Sunday May 3rd, 2026 we are launching our next book group. You can find the full details here. Every week, I will be updating this article with reflections on the chapter we are reading for the following week. This article will include chapters 1-5, which we will discuss at our second gathering on June 7th.
I will notify participants who are signed up for the book group via email and will notify subscribers via Substack Chat when I update the document. If you are not a subscriber and want to be notified as reflections are added, please subscribe.
Your Invitation to Join the Conversation
Anyone is welcome to join the online discussion. You can respond in the comment section, based on the readings, or in response to my personal reflections and quotes. Please keep your comments to 500 words or fewer. Please be respectful and kind to those who share.
Don’t feel limited to the reflection questions posted below. They are simply prompts to help you get started. You can share in whatever order or format you like.
1. What stood out to you from the chapter or my reflections?
2. How do you feel about what you read?
3. What did you find most challenging?
4. What questions would you like to discuss with others who are reading the book?
I will pull insights and questions from everyone’s reflections and use them to draft our discussion guide for our group gatherings.
My Personal Reflections
Chapter 1: A Communion of Subjects (Read by May 10th)
What Stood Out to Me:
The Broken Conversation
What stood out to me from this chapter can be summed up in this quote:
“Spirituality and nature are not separate. Attempts to keep them apart break the world.”
This premise is supported by the lead quote from Thomas Berry, which I love,
“The divine communicates to us primarily through the language of the natural world. Not to hear the natural world is not to hear the divine.”
I also appreciate the reference to nature as the “First book of God.”
Defining Those on the Sacred Journey
I have struggled with the label Christian with the current political hijacking of that label, which ascribes a definition that is far from my own beliefs. I feel more comfortable with the label of edge-walking nature mystic as defined by Loorz. She defines a mystic as
“someone who has an experience of union with The One—and The One may be God, it may be Mother Earth, it may be the cosmos.”
Nature mystics are defined as
“those who experience the presence of the sacred through nature.”
Her definition of an edge-walker as those
“wandering along the hemlines of the Christ tradition.”
These edges are a narrow space between religious tradition and “very personal experiences in nature that have revealed a truth of their own.”
I have felt drawn to the writings of mystics throughout my faith journey and believe the Meister Eckhart quote to be true,
“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.”
All of them describe moments where they experienced a oneness and interconnectedness with all that is. Loorz states,
“Mystical experiences in nature—those moments when you sense your interconnection with all things—are more than just interesting encounters. They are invitations into relationship.”
The Challenge of Our Time
I agree with Loorz statement,
“We are staring at the slow-motion collapse of empire. Standing at the threshold of profound change.”
As well as her naming of the root problem,
“The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.”
My Challenges and Lingering Questions
“There have always been edge walkers: those who didn’t follow along with the status quo, who didn’t swallow the version of religion offered by those on top of the hierarchy as The Only Way.”
Do you relate to Loorz definition of an edge-walking nature mystic?
What personal experience have you had with this wilder form of spirituality?
Redefining Church
Like Loorz,
“I longed for church to be a place where Mystery is experienced, not explained.”
I also appreciated her spacious definition of the church simply
“as a place of intentional connection with the sacred.”
I am struggling with using the word church to define this type of nature-rooted spirituality, not because I don’t believe it is deeply spiritual, but because of the baggage the word “church” carries both for those inside and those outside the institutional versions of that word.
How do you define the word church?
Is our definition of the word expansive enough to cover this kind of untamed spiritual pathway?
What is another word that better fits gatherings of those seeking to connect with the sacred through nature?
The New Story
I think this collapse and these root problems are evidence of Berry’s recognition that we need a new story.
“We are in trouble because we do not have a good story. We are between stories. The old story is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned ‘the new story. We are talking only to ourselves. We are not talking to the rivers; we are not listening to the wind and stars. We have broken the great conversation. By breaking that conversation, we have shattered the universe.”
What in our current story needs to be revisited?
How can we help discover and reveal a new story?
Reading Schedule
May 17th - Chapter 2
May 24th - Chapter 3
May 31st - Chapter 4
June 7th - Chapter 5
Please share your reflections on Chapter 1 or my reflections on Chapter 1 below. Ideally by May 10th.