It's a web that connects all living things. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together. It's the Force! Er, make that "spirituality in Cold Mountain."
Whatever your own beliefs about the world of the spirit, it's all over this book. Sometimes that looks like concepts from Christian religion, sometimes like attention to the world of nature, and sometimes like legends connected in the book with traditional Native American spirituality; all those things are treated with respect in this book as different modes of experiencing the spirit.
Questions About Spirituality
- What does nature have to do with spirituality in this book? Can you learn about a world of meaning beyond or within the everyday by paying attention to the rhythm of the seasons or the life cycle of a bird?
- What does Christian theology give the characters in terms of spirituality? They don't all believe all of Christianity, but they seem to gain some kind of spiritual experience from hymns and preaching.
- At important moments we get a glimpse of stories or beliefs about the spirit Inman has heard from Native American characters. How do these stories or beliefs matter to Inman? How does he understand his own views of spirituality through them?
- There's a lot of music going down in Cold Mountain; you could practically have a concert series based on this book. Does the music matter to the book's view of spirituality? If so, how?
Chew on This
Spirituality is inescapable in Cold Mountain; even characters like Stobrod who at first seem thoroughly selfish can't escape their spiritual side.
The story the Native American woman told about the other world within Cold Mountain is one of the central symbols of spirituality in the book.