My family never went to church on Sundays. Instead, most Sunday mornings, we would go for a walk in the woods behind my house. It took about a half-hour to walk down to the Potomac River, and as we traversed the little creek that led us there, we would talk. My father would teach us bird songs, the leaves of trees, and a general respect for the natural world in which we were immersed. While other kids sat in church, I found spirituality in being outside-my place of worship buttressed by branches rather than bricks.

It is little wonder, then, that as I grew older, I began to reject conventional forms of religion in favor of being with nature. I found that no feeling experienced in human houses of worship could ever contend with the experience of being in the woods. I began to think of being outdoors as my form of spirituality. I do not worship nature, but I feel that being with nature brings humans as close as possible to being with a higher power.

My connection to nature grew during the past several summers when I worked at a canoe- tripping camp on a small island in Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada. This island was in the middle of an uncontaminated lake containing pure, drinkable water. It was at this camp, I think, that being with nature became more of a spiritual experience for me, eventually becoming my personal form of religion. Every Sunday, the whole camp gathered together in a little grove of cedars on the sunny side of the island to have chapel. One of the older guides would stand at the cedar altar and talk to us about the amazing experiences he had in the north woods and how blessed he felt to be surrounded by such beauty. This chapel became my ideal church. I learned that I didn’t need an organized religion to be spiritual-that I could find my religion in the outdoors.

Nature in many ways embodies all that humans envision in a god. It is our creator-nature is the source of all life. It is also our afterlife. Once we die, our fabric of being returns to the Earth, where nature gives it new life. Most religions emphasize how God is omnipotent and always present in our lives. In that sense, nature fits the definition of a god. It is all around us and within us; it was there before us and will remain long after humans are gone.

I am not espousing the belief of nature as God. My stance on the actual existence of God follows that of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre who states, in Existentialism, that it is somewhat irrelevant whether or not God is real. Rather, he says, it is how we interpret the world that matters.

I am agnostic. I don’t know if an actual God exists or not, and it doesn’t matter. All the spirituality and faith I need in my life, I find in the outdoors. Because ofthis, protecting the environment is important to me spiritually. I have always been concerned with maintaining and preserving what wilderness we have left so that future generations can experience the outdoors in the same manner I do. Protecting the environment is therefore, in my mind, the primary issue our world faces.

I don’t pray to trees. I don’t think that humans and nature are inherently connected as one spiritual entity. My beliefs do not follow the wishy-washy, nature¬worshipping philosophy of Deep Ecologists such as Arne Naess. But I do feel that by being with nature, we, or at least I, can achieve a level of spirituality that cannot be found anywhere else. Being outside, I feel peace, calm, happiness, and hope. I need no other savior.

Nate Raines ‘07 hopes to major in some combination of Environmental Studies and Ecology. He is currently sporting an attractive mullet and a love for the outdoors. He canoes, hikes, climbs, and is disgusting at Ultimate.