Jack Soule - Chosen #4

What is it about New England that is made to seem so sacred, especially in American literature. Obviously, the transcendentalist philosophy originated in N.E. as well as mysticism - they believed one could understand more about God from looking at nature. But there is something about the N.E. landscape, to me at least, that is very attracting - though most of the time it's a barren snow-covered wasteland. It's something about the winter desert that seems to draw people in emotionally in a somewhat numinous or mysterious way. There is almost an atmosphere of depression, yet it is attractive. Perhaps it is my Puritan blood? (I am a direct descendant of one of the Pilgrims - George Soule came over on the Mayflower). But maybe it was something passed down through the men in my family line that has given me this attraction, though I've seen others that seem to experience this too. Perhaps it has to do with America's Puritan ancestry? The original immigrants to this land and founding fathers of our nation saw the New World as the new Promised Land - a land given by God to the Gentile Christians to establish a nation that would usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. Of course, it WAS that post-millenialist thinking and desire to usher in the Kingdom that saw the Puritans invent capitalism. But perhaps the winter-desert like aspects of N.E. are seen as the wilderness and desert of Canaan which the Israelites wandered through. Perhaps a place of spiritual enlightening and learning, but more likely of punishment of isolation. There is something in the human spirit that seeks isolation, judgment, and wandering. Weird.