Who Knew Hiking Was Such a Unifying Activity?

Every summer, my husband's young cousin comes to Arizona from Pennsylvania for several weeks to visit all our family.  She always wants to be outside (she loves the heat) and hiking is one of her favorite activities. Luckily, I happen to live at the base of South Mountain and beautiful trails await within walking distance of our front door.

Last Sunday, we decided to take her on a beautiful and pretty strenuous track, the Holbert Trail, up to the Dobbins Lookout point.  We left around 5:00AM for this 5.35 mile round trip hike and we climbed the equivalent of over 100 flights of stairs on our journey to the top.  What stays with me most about this hike was not the heat, the huffing and puffing, the fear of slip-sliding off the unending switchbacks that lace the way to the top, but it was the people we encountered and the small microcosm of the world that they represented in my backyard.

I could not believe the variety of people we passed – black, white, Hispanic, Native, Indian, Somalian, married couples, dating couples, interracial couples, people with their children, siblings, best friends, huge extended family groupings…it was amazing to witness all this diversity in a short two hour period.  So what were we all doing?  Enjoying God's splendor, exercising our bodies, and greeting each other warmly.   This hike became more than a moving meditation for me, it became a spiritual journey.

I began to wonder, if we can all come together on a Sunday morning to enjoy each other and ourselves in this mountainous space, why can't we do it on the streets?  In our neighborhoods?  Our cities?  There is so much hate and fear and aggression in our world today.  I knew that I was experiencing something that transcended all the issues in our world today and that there still is so much love, goodness and peace in our society.

Later I came across Psalm 81:13, “Oh that My people would listen to Me, That Israel would walk in My ways” (New American Standard bible) and I knew that is what I experienced on Sunday.  We were walking in His way, the way that people of the Christian faith should strive for, and it was a beautiful thing.  It gives me hope that our society will find its way through this dark period of senseless violence and we will learn to celebrate all things we have in common which are much more numerous than the ways in which we are different.  Have a wonderful week!

Author Info: Beatitudes Campus

At the foundation of Beatitudes Campus is the vision of Church of the Beatitudes pastors and congregation members to create a better alternative for older adults than the nursing homes of the early 1960s. The type of community they imagined was the first of its kind in Arizona. Beatitudes Campus is proud to continue the legacy of our founders, by being a leader in the field of aging services for over 50 years.