G. K. Chesterton once wrote,
Your religion is not the church you belong to, but the cosmos you live inside of. Once we know that the entire physical world around us, all of creation, is both the hiding place and the revelation place for God, this world becomes home, safe, enchanted, offering grace to any who look deeply. I call that kind of deep and calm seeing “contemplation.”
The “trail” part of Trail and Table is a nature-based, contemplative experience that Includes fun activities like scavenger hunts, labyrinths, and making nature art.
This is an opportunity to put the obligations, expectations, and busy-ness of the world on pause and take a moment to wonder at the natural world around you.
Wandering in nature, noticing the world around you, and taking the time to enter into a moment of rest and of wonder allows us to:
- Reclaim attention as something sacred
- Root ourselves in place (especially the natural world)
- Practice presence over productivity
In our modern world, our attention is treated as a commodity to be harvested. We exist in a state of constant stimulation that fragments our ability to be present—to God, to others, and to creation. We are constantly on screens. We are constantly connected. We are preoccupied with things we need to do and goals to achieve. Gathering outdoors and paying attention to the natural world around us is an act of choosing presence over distraction.
It is also a political and a spiritual act. Our worth is not measured by our output, by our accomplishments, by our productivity. Our worth is not measured by how well we “fit in” to what the world tells us we should be.
We already fit in. Nature reminds us of that. We are all interconnected. Nothing exists in isolation. In nature, everything is relational, slow, and cyclical – not instant and extractive.
“In a world that profits from our distraction, gathering in creation to simply notice is a quiet act of faith—and resistance.”
This practice of gathering, wandering, and wondering in nature is sometimes called Wild Church or Forest Church, and it is an experimental way of engaging with the Creator through contemplation in the cosmos. It is a way of re-enchanting the ordinary created world around us through attention to the smallest things around us, trusting that loving the thingness of the thing in front of you is the beginning of loving all things, and then loving God as Godself.
