Nature is not just wild spaces.
"The Kingdom of God is inside/within you (and all about you), not in buildings/mansions of wood and stone. (When I am gone) Split a piece of wood and I am there, lift the/a stone and you will find me." -- The Gospel of Thomas Had my younger self had a crystal ball, I likely would have been surprised to find that I would one day be associated with any system of spirituality that emphasized nature. Camping, hiking, feeling connected to the wide, wide open; that had always been my sister's MO, but never mine. I didn't dislike the outdoors, but I didn't seek it out, either, and as I grew into my chosen life as an academic I learned to be critical of sentimental or uncritical concepts of nature which posited open space as pure and untouched and contrasted them to contaminated human habitats. However, it was this analysis, although I didn't know it at the time, that enabled me to eventually rethink how I thought about "nature." For although wild spaces a