Hiking for Soul

So, I truly suck at keeping a blog because, well, I get bored with it, and don't feel like writing.  Then I feel inspired and write in a flurry.

In a notebook.

With a pen.

I don't feel it authentic to retype it all here, so, I don't.

A lot has happened since my last post in August.



For one, unexpectedly, I accepted a new job at the community college where I graduated and where I started my academic career 20 years ago.  As much as I love the students at Union and the opportunities I've had in New Jersey, it's time to go home.

New Jersey is just too expensive, and as I think and pray constantly for my father who is battling lung cancer, I think, one day, hopefully a long time from now, but, one day, my sons are going to go through this with me.  I can't afford a future for my disabled son, Julian, in New Jersey.  He will always require a companion.  In PA, near our family, he has a chance.  Northampton is one of the best community colleges in the country, so the choice to leave, although hard because of my love of Union and many of the people there, wasn't so hard when it came to brass tacks. I am excited by the new opportunities there, and the people are amazingly smart, talented, and dedicated.

So that was a change I didn't see coming, but I am completely excited to start new again there with new friends and old friends that I lost touch with (because, cough, there was no Facebook back when I left).

Since August, I've hiked a ton more but with more purpose.  I've settled on section hiking the AT because as I mentioned in previous posts, my kids will starve and be homeless if I go off grid for 6-7 months.  I will be section hiking the state of GA in May.

To prepare for that 10 day excursion, I've been fiddling with gear and weather, as I had never backpacked in winter weather before.  My first cold weather experience was a disaster, but I was glad to be with a hiker I tremendously respect and learn a ton from (Tracey).  Ironically, I met her at Northampton 20 years ago when I was her supervisor in the Learning Center.  As a deaf hiker, she has the most amazing and keen sense of sight of anyone I've ever met.  She can track any animal.  She sees so much more than I ever could.  She is also old school and doesn't buy all the new fancy crap; she uses what she has tried and tested as a thru hiker herself.  I don't really like to hike with others, but I love hiking with Tracey.

What I have found most, though, in these last few months of hiking is a new church.  Having once been a religious church going person, I've felt insurmountable guilt in not going to a church every Sunday or any Sunday, to be honest.  But, as I hike each weekend, I realize that I have moved into a new place of spirituality.  My faith in God and my belief in Jesus Christ has not changed, but my faith in the human church and the brand of Jesus sold to the masses has, indeed, changed.  But, don't get me wrong, there was nothing that "happened" at my church.  There was no issue or impetus.  In fact, I belonged to a wonderful church here in New Jersey.  They are among the kindest and most Godliest people I've known.  It was me.  Something in me broke or changed, and I just chalked it up to laziness.  But, in hiking weekly, I found that I still wanted to be close to God, but, for right now, I need to get to Him on my own without the distraction of religion.

In nature, I find God.  I can think about God and religion and spirituality in ways I could never do in a building.  Now I know that the religious among you will argue, and probably even correctly, that we need instruction and guidance and brotherhood and sistership, but for right now, for where I am in this life at this moment, I need God without distraction.

Today's hike is a good example of how I think when I'm in the woods.  I am drawn always to John Muir's quote, "into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul." Even though I am a thinker (mind) what I usually think about it how to be a better human (through soul).  John Muir's quote  reminds me of two quotes that open Morning Prayer in the traditional Anglican church, "the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him" (Hab. ii. 20) and "let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be alway [sic] acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer" (Psalm xix. 14).   I always liked to hear those two quotes because it reminded me why I was there in the first place.  John Muir's quote does the same, and I say it before I take my first step onto the path.

In a traditional Anglican service, there is an order or operations not unlike Python code.  Much comfort comes from knowing and memorizing the code.  But, over the years, I found that the memorizing also brought me to a resolute laziness.  I can still recite the entire service from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, but that doesn't make me any more Christian than the next girl.  

The weekly lessons and sermons are supposed to instruct you on how to behave, and that is good, I guess, but I would rather have a round table discussion about it all.  Anglicans are fairly academic, so the messages were never really "go out there and serve soup to homeless vets" which is exactly what Jesus would be telling us to do if he were in the pulpit.  So, when I hike, I try to think about what God wants me to know about the world and my role in it.  Right now, I think we are still working on what I need to know about the world.  At one time, I had lots of roles in religion, but right now, I think the role I need to play is just to listen.  For a mover and shaker, sitting still and listening is a task all of its own.

So, I listen and think.  Today, and most days, a few thoughts usually shake out while I am hiking up and down mountains or through mud or, like today, through water.

First, I was thinking about how I almost always go off trail on a hike.  I don't have great eyesight and am also pretty oblivious if I am deep in thought, so I almost always miss a trail marker.  The last 3 weekends I've hiked off trail, but was able to turn myself around pretty fast.  I feel that this is a lot like my walk with God.  I get off track a lot.  I go wandering, but He pulls me back to look at a map or the All Trails app to see that I've gone off course.  I never get too far away.  Today, I was literally thinking about the kinds of trails we have in our lives when I got off trail.  The irony was not lost on me.

The big flamboyant trails are a little like religion to me.  Everyone who hikes, hikes the big trails at least once.  I was thinking that the big trails are a lot like the big books of the Bible.  The AT is the Book of John.  The PCT is the Book of Mark. The lesser known books are like the lesser known trails.  There is still a lot to learn from them but you have to hike them to find out.  My thoughts on the Bible have changed over the years.  I know I might get struck down, but, I'm sorry, I don't think they are complete.  I think there is stuff left out because the men who wrote them were human men with political and personal agendas.  I do believe they are worth reading, and I do believe that the goodness in them comes from God, but I believe the message is a lot more simple than religion makes it out to be.  To be Christlike means to serve others.  It has nothing to do with the color of the candles on an altar in a building.

Finally, I was thinking that not all hikes are pretty.  Today, the overview of the Swamp was pretty, but when I was thigh high in mud surrounded by winter stripped trees and gross muddy leaves, the hike wasn't as spectacular.  But, you go through the mud to either get to a good view or get back to your car.  Either way, you have to go through it to get somewhere.  Spirituality is a little like that kind of hike.  Sometimes, you have a hike that is just spectacular from the trailhead to the end, but most times, it isn't like that at all.  The AT, my favorite path in the world, is a lot of the same ole, same ole for miles without a great lookout.  You keep hiking it, though, because you know it will lead somewhere beautiful.  Spirituality is worth fighting for because God is beautiful and He is worth the ups and down and blahness of the path when it is blah.

During my hike, I will often stop to write and to take pictures.  I've been doing more writing lately, and that really helps to work out some things that I can't publish on a blog.  We all need a place to go to think about the things that matter ~ relationships, love, loss, sadness, duty, obligation ~ whatever ~ and many people can do that inside a church, synagogue, or mosque.  For me, though, I can only get there in the woods.