An Unorthodox Sunday Tradition

So going on hikes makes you feel spiritual? OK, if that's what you want to define "spiritual" to be. Maybe it's the buzz you feel after the hike is over. You can get a similar buzzing sensation by quickly taking several deep breaths and then holding your breath for ten seconds. When people say they are not "religious" but are spiritual - they should think twice about they mean.

Hi, I am currently doing an assignment on Judaism and after reading this little write up of yours, you have interest me in the way how you and your family are different from the regular Orthodox Family. To add, I personally agree that being out in nature is one of the many ways to feel closer to God. There are five branches to Judaism and I was just wondering which one you would consider yourself to be under: Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, or Humanistic. Each are apart of Judaism but believe in doing things differently from the original traditions.

I tried to take my children to church but it did not give us what I wanted as a family ...
God, family, nature. We began camping when our son was 6 months old and started with tents and then tent trailers and one child became two. We hiked and the kids loved it.
Now they are 26 and 29 and we all still enjoy each other and hiking biking backpacking and the beauty of our world

Watching the sun rise from a mountaintop on Kauai and hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes - those were the times I knew I was looking into the face of G-d.

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”

Thank you for writing about your family ritual. We are hikers but it is not a ritual. I think you're parents were looking for something that the whole family would do together every week and they chose something that they genuinely enjoyed and their hope was that The kids would be instilled with the same feeling.

What a wonderful article! A Sunday hike is my "time for worship" as well - and I feel closer to God than I ever did attending a Roman Catholic Mass.

Beautiful--and exactly what I experienced with my parents except that what my parents did wasn't so explicitly spiritual. They too were of different religions just like yours and were each somewhat alienated from the religions they grew up with. I too hated it as a teenager (and often refused to go) but I loved it as a younger child. I'm 71 now and my husband and I still hike frequently and walk every day.

Thanks for this column. It so accurately describes my parents these days. Though it wasn't ritual for me and my brother as kids, it became so for them after we left the house. It's been their moment to connect with each other. A beautiful place to worship.

I go to our church building to gather with the Saints at the river that flows by the throne of our God and when I look out the window or go out the door of my home I see my God in the creation.

When our kids were small my wife wanted me to take them to church because “They need religious training.” I told her they’d be closer to God in a duck blind than they’d ever be in a church. Fortunately for the kids my view prevailed.

A beautiful way to worship.

Very good.

The founding fathers understood the importance of nature as many of them, including Thomas Jefferson, were deists. They believed in a god of nature that we might do well to restore respect for. Our current apathy for the natural world is having adverse ffects on its climate and on our spirits. The Japanese have the most forested developed country on the planet and migrate en masse to them to engage in " forest breathing". That's a breath of fresh air that most of us could use more of.

Our family has also benefited from an early tradition of exploring and hiking. No two walks are ever the same as the seasons and years unfold in infinite variety. These lessons were not lost on our young children as they have become caring and nature loving adults.

My family loves the outdoors. My spouse and I have taken many a serene trip in our national parks. We frequently hike. Nonetheless, if we substituted our supernatural beliefs and practices with hikes ours would be empty lives of increased conflict and angst. As the greatest writer whoever stepped on God's green earth put it, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Your family made the correct decision - we're made to hike - not to sit in a pew listening to dogma.

If your spouse is spiritual, then you’re spiritual: it’s as simple as that. Part of it is the belief that a modest dose of religion makes a man a better man—a better husband, a better father, and a traditional religious framework is one good way to raise a child. You may want to build on and expand that, but you need the foundation from which to do that; it serves as an axiom. There are other good ways, but many of us are not intellectually acute enough (or disciplined enough) to develop better substitutes. Left to our own devices, natural religion without revealed religion would leave us with neither.

Loved your piece and how true it is for some of us! On weekends, my friends and I ride along 9W, which winds up from the George Washington Bridge in New Jersey through New York state. I have often said that it is on that road, drafting off the cyclist ahead of me, that I can "see God."