In this season of Lent, the Calvin Ecosystem Preserve is offering a prayer walk in front of the Bunker Interpretive Center to students interested in experiencing the themes of the church calendar in nature.
According to department coordinator Katrina De Man, when program director Jamie Skillen asked his team at the Preserve in the early fall for ideas for programming, De Man knew that she wanted to do something with the church calendar. It was then that she came up with the idea for a Lenten prayer walk to take Preserve visitors through the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ.
To move this idea forward, De Man met with Campus Ministries members Susan Burner and Paul Ryan. “We realized that it would be important to have a conversation with Campus Ministries and try not to duplicate their efforts,” De Man told Chimes. Through this conversation, De Man discovered that Campus Ministries already had licensing to artistic images created by Scott Erickson for a similar Lenten prayer walk project. With these provided by the Campus Ministries team, De Man set out to adapt Erickson’s work to the Preserve, using funding provided by the Calvin Center for Christian Worship to purchase durable banners and garden stakes that could be re-used in future years at the Preserve.
Erickson’s art, said De Man, is reflective of his work as a spiritual director. “I think he has learned to listen well,” she told Chimes. While his images are rooted in historical and theological traditions, De Man finds the themes “very accessible,” and these themes coincide with her vision for the prayer walk at the Preserve. With the use of QR codes at the beginning of the walk to provide simple meditations and verses to participants, De Man hopes that the prayer walk as a whole will be accessible to anyone, even if they just happen to stumble across it.
In addition to accessibility, another theme of the walk is experiencing the quietness of nature alongside the repentance and reflectiveness of Lent. “Walking, slowing down and being intentional about time in nature can really help us…think Lentenly, if that’s a word,” said Ben Richards, a senior studying urban planning, entrepreneurship and sociology and a Discipleship Assistant (DA) for Outdoor Recreation. Richards plans to lead a group of students through the prayer walk after spring break.
Tom Hartzell, campus sustainability program coordinator, also finds a concordance between the work of the Preserve and the season of Lent. He told Chimes that the cycles of life and death in nature are often a reminder of the themes of the church seasons. “Right now, you know, you look out at the Preserve and everything looks pretty brown and gray and dead…we’re kind of reflecting on being with Jesus on the path to the cross, entering into death,” Hartzell said. “But then Christ knew that he would rise again, conquering death, just as we know that spring will come again and leaves will sprout from the trees and frogs and birds will be singing. So I think there is a powerful connection there.”
