Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice by Belden C. Lane (review)

For thirteen summers I taught a seventeen-day Outward Bound-style seminary course in the Weminuche Wilderness of the Colorado Rockies called “An Adventure in Wilderness and Spirituality.” Consistent with an experiential pedagogy, there was much journaling, solitary meditation, and directed reflection while we were out, but no reading and absolutely minimal theological discussion. In preparation for the experience, however, we read Abbey, Dillard, Leopold, Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams and, all thirteen years, Belden Lane’s inspirational, genre-breaking classic, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality (Oxford, 1998). Solace, structured around the three-fold movement of the via negativa—purgation, illumination, union—was an attempt actually to perform apophatic theology in a book. It offered a groundbreaking blend of academic and personal reflection.

Lane’s next book, Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality (Oxford, 2011), an exhaustively researched and at points startling (especially vis-à-vis the Puritans) and revelatory exploration into Reformed views of nature, was written in traditional academic form. In Backpacking with the Saints, Lane returns to the genre of Solace, offering up a seamless blend of scholarly theological observations, nature writing, and personal reflection. The result is a series of moving meditations that invite thoughtful awakening to oneself before God amidst creation. Backpacking is neither the scholarly nor the spiritual equal of Solace, but it is full of wisdom, is by far the most accessible of the three books—its form would lend itself to daily, devotional reading—and, let me stress, is also for those who have never ventured beyond their backyards or local parks.

Part One of Backpacking reflects briefly upon the significance of one’s embodied context when reading texts on spirituality. In conversation with David Abram, Barry Lopez, John Muir, Gary Snyder, and other celebrated nature writers, Lane argues convincingly that wilderness contexts facilitate bodily, risk-taking ways of knowing that are especially productive for spiritual reflection. For all the recent scholarly emphasis upon attending to context in reading and interpretation, Lane here draws our attention to an often neglected dimension of context, namely, the degree to which we inhabit tamed or wild natural landscapes. Reflection upon major spiritual texts and revered figures among the world’s wisdom traditions causes one to realize that Lane is helping us recover a classic sense for the spiritual fecundity of wilderness contexts.

Part Two of Backpacking, “The Pattern of Wilderness Spirituality,” is loosely organized around four “legs” of wilderness spirituality: departure, discipline, descent, and delight. The thirteen chapters of Part Two are a series of vignettes wherein Lane reflects on a spiritual theme in conversation with a celebrated spiritual guide and a specific landscape. For example: “Disillusionment: Laramie Peak and Thèrése of Lisieux,” “Mindfulness: Moonshine Hollow and Thich Nhat Hanh,” “Discernment: Taum Sauk Mountain and Jelaluddin Rumi,” and “Holy Folly: Aravaipa Canyon and Thomas Merton.”

Because Lane covers a wide range of figures from diverse cultures and faith traditions, the presentation of their thought is necessarily highly selective and incomplete. On the other hand, Lane’s representations are not misleading, and his refreshing affirmation of the spiritual insights of diverse faith traditions is welcome in a world full of religious exclusivism. By book’s end readers have been introduced in an existentially engaged way to a wonderfully diverse group of spiritual guides. In combination with readings from primary sources, the thirteen chapters of “The Pattern of Wilderness Spirituality” could easily anchor a rich university course in interfaith spirituality.

Lane’s backpacking trips are short (two to three days), and this creates a productive tension, for Lane is continually reflecting on the significance of wilderness revelations for life back in the “real” world. Notably, Lane writes this book as he enters retirement after decades of teaching. He begins to reflect upon this transition here in Backpacking, but the reality of retirement still lies in his future. Retirement typically marks a time when the kids are raised, workweek...