Walking

Although I don’t often walk great distances, walking has been in my blood ever since childhood (rather like listening to the radio; maybe I’ll do a blog entry on that sometime). It sometimes astonishes me even now the distance I used to walk (or run) to get from home to primary school and back twice a day when I was little more than an infant. Many a time, on leisure days, I would wander off by myself, going all over Guernsey, my island home. It was quite safe and my parents had no fears for me.

Mum would take me walking quite often, especially on pleasant summer days. It was quite an achievement for her. Back in the 1940’s she had fallen victim to meningitis. The treatment in those days was as drastic as “kill or cure” and left her permanently deaf. As we tend to balance by using our hearing, Mum had to learn to walk all over again. She was a capable, even if a bit slow and unsteady, walker, with a very simple view of what made a good walk: you tried to return by a different way from your outward one. This has become a habit with me, too. Where possible I make my walks circular rather than retrace my steps. Like Mum I keep up a fairly slow pace – most people overtake me – and as with Mum my sense of balance is not great now.

Walking, they say, is good for you. In my view this isn’t uniformly the case. Sometimes my thoughts are positive, sometimes dark and brooding. But there is a sense of achievement, a sense of physical well-being and for me a sense of keeping in touch with my roots. Sometimes – as I have mentioned before on this blog – I am blessed by really uplifting God-incidences en route.

The Bible often describes the way of life of a man or woman as their “walk”. The first and maybe the most striking mention of this is in Genesis 5:21-24 -

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Genesis 5:21-24 ESV

To me this is a most beautiful picture of a man’s close friendship with the living God. Enoch didn’t just “walk before” God, conscious of having God close behind him as an observer and judge who would correct him if he stepped out of line. He didn’t just “walk after” God, taking God for a model and imitating His ways as far as man can imitate God. Enoch “walked with” God, a sign of confident (but in no way over-confident), close fellowship. Enoch made sure to live in such a way that he had no need to be scared of God or hide away. And this relationship took on a life of its own. Physical death made no difference to it. Once Enoch’s time on earth had passed, he was simply whisked away into the presence of God – to continue that walk on a higher plane.

He walks with God who speaks to God in prayer,

And daily brings to Him his daily care;

Possessing inward peace, he truly knows

A heart's refreshment and a soul's repose.

He walks with God who, as he onward moves,

Follows the footsteps of the Lord he loves,

And keeping Him forever in his view,

His Saviour sees and his example too.

He walks with God who turns his face to Heaven,

And keeps the blest commands by Jesus given;

His life upright, his end untroubled peace,

Whom God will crown when all his labours cease.

Dorothy Ann Thrupp, 1779-1847