Priest embarks on spiritual trek across New Hampshire

Susan J. Buchanan knows that all of us are on a journey in life. The 50-year-old, ebullient rector of Christ Church Episcopal in North Conway intends to embark on a spiritual trek of a different kind Sunday, June 8, when she leaves for a month-long walking tour of New Hampshire. That will be followed by a month that will include time overseas in Europe with her husband, then a month-long hike up the Long Trail through Vermont in August before her three-month sabbatical ends.Now in her seventh year at Christ Church, she said that sabbaticals are encouraged by the church after five years of service as a way for priests to recharge their spiritual energy in what can be an emotionally draining calling.Originally from Pennsylvania, and raised in a fundamentalist church that Buchanan says did not allow her to ask the questions she wanted to ask, she found a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church during college. She sees her upcoming sabbatical as an opportunity to get outside the walls not only of her church, but of her own mind, to get out in New Hampshire to meet with residents of all denominations and beliefs.She says organized religions often expect the flock to come to the church. She wants to bring the church to the people to listen to their concerns in their quest for spiritual fulfillment.What I look to do is go out and slow down and listen, said the energetic Buchanan. Walking is my way of slowing down. The church as an institution these days is not as much of a place to go to as it was in the 40s and 50s where people went on Sundays. Yet we are at a time when people are claiming they are spiritual but not religious. They dismiss the church of any relevance, and I think sometimes it is of the church's own making. So I want to go out and get outside the walls of the institution and listen to what people say of their journey, their hunger, where their path is taking them.She says the times are changing in so many ways, and she wants to make sure that the church adapts in a responsible way, of course.I think the 21st century needs to be time when we change from the church being a place where you come to us, to becoming a place where we come to you, she said.She added that in an age of high gas prices, maybe she and other priests and ministers will have to examine whether they ought to go and preach at satellite stations, to bring the church to the people.She says she is leaving the church in good hands.While she is away, Buchanan says, "A lot of people in the church will be picking up my responsibilities. In a small church, the priest tends to do most of everything, including unlocking the church but people are stepping up to the plate for me for when I'll be gone, said Buchanan.Prior to coming to the valley, Buchanan spent 20 years in Virginia, including serving her first eight years as a priest at a Christ Church in the Shenandoah Valley. During her youth she spent some time in this region of New England, including coming yearly with her father and family to a camp directors' retreat at a camp on Lake Kezar in nearby Lovell, Maine. She also used to come to the White Mountains to hike.I am the only Episcopalian in my family. I come from a very conservative, fundamentalist family background. I went to Wheaton College (evangelist Billy Graham's alma mater) and my parents were concerned with me being there at that liberal place. I was kicked out of my parents' church, the Church of Plymouth Brethren. That's the church brethren that you may have heard [author-Lake Woebegone radio show host] Garrison Keillor talk about because that was his church while growing up. I guess I just asked too many questions, said Buchanan, and there simply wasn't room for any questions. So I went back to college and switched my major to biblical studies. I figured if they were not going to let let me go out and ask questions, then I would go and find my own answers in biblical studies.Her calling to be a priest evolved from that spiritual quest.Married to Richard Smith, a computer science teacher at Gorham High, the couple have five grown children between them Buchanan has two children and three stepchildren, two women and three men, ages 25 to 29.She says she looks forward to walking from town to town in New Hampshire, noting that more than one friend has already dubbed her the Granny D of church reform in reference to the well-known Granite State octogenarian who has marched the country on a political reform crusade.I will be wearing my collar and there was some debate onthat, but hopefully that will help open up conversation, she said.She plans to leave North Conway June 8 at 9 a.m. between morning services at Christ Church Episcopal. They are to give me a sendoff, I am told, said Buchanan, who plans to walk to Madison for her first day, and then to travel on to Tamworth.Always a walker who started hiking at the age of 13, she notes she hiked across the Grand Canyon as a youngster. Since moving here, i have done half the 48 4,000-footers, said Buchanan. The mountains are among the things that drew me to this place, she said.She will be staying at peoples' homes and inns en route.June's focus is not so much the walking but being in the towns where people gather and figuring out how to instigate conversation, said Buchanan, adding in a somewhat confessional tone, I bartended and waitressed for many years in college. After work, we used to unwind, just talking and when it came out about my [faith], people would focus in on that to the point that I sometimes would say, Hey, can we just talk about something other than God tonight?' When I started my own discernment of whether I was being called to be a priest, those conversations were always ongoing, and I want to go back out there and reconnect with people who have that spiritual hunger and their own spiritual journeys. I want to explore how the church can come to them because they're not coming to the church, said Buchanan. After Tamworth, she plans to travel by car to Peterborough, where the towns are more densely populated.Next up will be stops that will take her across the state to Portsmouth, followed by another car ride, this time heading north along the Connecticut River to Woodsville and then to Littleton.I will walk back into my own territory to Bretton Woods Christ Church Episcopal oversees the Stickney Chapel there, said Buchanan.She does not plan to step in the door of any church in June, focusing instead on a ministry of the streets.I really want to point my direction outward. I will will not totally rule out speaking in a church, but that is not the plan anywhere. I want to be walking town-to-town on Sundays versus spending time at churches to cut down on that sense of the opportunity for someone to say come preach for us I really want my June time to be outside the church, she related.In July, after her husband completes his school teaching year, the couple will spend some time visiting within the church institution, including heading to Europe where Ms. Buchanan says she will want to just do some listening.I will be visiting churches where they do church a little different, some broader denominations, visiting some active Emergent church gatherings, said Buchanan.One of her college friends is godfather of one of her children and is now the head chaplain of the U.S. Army in Germany.We will go over to spend time with him and see how the ministry has changed in that setting. He has been a chaplain a long time. There is a general distrust of institutions in the world, and I want to explore whetherthat carries over...too see how does the changing attitude about church affect our soldiers. He has seen more openness to spiritual journeys within that context, said Buchanan.They also plan to visit a friend from seminary school who is the dean of the Episcopal cathedral in the "City of Lights" Paris.It will all be traveling with a spiritual bent, but of course, some of it will simply be fun, laughed Buchanan, whose husband is ex-military and who has traveled in his earlier life.Above all, she is looking to keep her mind open to new ideas.I think we have spent so much time trying to define God, thinking we've got God boxed inside our walls now we have to get outside those walls. It's that hunger for a bigger God ... and it's not just our individual denominations Christianity thinks we have God in the box, but I think that misses how big God really is, said Buchanan.When she returns from Europe, Buchanan plans to spend the month of August on a solo hike along Vermont's Long Trail, hiking up Vermont's spine between the Massachusetts border and Canada. I'll be breaking some of the lightweight backpacking rules by carrying a few books which I plan to buy and read en route. I'm not sure what the direction will be after a few months away and after a few months of listening; of what ideas I will need to explore more.So I will spend time reading, and I will resupply once a week for food and a new book to read, said Buchanan, noting she prefers to hammock camp when she is on the trail.She will have an online blog (http://faithafoot.blogspot.com" \t "_blank" faithafoot.blogspot.com) for her hiking journal. She will access that with a hand-held communication device, while her e-mail address is mailto:faithafoot@gmail.comMy church board is very supportive [of the sabbatical], although they are worried about my safety. But, like me, they are excited about the conversationwe will have together come September when I come back about how do we honor who we are and the traditions we love but still open up the walls around us all and the church, said Buchanan.