world of filmmaking. He founded the Salt Project with his partner, Elizabeth. The nonprofit visual storytelling production company has won four Regional Emmy Awards and collaborated with a wide network of clients, both corporate and humanitarian.
The talk began with Boulton giving an abbreviated history of lyceums. Tracing its roots back to ancient Greece, the school of Aristotle, and the teachings of the time, Boulton demonstrated the ties of the natural world to learning.
Aristotle, having built his school around the Peripatos, an extensive network of walking trails around Athens, gave his lectures while walking.
“Learning and wisdom, the cultivation of wisdom, is not a sit-down sport but a walking sport,” said Bolton. “It is something, according to Aristotle, no slouch, to be done while walking.”
Boulton went on to describe the innate humanity of upward walking and conveyed the transience of people’s presence on Earth. In imagining 2 million years of evolution as a 100-minute movie, the advances of the homo sapien would merely occupy the final few minutes, if not seconds, of the film. The invention of agriculture presents itself at minute 99 of the movie, according to Boulton. It was this invention that coaxed humanity toward the contemporary conundrum of humans progressing to a point where evolution is not fully utilized.
“We used to sit between long walks,” said Boulton. “Now, we walk between long sits.”
During the talk, Boulton analyzed the teachings of several reformers about their approaches to the natural world. The writings included in the speech were of poet Mary Oliver, writer Wendell Berry, Vietnamese monk and philosopher Thich Nhat Hanh, and naturalist Henry David Thoreau. Boulton found the venue of the speech to be especially meaningful, as Peterborough United Universalist Church has hosted Thoreau. Boulton described the experience of sharing the venue with Thoreau as “stirring and inspiring.”
In an interview, Boulton, emphasized the importance of promoting the natural world within religious contexts.
“There’s a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on the standing that communities of faith have,” said Boulton. “Most religions believe that creation is a precious artifact, or poem or artwork that God created, and so we need to treat it with respect and honor it.”
Boulton has spent much of his youth and adult life living in Boston. He now lives in Keene with his partner, Elizabeth, and two sons, where they enjoy the opportunities to appreciate the natural world.
“There’s a lot of places for nature-lovers,” said Boulton. “A lot of places to swim and hike and kayak and I like to do all that stuff.”
The Monadnock Summer Lyceum will be on a break Sunday, July 23, in order to give attendees the opportunity to attend the MacDowell Colony’s Medal Day. Lectures will resume July 30 with JerriAnne Boggis, executive director of New Hampshire’s Black Heritage Trail.