National Parks Inspire a More Perfect Union

On Thursday, Jan. 29, Tom Medema invited listeners to explore the power of national parks during his talk at Calvin University’s January Series. The first time Medema stepped onto a Calvin stage, he said, was for an air band competition in 1982 as a student, and now here he was again, decades later, as a featured speaker. Recently retired after a 35-year career with the U.S. National Park Service, including serving as an associate director and what he has often described as a “chief storytelling officer,” Medema pointed out that the jump from air band to national park leadership didn’t happen overnight.

How Experience Shapes Calling

During his time as a student at Calvin, Medema said, he never imagined he would one day work for the national park service. Though his family had spent time in various parks while he was growing up, he said, he had no idea that the nation’s parks would become his life’s work.

“When we loosen our grip on who we think we are, we make room for becoming something more,” he added.

Medema shared that a single moment during a Calvin class opened his eyes to the possibility of outdoor education, and then later, at Michigan State University, he learned about the field of interpretation. Those moments became keys to his future, he said, slowly revealing a calling that had not been obvious at the start.

Eventually he realized, he said, that the power of place can have a greater role in shaping our lives than we might think – even more than credentials or carefully laid plans. For him, the experience of being outdoors and discovering things about life amid the beauty of nature can take on a power of its own. That’s “the power of our national parks, of our public lands, of our public spaces and what they mean to people around the world,” he said. “It’s about the trust people have in these places. It’s about the experience and the joy, the family connection, and the other revelations that they find in these places that mean so much to them.”

Learning to Listen

Medema’s love for the outdoors gradually became a vocation rooted in interpretation—not as instruction, he said, but as storytelling and dialogue. He said he learned early in his career that his role was not to deliver information but to create space for learning, conversation, and connection.

“National parks are America’s largest classroom,” Medema said. “Hundreds of thousands of students every year come to our national parks to learn natural history, to learn cultural history, and to become better people, to become better citizens.”

Over the years, Medema said, he served at the Fort Vancouver, Mount Rainier, Cuyahoga Valley, and Yosemite National Parks. And as the scenery changed, he added, so did his understanding of leadership. A pivotal moment, he said, came during a 360-degree performance review, when feedback revealed that he struggled when others disagreed with him.

That realization, he said, forced him to confront how often he was occupying space rather than creating it.

“Leadership changed for me when I stopped being the sage on the stage and became a learner again,” he said. Choosing vulnerability and humility, he said, allowed him to lead differently – and to practice another essential element of storytelling: listening.

Deferred Storytelling: Whose Stories Get Told

Medema described “deferred storytelling” as a national challenge. Just as a park’s infrastructure will deteriorate without care, so will stories, he said. Many narratives, particularly those of marginalized communities, have been postponed or excluded—sometimes intentionally, sometimes because of limited resources or attention.

“Not everyone’s story has been told, and those stories deserve space, dignity, and a national platform,” Medema said.

National parks, he explained, are uniquely powerful places to tell those stories because of the trust people place in them.

“My work shifted from being the teller of stories to being the giver of space for others to tell theirs,” he said.

For example, stories of the Underground Railroad, Indigenous displacement, civil rights movements, and other difficult chapters of American history do not replace existing narratives, Medema noted; they complete them. Honest storytelling may create discomfort, but it also offers recognition to people who have been unseen and education to people who are still learning.

A More Perfect Union

National parks, Medema asserted, are places of collective awe, where shared experiences can interrupt everyday life and invite humility. Whether standing beside towering sequoias or gazing into the Grand Canyon, visitors are often reminded that they are part of something larger, he said.

“Quality of life, public health, and shared memory are all protected in these places,” Medema explained.

Beyond providing natural beauty, parks also function as spaces for moral reflection and learning, he suggested. “Our national parks are a living embodiment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he said.

Medema described how these founding ideals of the United States can take on deeper meaning through the nation’s parks: life reflected in the natural world and in public health, liberty in both freedom gained and freedom denied, and the pursuit of happiness in belonging and purpose.

In a society often marked by disagreement and fragmentation, he said, shared experiences of awe and memory offer rare opportunities for national cohesion and shared humanity.

Showing Up in 2026 and Beyond

Looking ahead, Medema pointed to the United States’ upcoming 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026, urging the audience to see it as an invitation rather than a celebration alone. It is a moment to reflect on who we have been, who we are, and who we are becoming as a nation, he said.

Historic sites and national parks, he added, offer tangible ways to engage in that reflection. They are living spaces where memory meets modern dialogue.

“National parks are where we find healing, empathy, and epiphany,” Medema said.

For veterans, families, and communities shaped by trauma or loss, for example, national parks can be places where restoration and reckoning coexist, Medema said. Healing, he emphasized, does not come from forgetting difficult histories but from honoring them honestly while imagining something better. Preservation, in that sense, is not only environmental work; it is moral work.

The invitation of 2026, he suggested, extends beyond a single year. It calls for stewardship of land, of stories, and of one another. Showing up in these places and spaces, listening carefully, and carrying what we have learned into daily life transforms national memory into personal responsibility, he said.

National parks, said Medema, remind us that a more perfect union is not built through abstraction but through shared experience. They are places where awe humbles us, stories stretch us, and memory shapes who we become.

“Get out there,” Medema said. “These places still matter — maybe now more than ever.”