Calling as Covenant

Starting seminary fresh off a 2,194.3-mile thru hike of the Appalachian Trail, I was acutely aware of the lessons God was teaching me through nature. When I came into LSTC’s orientation three years ago, I had just spent nearly six months adventuring at a pace slow enough to witness the entire lifecycle of some wildflowers; to say I was in tune with creation would be an understatement—I recognized I was part of creation in a way living outside for half a year could only ever teach me.

It’s a sense of connection I have been lucky enough to renew every summer as I work toward completing my MDiv, with hikes on the Long Trail in Vermont, the Superior Hiking Trail on the North Shore of Minnesota, and, most recently, the Colorado Trail.

The Superior Hiking Trail thru-hike also involved an independent study on the Spirituality of Backpacking, advised by Dr. Benjamin Stewart. Through that project, I learned that the better access a zip code has to trails, the less likely its population is to go to church. In other words, a significant part of America evidently feels spiritually fed enough by their outdoor recreation that they do not seek out faith communities in addition.

It is with this statistic in mind that I feel my seminary education would not have been complete without these hikes, without these opportunities to renew my own body, mind, and soul as well as connect with a whole host of characters. Indeed, the trail is one of the last places I have found where not only is it acceptable, but it is expected to end your day sitting around a dinner table with, for example, a gun-owning middle-aged dad from Oklahoma on your left and a queer teenager from Brooklyn on your right. These are the types of daily encounters I have had on my thru hikes that undoubtedly sharpened my ability to connect with God’s people across all demographics. In traveling and sharing a simple life together, the thru-hiking community is the closest thing to the early Christian community as it is described in Acts that I have ever discovered.

More than anything, however, embarking on my hiking career at the same time as my seminary one has revealed to me that creation is our greatest spiritual director, if we are willing to let it be. One of the most profound examples I have of this sentiment is the rhododendron leaf, which the southern half of the Appalachian Trail is absolutely littered with. As I wound my way through the ancient mountains of Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, my steps were often bordered by these small green leaves, leaves which I noticed rarely fell to the ground but rather curled in on themselves when it got cold. In conversation with other hikers, I learned the rhododendrons did this as a means of survival: they would not die at the first sign of winter, but rather do everything they could to protect themselves against the cold weather conditions. They use every tool at their disposal to find their way through, the same way that I have found myself needing to constantly adapt to changing conditions throughout these past few years at LSTC. It is one lesson of many I gleaned on the trail and have found myself returning to throughout my journey of discernment.

I first felt the call to ministry in high school, long before I felt the call to wander through the mountains for months on end. Still, I know that these adventures have been crucial to my formation. I would not be the ministerial leader I am today without each and every mile hiked.