Running with the Saints: Wilderness Running as Spiritual Practice
I want to dive into a book by Belden C. Lane called Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice. It has been the most influential book in creating Pilgrim Endurance. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to share it with you and how I use it to form Pilgrim Endurance.
Lane offers a five-part structure to this book based on each “leg” of a backpacking trip. The legs include: the call to adventure and risk, assumption of a necessary discipline, descent into darkness and loss, the return to a freer and more responsible life, and reprise. I would characterize this book as written for a general audience rather than academics because of its accessibility and flow, and I hope you get a chance to read it! What I want to do here is to adapt what Lane wrote for an audience of runners.
Before getting started with the five legs of the journey, I want to share some of the perspective he begins with. He shares that he feels drawn to hiking and backpacking as a spiritual practice in order to move past his attachment to words, which can only take us so far, and he imagines the spiritual journey as moving deeper and deeper into the backcountry. There is a long history of wordless prayer, Christian or otherwise, and this return to the body gives Lane the setting to move beyond words. As I talk with more and more pilgrim athletes, the same comes forward. While discussing why they run, many talk about an embodied connection with God and creation that isn’t about words. It’s a view, a feeling, an encounter. As runners, there are different possibilities for shorter runs than there are for longer ones. The experience changes with a transition from setting down what seemed so urgent when we started it and turning towards the experience of the run. On shorter runs, it can be harder to access that presence, and at the same time, it is those shorter runs that build up within us capacity for longer ones. It is that daily devotion to rendezvous with God that tunes you into more and more encounters.
The legs include: the call to adventure and risk, the assumption of a necessary discipline, the descent into darkness and loss, the return to a freer and more responsible life, and the reprise.
Lane points to the desert mothers and fathers from the first few centuries after Jesus died. They saw that there were no easy routes to self-actualization and that it began with self-abandonment. They sensed that spiritual life thrives on the margins of society (much like plant life!) and that solitude framed by community was helpful. A few other patterns emerged for them. There was plenty around desire and relinquishing. Failure is a major occasion for spiritual growth. As they built up practices of embodied discipline, their bodies began to be significant teachers. Finally, wilderness breeds resistance, critique, and honesty. Lane noticed that neglected things arise when we enter the disarming silence of wilderness.
As in the spiritual life there are no shortcuts, so too in running there are no shortcuts to endurance.
You may have certain genetics or grown up with more “slow twitch” activities than “fast twitch” ones, but nevertheless, there is more to a fulfilling running life than those advantages. Consistency is one of the central principles for Pilgrim Endurance because there are no shortcuts. When we realize the desires God has for us and has put within us, it becomes a matter of consistency and cooperation rather than a quick-fix or sitting back waiting for desires to be realized.
I think many of us also realize that our favorite trails are on the margins of society. We still run in the city or on well-maintained paths, but we yearn for time in spaces where it’s easier to see God at work. As we continue tuning ourselves into what God is up to, we see God everywhere, but, for example, my run really changed the other day when after six miles I left the dirt road of Waterton Canyon and started into the forested single-track of the Colorado Trail. God draws us into these wild places and into the wild places of our own souls. We find beauty and connection and encouragement and solace. We also know that we cannot stay out there forever, that good community is something we love to return to as well. This dynamic flow creates a beautiful dance in our lives.
Our bodies teach us.
Our breathing tells us how intensely we’re working. When we feel fatigued, we can inquire whether it’s from that long run yesterday or the life stress of today. When we get injured, we learn about how attached we are to running and how we depend on it. Sometimes, we even contemplate that we might have to give it up. When we complete a goal event and we feel the rush of fulfillment, we learn about “what we’re made of.” When we join that group run and feel less lonely, our bodies show us what it’s like to fulfill a desire. May we continue to learn from our bodies as we continue on this road.
Finally, I just want to connect with the sense that wilderness breeds resistance, critique, and honesty. When we spend time, day after day, week after week, in these beautiful places, we build a relationship. It starts to matter more and more to us whether the plants and animals and microbes have what they need to thrive. Our relationships with these places also show us that there is another way to live, that the TV show or politician or celebrity don’t have to be our guide. We can get in touch with the abundance within creation and hold onto that in a society that focuses so much on scarcity. In relationship to these trails and spaces on the margin, we can find clarity and process the struggles of our lives and our world. We can find the confidence to be honest with ourselves and the people around us about the things that really matter. We can find space to be honest with God that we’re angry or hurt or anything else we’re “not supposed to feel.” The wilderness is honest with us. That peak really is as tall as it is, and whether or not you’re struggling to run it, it is not going to change. That kind of honesty helps us bring that into the rest of our lives.
The wilderness is honest with us.
With Pilgrim Endurance, I’m inviting you and a whole community to walk together into these wildernesses. I believe that our bodies are strong teachers for us, including and especially our emotions and feelings. I am convinced that consistency in our disciplines gives us the best chance to notice and respond in our relationships with God, others, and ourselves. On that foundation, we can bring the fruits of our labor to the world that desperately needs folks who are grounded and centered in the midst of serious challenges. We seek out longer adventures into the wilderness, and those feed the groundedness in our callings. For so many of us, we feel a strong and consistent call into wild places, and at some stage of the journey, it is important to go alone. In addition to that, we also find a yearning to share the adventure with others. We look up from the path, and we see a stranger who eventually becomes a companion on the journey. We feel relief to know we don’t have to do this leg of the journey alone.
Stay tuned for discussion of the dynamics on the five legs of the journey Belden C. Lane describes. It’s beautiful, and I think you’ll love it.
