In this essay, Fred Bahnson, author of Soil and Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith, offers a tribute to the preeminent nature writer Barry Lopez. Originally published in Notre Dame Magazine, we are republishing “An Unbroken Grace” to commemorate the first anniversary of Barry’s death. In 2018, Fred spent several days with Barry at his longtime home in Finn Rock, Oregon, along the McKenzie River. As he recalls the time that the two spent together beneath old growth Douglas firs, Fred reflects on the life of this great writer whose numinous encounters and lifelong adoration of mystery informed his practice of living in service to the power of story as a way to illuminate and heal.

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