Inspired by our hiking small groups at PCTC, Pastor Julie Delezenne wrote a 12-month hiking devotional to be used by small groups or individuals embarking on hikes in Northern Michigan (or similar climates!). Begin your hike by reading the devotional and closing prayer together and continue with one or more of the listed “practices” during the hike. Suggested hikes listed connect with the theme of the month (but are only suggestions!). May God bless your journey in God’s wonder-full creation.

January : Winter and the Solace of Fierce Landscapes

Suggested Hikes:

Mission Point Lighthouse (hiking out on the frozen ice)

Cedar Creek Natural Area

“Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are.” 

– Jose Ortega y Gasset, 20th Century Spanish Philosopher

Many in our area make the choice to go to warmer climates during these winter months.  The ground is frozen, covered in snow.  The sky is usually gray, the coldness of the air penetrating our lungs and our bones if we are out for too long.  

If you are out hiking (or snow shoeing!) in Northern Michigan in January, you are making a choice to embrace the harshness of the landscape that we find ourselves in this month.  And yet it is sometimes in the harshness of the bitter wind or the quiet of the frozen forest covered in snow, that those of us who are drawn to this area all year round stumble into new understandings of God.  

In his book, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, Belden Lane focuses on desert and mountain climates, but the icy world of Northern Michigan in January can be just as “fierce.”  He writes, “There is a special intrigue in the images of God that come out of harsh and rugged landscapes, those that remain so utterly indifferent to pressing human concerns.  People are sometimes pulled, both spiritually and geographically, to that which most ignores them” (52).  He says that, when open to it, we can find joy and freedom in experiencing “a sense of God’s indifference to all the assorted, hand -wringing anxieties of human life” (53). 

Hiking out on the frozen Grand Traverse Bay by the Mission Point Lighthouse where the water is shallow enough to be frozen very far out, I feel a sense of smallness in contrast to the vast expanse of ice, the fierce cold wind, the endless gray skies.  My own sense of smallness reminds me of the “incomprehensible greatness of God” (Lane, 53).  

In the Book of Job, Job experiences tragedy after tragedy.  His friends come to console him and to offer advice about the hand-wringing anxieties he is facing.  After chapter upon chapter of unhelpful talk from his friends, God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind: 

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

    Tell me, if you have understanding.”  – Job 38:4

God proceeds to ask Job if he knows anything at all about the mysteries of creation: mountains, oceans, sea monsters, birds, fish, wild land animals.  For several chapters, God tells Job all that God has done and known and created.  

Job feels overwhelmed by his smallness and God’s greatness.  He says:

“I know that you can do all things

    and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’

Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,

    things too wonderful for me that I did not know.”   -Job 42:2-3

Job is a perfect prophet for January in Northern Michigan.  The harshness and beauty of the landscape around us this month can offer freedom, joy, and wonder for those of us listening for God’s voice and feeling our smallness and God’s greatness out in our frozen world.  

During the Hike:

• Wearing snowpants, find a snow drift to rest in for a while.  Listen for God’s voice in the quiet.  
• Discuss with a hiking partner or ponder alone:  What about hiking in January in Northern Michigan do you find appealing?  Do you feel God’s presence differently hiking in January than in June?  Do you feel like the landscape of Northern Michigan reflects who you are?  In what way(s)?  

Prayer: 

Creator God, thank you for landscapes that remind us that you are God and we are not.  Help us to find freedom and joy in that knowledge as we gain new perspectives on the anxieties of our human lives.  Amen.  

Bibliography:

Lane, Belden C.  The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality.  Oxford University Press, 1998.