D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
August
2008
Sharman Apt Russell
Page: 2"This is a book about the most important concerns in my life," Russell said, adding that each of her tomes has explored a subject with which she has fallen in love, often "skimming the cream" of what experts in a field have done. "We turn to religion for comfort and for answers to some big questions, and I have to find out what the answers are from pantheism. How does it deal with human suffering? How does it deal with the fact that I have to die? How does it relate to injustice and other problems in the world? How does it help humans be more at home in the world?"
In the universe Sharman Apt Russell inhabits, there is plenty of room for such questions, even if definitive answers never reveal themselves. Ambiguity, like everything else, is part of the whole.
"The universe is so extraordinary," she concluded, with a sigh of amazement. "It's so interrelated, so complex, so surprising, so harmonious. It's all those adjectives that lead up to a sense of, 'How lucky I am to exist right now and to be part of this larger thing!'"
Her enthusiasm is infectious, her descriptions lyrical. For a nanosecond, Earth seems in balance. Am I a pantheist? Maybe so.
Southwest Storylines columnist Richard Mahler is the author of 11 books, including The Jaguar's Shadow: Searching for a Mythic Cat, to be published by Yale University Press in 2009. His byline has appeared in publications including New Mexico Magazine, Santa Fean, Los Angeles Times and Arizona Highways, and on columns for the Albuquerque Journal and Crosswinds. He lives in Silver City.