“The first task of the Christian in the postmodern age is to get people looking at the stars.”
— Fr. John Nepil
Back in high school, I had the opportunity of a backpacking trek at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. The ten-day trek that spanned over 100 miles across the 140,000-acre ranch was a memorable and life-changing experience in ways I may not have been able to articulate as a sixteen-year-old.
While the opportunities for backpacking unfortunately dissolved after scouting, there remained an enduring desire to return to the woods. “To These Things You Must Return” was a line I remember inscribed over the main exit at Camp Manatoc, a local Ohio scout camp. Without a known timeline, I had a feeling that one day I would indeed return. I suppose that life, especially the spiritual life, is itself a series of deepened returnings. God has a plan, and we are a part of it.
Fr. John Nepil, a priest of the Archdiocese of Denver and an avid mountaineer, has recently written a book that has been a real gift in understanding my journey in the outdoors with God. To Heights and Unto Depths: Letters from the Colorado Trail, Fr. John’s entertaining and deeply insightful account of hiking the nearly 500-mile trail has reawakened my deep but forgotten desire for the backcountry. Notably and ironically, I began to write these words somewhat distractedly on a coffee shop rooftop with an encompassing barrage of noisy city bustle and construction, but after a quick afternoon hike, I returned rejuvenated and refocused.
As you would imagine, To Heights and Unto Depths does not simply stop at noticing and admiring the natural wonder and beauty of nature; it dives deeper in connecting the gift of creation to the mystery of humanity and the nature of God. Ultimately, Fr. John writes, the fruit and gift of the entire experience for him was the opportunity to “learn anew the art of being human.” Referencing Ratzinger, Fr. John proclaims this relearning is ultimately a reorientation to the God-man, Jesus Christ. Fr. John’s insightful and digestible daily reflections from the trail stem from his own journey of faith in Jesus and also his study of the philosophical and social context of our modern day, looking to Joseph Ratzinger, Romano Guardini, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Luigi Giussani as luminaries.
“Hearing the call of God in creation is not an aspect of the Christian faith, but one that strikes at its very heart.”
What it means to be human and what it means to live well are perennial questions. They are also questions difficult to approach in our modern day with so many deep and conflicting viewpoints. Fr. John highlights that these viewpoints stem from powerful philosophical movements of the past century—namely, transcendentalism, existentialism, and liberalism. These movements have led to a radical individualism: a culture of self-creation, which has oriented us more inwardly than outwardly, more to the abstract and transient and less toward concrete reality. Arguably, these movements have come with great consequence to human struggle, with anxiety, depression, addictions, dysphoria, suicide, etc., at all-time highs. An interesting investigation on this modern shift can be found in Fulton Sheen’s Peace of Soul.
Fr. John argues compellingly through his experience that recovery of belief in God is fostered, in part, through reengaging with creation. He writes, “God, above all, is a mystery of faith. But he is knowable in and through his two books—Creation and Scripture.” Quoting Balthasar, he says, “Hearing the call of God in creation is not an aspect of the Christian faith, but one that strikes at its very heart.” In other words, reconnecting with creation in body and mind helps us to reconnect, in the heart, with the Creator.
He writes, “So why do we climb? Because the interplay of deep immersion in the created realm matched by its transcendent heights impresses upon us a sense of our creatureliness. It signals a retreat from our modern, technocratic society and its unquenchable desire for conquest and consumption of all. The wild, precarious, and uninhabitable locales of the high places awaken us again to the realness of things and, thereby, the realness of God.”
In this journey of reconnection on the trail from Denver to Durango, Fr. John notices and reflects on the grandeur of vistas, challenge of elevation, necessity of water, opportunity of silence, disruption of storms, potentially trek-ending nuisance of blisters, and beautiful danger of wildlife.
In my own renewed experience of the outdoors and journey with God, I would add to his reflections the important and profoundly moving experience of the sense of smell. To this day, when I go out on a hike and I am in the midst of pine trees on a hot day, my mind and heart go back to the trek at Philmont. I am simultaneously brought to an intense peace and reminded of the gift of creation. Rather than just noticing a nice smell, the experience seems to tap into some core level of reality. Taking a full breath in the outdoors feels, for me, less of a surface experience and more of a radical communion, which Fr. John explains is the deeper purpose of our existence. Of all the senses, it is particularly within the sense of smell that creation enters the creature; there is indeed a physical and metaphysical communion. I imagine that in the perfect communion Adam and Eve experienced in the garden, their prelapsarian sense of smell allowed them to experience creation in its fullness—physically, psychologically, and spiritually, and thus also God, insofar as he is able to be known.
Over the years, I have noticed that as my daily walk with God has deepened, my appreciation and love for the outdoors has deepened seemingly simultaneously. In high school, I certainly appreciated the grand views from Philmont’s Mt. Baldy (12,441 ft) and the quiet solitude of the surprisingly wooded New Mexican backcountry. However, I would appreciate it entirely differently today, having intentionally journeyed in faith through seminary and into priesthood. While the goal of our life is not to return back to Eden, heaven, I think, will look and feel more like it than not.
Yet, To Heights and Unto Depths doesn’t insinuate that encountering creation alone will lead to a conviction of belief or a deeper relationship with the divine—creation is encountered in community. Fr. Karol Wojtyla famously took groups of young people into the mountains for adventure, catechesis, community, and conversion; he saw nature as the great classroom of humanity. As interesting as imagining the valleys and vistas of Fr. John’s descriptions are the dynamics of the relationships he shares with three other thru-hikers and the hilariously named groups of guys who join for various segments of the month-long alpine pilgrimage. Several chapters highlight the essential gift and struggle of relationship: Humanity is created not for isolation but communion. Arguably, without communion—deep and vulnerable relationship—humanity’s potential remains unrealized.
This reflective combo of nature and theology would be a fruitful read for anyone in the Church. It could also be a helpful mind-and-heart primer and potential conversation starter for someone who is outdoorsy but away from the faith. Fr. John has a heart for evangelization (see the Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast) and wants his reflections on the Colorado Trail to help people reengage with creation with a strong sense of mystery and divine gratitude.
Ultimately, however, I would say his desire is to help lead people through nature to the person of Jesus Christ—the Incarnation of God—who seeks to reconcile all creation and humanity to the Father. After finishing the book, in a time of prayer, I looked up at the Eucharist in the monstrance and prayed, “Jesus, you are the bread. You are the mountain. You are what fills us and nourishes us, and you are the summit to whom we strive to climb and live in communion.” Thankfully, To Heights and Unto Depths has helped me to reconnect, to climb a few feet, to take a few steps along the path with and to him.