Why We’re Publishing “The National Parks Inspiration Guide”

Most of us lead really, really busy lives. The most time we spend “in nature” may be while we’re mowing, gardening, or driving with the windows down. We may visit our hometown parks, but opportunities to get away and visit our national parks are rare treasures.

But in those moments when our mindset is different – planning a two-week vacation, passing through as we travel from one obligation to the next, or finding a free afternoon along the way –we may find ourselves in a thin place, locations where the spiritual world is encountered within our own life and reality.

For moments like those, and to help us create more of those sacred moments in our everyday lives, Chalice Press offers The National Parks Inspiration Guide: Your Journey to Connection, Meaning, and Discovery by Bruce Barkhauer and me, Brad Lyons, president and publisher at Chalice Press.[1]

If this sounds somewhat familiar, you may be remembering two previous books Bruce and I cowrote. In 2019 Chalice published America’s Holy Ground: 61 Faithful Reflections on Our National Parks, a book that changed subtitles while it was at the printer because Indiana Dunes became a national park, taking us from 60 to 61. We knew new national parks would come along eventually, and sure enough, New Mexico’s White Sands and West Virginia’s New River Gorge were numbers 62 and 63. Those entries were added to the new edition.

A year later, America’s Sacred Sites: 50 Faithful Reflections on Our National Monuments and Historic Landmarks took us to a National Park Service unit in each state. But it didn’t stop there; entries for additional National Park Service units have been added to the book’s website, nationalparksinspirationguide.com.

In the summer of 2023, we had the rare opportunity to present at the Chautauqua Institute, the western New York institution that blends church camp, academia, and culture. Creating “Inspired by the View” gave us some new valuable perspectives and rekindled our interest in freshening up the book. We also recognized a few tweaks that might make it more appealing to bookstores and readers who might enjoy the book even if they consider themselves spiritual but not religious.

Besides adding the two new parks, the prospect of writing a second edition provided several opportunities:

• New themes: Each park’s entry has been rewritten, and about two dozen of the parks have new themes. Some are simple shifts, like Kobuk Valley moving from sustenance to sustainability, while others are completely new themes, like resetting the Canyonlands’ theme from stories to patience.
• New photos: More than 200 photos give us a glimpse of nature at her most beautiful and inspiring. Many of these are public domain photos available on the National Park Service’s photo gallery. Others were provided by Connie Wang, a former Chalice employee, the book’s interior designer, and a new national-parks lover inspired by her layout work on the first two books.
• New context: The last few years have been rough on the National Park Service. In a system already stressed by almost 332 million visitors, national parks can be stressful, polluted places. Commercial interests constantly hunt for resources adjacent to national parks, and talk of privatizing the parks won’t go away. The COVID-19 pandemic closed the parks, but trespassers permanently damaged several park features. The Trump administration’s draconian and reckless cuts slashed NPS’s workforce and delayed an already overloaded maintenance schedule. Culture wars are trying to erase the Indigenous cultures that thrived for thousands of years in these lands well before they were federally protected and deny America’s unfortunate history of systemic racism and economic exploitation. That’s addressed in the introduction and in a few of the parks as well.

The National Parks Inspiration Guide is the perfect resource as you’re driving through a park and a great way to relive memories of past trips or discover your next vacation destination. But it’s also a great read as a two-month daily devotional, taking you to the heart of these parks whether in person or in spirit. Each entry closes with three questions: How has this theme played itself out in my life so far, how would I change, strengthen, or use that particular idea moving forward, and how can I help others discover this trait in their own lives. It’s a great way to think about the ways we impact the people in our lives and the communities we call home.

On behalf of Bruce, Connie, and everybody who contributed in some way to the book, I hope The National Parks Inspiration Guide is a trusted resource for years to come. May it offer an inspiring, unique way to marvel at the beauty of our planet and ponder the mystery of our place in the cosmos.