Exercise Daily: Walk With God

Exercise daily -- walk with God.

That's what's on our church sign these days.  And on a lot of others, as you find when you google "exercise daily walk with god church signs."

Rather than post any of them here (and having forgotten earlier this week to capture an image of our church's sign), I kind of like this button version that can be worn while actually walking.

A lot of people are walking these days.  It's healthy, and what else can you do right now on a regular basis to get out of the house?

I wonder what it means, though, to walk with God?  

Walking through nature on a beautiful hiking trail -- through forest or fields, along a stream or lake-shore, up the escarpment or through a valley, whether just out your back door or a substantial drive away -- are all wonderful ways to connect with the beauty of the world God has created, and with God who created Earth and loves all life on it.  

Of the half-million quotes available about rediscovering our selves and being grounded in honest and faithful living through connection with nature, here's just the most recent that has come my way.  It's from someone named Ragan Sutterfield, an Episcopal priest who on his website names Wendell Berry as one of the mentors of his spiritual journey:

On Fridays our television remains in the closet, our laptops are closed and stored away, and the use of our phones is limited.  After breakfast and coffee we begin the mile-long walk to the park, where we descend into the woods and make our way along a rocky trail to a small stream.  It is there that we sit, my girls climbing over a fallen tree or wading in the shallow water.  We watch for what is around us -- sapsuckers and sycamores and scurrying squirrels.  This time each week is a kind of school in which we learn to recognize the sacred.

Sounds wonderful, and something we all could use more of.  God bless the parents who make this part of their children's life.  

But ... what do you do, when a forest is not available?  And even if a forest is always available, is this a fully balanced spiritual diet?

The first time I went on spiritual retreat (my goodness, almost 40 years ago!!) was at a Jesuit college in downtown Toronto.  Really downtown.  On Yonge Street, two streets south of Bloor.  On the U of T campus.  On the north edge of Queen's Park (both the park and the provincial government buildings).  

For one of the other retreatants, this was her first experience of retreat in a city.  Where, she wondered with some despair, would she find the quiet, natural, restorative places to walk several times a day that had always been essential to her experience of retreat and renewal?  How would this week not be a disappointment, and a frustrating waste of time?

Half-way through our week together, she happily reported what she had found.  Early each morning, at noonday, and again in the evening, she walked the perimeter of Queen's Park (the park) several times around, praying the Lord's Prayer quietly as she strode.  

Yes, there was constant traffic only a few feet from her, occasionally heavy and rushed pedestrian flow to negotiate, and the unceasing clamour of the city assaulting her.  But as she walked and prayed the Lord's Prayer step by step around and around Queen's Park, what she came to experience was the joy and assurance of "beating a holy path" into the life and flow of the city around her.  She was renewed in her embrace of the life and the walk she was called to continue back home.  It turned out that downtown TO was maybe just where she needed to be walking with God this time.

"Exercise daily; walk with God."

I wonder where else God takes us as walking partner?  When God says,"Come on, let's go for a walk," where else in addition to forests and streams and Queen's Park circles, does God have in mind?

I think of some members and families of our congregation in Winona who are deeply fed by their choice of semi-rural living, rustic drives, lakeside walks, and trips to deeply sacred places on the face of the Earth, who also find themselves walking regularly into places of human poverty and need, and into settings of brokenness and heartache -- and knowing these also to be walks with God that are necessary for a balanced spiritual diet.

I think of parents who every year have taken their children -- from very young ages, to help prepare and serve a Sunday meal at the Wesley Urban Ministries Drop-In Centre in downtown Hamilton.  Or individuals who several times a year make journeys for a variety of reasons into City Kidz territory and other inner-city missions, reaching and stretching out as much as possible with others to children and families in poverty and in need of hope.

Given what we know of God, how can we not know the drive into downtown Hamilton and the walk into the Drop-In Centre or the City Kidz theatre as a spiritually renewing walk with God?  As good, essential exercise for the soul?

It makes me wonder about my own almost-again-daily walk around my neighbourhood.  It's a nice walk.  It's good exercise.  Is it also a walk with God?

Some days, it may be.  Other days, it may be just a nice walk.

I wonder how I can expand my repertoire of actual walks with God.  For my spiritual health.