On Friday, March 20, 2020, writer and environmental activist Terry Tempest Williams had a catalytic dream. After climbing a spiral staircase, she met a female professor who reminded her she had once made a vow “to create the epic documentation of the Glorians.” Williams had no idea what a Glorian was, but she was convinced of the solemnity of her vision.
She thought back to the day three years earlier, when she began her tenure as writer-in-residence at Harvard Divinity School (a role that concluded this spring). “The first thing Dean [David] Hempton asked me when I first walked into his office was, ‘What question are you bringing with you?’” Williams says. “And what came out of my mouth or my heart was, ‘What are the spiritual implications of climate change?’”
That’s one of the questions Williams explores in her new book, The Glorians:
Visitations from the Holy Ordinary. Oscillating between her life in the red rock desert of southeastern Utah and her time at Harvard, Williams invites readers to witness and delight in the beauty of the world around us. She says that, though she never found a true definition of a Glorian, she had an epiphany outside her home one day, watching an ant carry the magenta blossom of a coyote willow plant.
“I thought, that is a Glorian,” she says. “An ant ferrying a blossom across the desert is a Glorian.”
In this conversation, edited for length and clarity, Williams reflects on the Glorians and how her time at the Divinity School shaped her as a person, teacher, and writer.
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You chose not to define the word “Glorian” in the book. Why?
It was probably the most important decision I made in the book. I had a definition I thought would help the reader, and then at the last minute, I thought, “Who am I to define the ineffable?” And the truth is, I still don’t know what a Glorian is. To me, that’s the mystery of it, the grace of it. Because how do we define God? How do we define Earth? I felt that it belonged to the realm of the imagination. Now it belongs to the readers.
Your practice of spotting Glorians seems rooted in deep attention. How do you cultivate that?
When I’m at home, in the red rock landscape of Utah, it’s easy to pay attention because your life depends on it. How hot is it? Do you have water? Do you have the right shoes? When I’m at Harvard, it’s a landscape of distractions, but I would find my focus with the students. I always taught in the Divinity Chapel, where Emerson gave his landmark address in 1838. That speech got him banned for 30 years, so one of our assignments was to write a sermon that would get you banned from Harvard for 30 years. When we’re in those kinds of conversations, we are absolutely present. Our minds are fluid, not fixed. And if we are present, we will know what to do.
“I still don’t know what a Glorian is. To me, that’s the mystery of it, the grace of it. Because how do we define God? How do we define Earth?”
How do you reconcile your belief in both the earthly and the divine, while maintaining credibility as a scholar who is taken seriously?
First of all, I’m not sure my scholarship is taken seriously. Second, and perhaps most importantly, being at the Harvard Divinity School, I finally felt like I had come home. When I was in environmental studies programs, I had to hold back. Even in literature and creative writing programs, I often kept [some] parts of myself private. But when I came to the Divinity School, that language was taken seriously. There is no physical evidence of God, one could argue, but through the rigorous study of theology and religious thought, one encounters a different kind of evidence: evidence of faith, devotion, and a language centered around the ineffable. Our students are encouraged to embrace uncertainty because, in many ways, that is all there is.
Central to the book is the story of the Harvard Divinity Tree, an oak believed to be about 150 years old and cut down in 2019 to make way for the school’s expansion, after much protest. You write about sleeping beside the tree the night before it was cut down and hearing the message: “My absence will be my presence.” Years later, how do you interpret that message?
I think the absence of the Divinity Tree has become its presence. [This April] we [brought] home three benches [made from the tree] to the Divinity School. In December, we brought back this beautiful round table made from the tree. People can see how big it was, how beautiful it was, and how two opposing truths can live within the same structure. You can see evidence of the carpenter ants on one side, and on the other, the healthy tree rings.
It reminds us that we do not have to look away from our difficult histories, but that there can be a cohesive conversation that settles in. Was it difficult? It was. Did we know what the outcome would be? No. We were in the middle of the story during that crisis. Now, I think it is a beautiful story that students can carry with them through generations: that there once was a tree that allowed us to grieve, that allowed us to love, to act, to trust, and to have faith in a future we cannot yet see.
