Tree Pilgrim

If you are seeking a faith rooted in wonder rather than certainty, join urban farmer and spiritual director John Creasy on a contemplative journey to the world’s oldest forests. Along the way, you will learn how pilgrimage, ecology, and spirituality can renew both our inner lives and our relationship with the earth. Have you ever stood beneath an ancient tree and felt time slow? At the base of a giant sequoia, the air cools and the light changes. The tree’s immense trunk rises like a red cathedral pillar into the sky. Fire scars darken the wood, not as wounds but as witness. This tree has endured centuries of drought, flame, and storm and is still standing, still sheltering life. To sit here is to feel time slow, to sense that you are in the presence of something vastly older—and quietly attentive. Guided by pastor, urban farmer, and tree lover John A. Creasy, Tree Pilgrim invites you into moments like this, when forest and faith meet. This book offers pilgrimage, not as escape from the world, but as deeper immersion into it—into soil and moss, grief and gratitude, prayer and responsibility. As you walk alongside Creasy through old-growth forests and fragile ecosystems, you are invited to listen: to trees, to scripture, and to the wisdom of interconnection written into creation itself. Each chapter centers on a particular old-growth forest or ancient tree—oaks and pawpaws, aspens and redwoods—exploring what deep time, fungal networks, and resilient ecosystems can teach us about God, community, and our place within a living world. Drawing from progressive Christian theology, Celtic spirituality, and ecological practice, Tree Pilgrim reclaims creation as sacred text and living teacher. This is a book for the love and lament you may carry for the earth. It looks honestly at ecological loss without surrendering hope. Along the way, you are offered simple practices—walking, noticing, praying, planting—that help you renew your own relationship with the land where you live. If you long for a faith rooted in justice, wonder, and care for creation, Tree Pilgrim invites you to begin the journey—one step, one tree, at a time.