Have you ever stood at a mountain overlook, watched a sunset, or gazed up at a sky full of stars and thought, there has to be something more than this? On this episode of Spiritual, Not Religious, Shawn, James, and Mollie welcome Rev. Jane Cheema — Director of Spiritual Programs at Appalachia Service Project and a lifelong lover of the outdoors — for a conversation about why so many people, especially young adults, find God more easily on a trail than in a pew.

Jane shares how a childhood spent among the lakes and forests of Northern Minnesota shaped her spiritually, and tells the story of a solo winter night in the Boundary Waters that awakened a lifelong practice of paying attention to the natural world. From there, the conversation opens into some of the biggest questions facing the church's relationship with creation: What if the beauty of nature isn't the end of the spiritual journey, but the beginning? How did centuries of "dominion" theology quietly separate us from creation instead of connecting us to it? And what would it look like to reclaim stewardship not as an obligation, but as a relationship?

The group digs into rewilding the church, the difference between control and communion, and why wilderness — biblically and personally — has always been a place of disorientation and reorientation rather than danger to avoid. Mollie reflects on presence and unplugging ahead of her upcoming Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, James connects creation care to the image of God in all things, and Jane closes with Wendell Berry's poem "The Peace of Wild Things."

It's a wide-ranging, honest conversation about awe, stewardship, disconnecting from technology to reconnect with the sacred, and why getting outside might be one of the most spiritual things you do all week.

In this episode:

• Why nature so often feels spiritual — even to people who've stepped away from church
• Jane's story: growing up in Northern Minnesota and a solo Outward Bound winter night
• Rethinking "dominion" theology as relationship and stewardship instead
• Creation care as a defining value for young adults
• Rewilding the church: what worship outside the walls could look like
• Control, comfort, and why churches can be afraid of the unpredictable
• Unplugging to connect: technology, presence, and Mollie's upcoming Camino pilgrimage
• Closing reading: Wendell Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things"