What Hiking and “Church” Have in Common

My wife, Amparo, and I were blessed over the Labor Day weekend by a visit from our son, Sean, his wife and two sons, aged 8 and 10. They live in a Chicago suburb and make the plane trip to Colorado, where my wife and I live, a couple of times a year.

I had been thinking about something fun to do with them and discovered among the YouTube videos on Colorado hiking trails one that ascends to the top of a jagged mountain we can see a few blocks from our house. It’s aptly called “Devils Head.”

Happily, Sean and his sons, and my daughter, Maureen, were all up for such a hike and it was a blast – although a bit of a challenge at my age. It’s only 2.8 miles up and back but it ascends 866 feet, making the elevation above sea level just under 10,000 feet. I lived for 31/2 years at over 12,500 feet, but I was in my early 30s then, and on this hike, I had to take several rest stops.

Spectacular!

The views, especially from the summit – which has a small, window-enclosed U.S. Forest Service fire lookout building on its craggy top – are spectacular. On the clear day we were there, Pike’s Peak loomed on the south, and you could see the length of the front range of the Rockies on the west, downtown Denver on the northeast and the start of the Great Plains on the east.

But what struck me more than the views were the other hikers on the trail. A friendlier, more caring group of people couldn’t be found. And I’ve noticed that on other trails.

Hikers are temporarily relieved of their daily cares and chores, and obviously experience a sense of freedom that makes it easier to relate to others. And they’re engaged in a common pursuit, making it easier to empathize with the struggles of other hikers. On a trail, there’s no denying the effect of human bonding.

A book reviewed in a recent issue of the National Catholic Reporter by sociologist Allison Pugh entitled “The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World” explores the importance of such bonding in the workplace.

Importance of Connecting

It discusses the importance of “connecting” to the success of people such as doctors, teachers, therapists, chaplains, hairdressers and community organizers.

“…Pugh identified some common threads,” the article says. “Connective labor … requires active listening and communication that helps the worker and client feel seen. It requires compassion and emotional attunement, ‘when we not only hear what the other is saying but also grasp at the undercurrent of feeling.’ Most important, she found, it requires … a willingness to be open.”

This would apply, seems to me, to all the jobs and professions that deal with the public. I find myself a little disappointed when, for instance, a super-market checkout person fails even to acknowledge me, as if that person’s job is only to record the prices and collect the money. The checkout clerk is usually the only person on the store’s staff with whom you will likely have an encounter. Seems to me essential that customers, who spend a considerable amount of money at supermarket checkouts, feel valued and that they’re business is appreciated.

Makes Sense

“Connecting,” in my view, is among the principal reasons that “going to church” makes sense. Sure, you could connect by joining a weekend softball team or going to an art class, but the relationships made in those activities are superficial when compared to the connections you make at church.

At church, you rub elbows with people of different races, ages, physical and mental conditions and political persuasions that you ordinarily wouldn’t in other settings. Like them, you are engaged in the common search for God. Like the people on a hiking trail, you bond with others who are pursuing the same goal.

And for people engaged in the search for God in the Christian tradition, you bond on a different level, becoming aware of the presence of God, the Father, and the brotherhood and sisterhood with Jesus that God’s presence implies.

“Where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus promises in the gospel of Matthew, “there am I in their midst.”