Ways of walking
Tracey Messenger reflects on how the way in which we walk can help inspire a recognition of God in all things.
1. Wandering
‘Not all those who wander are lost’ J R R Tolkien
‘Wandering’ has a bad reputation. The word derives from the Old English wandrian meaning to move about aimlessly, or without a settled course or purpose. When applied to the mind, wandering meant ‘Not directed by reason or fixed purposes, random, wanton’ (OED). So from the word’s origins, it had associations with both sinfulness and inefficiency!
In the Old Testament, being made to ‘wander’ is a punishment. Having murdered his brother Abel, Cain is condemned to become a ‘fugitive and a wanderer on the earth’ (Genesis 4.12). The people of Israel are liberated from Egypt but find themselves taking the less direct route to the Promised Land. Wandering in the wilderness without food or drink, they start to question God’s purpose for them. As a result, they are made to wander more (Numbers 32:13).
Much of modern life – in our workplaces, home life, leisure time and even spiritual life – is very goal-driven. We are motivated by targets and ‘to do’ lists. But what might happen if we took some time to ‘wander’ more, physically, mentally or spiritually? After all, creativity includes some degree of imagining and wandering before settling on a definite outcome. Wandering may lead to wondering.
I often set out on a walk with a route in mind then something causes me to wander and then to wonder. I might turn aside to look at a particular flower just coming into bloom, or to follow the path of a swallow swooping low over a field. I might come across a view I haven’t encountered before, seeing things from a different angle. In the Old Testament, Moses ‘turned aside’ from tending his flock to look more closely at a burning bush and found himself on holy ground (Exodus 3:3). Wandering can lead to a life-changing encounter with the living God.
Why not let yourself ‘wander’ a bit more this week – during a lunch break, or on a regular walk, or even in your imagination – and see what ‘wonders’ you encounter as a result?
2. The urge to conquer
A friend jokes that when she moved from west Wales to London, she couldn’t keep up with the speed at which people walked. As someone who once commuted daily to offices throughout the capital, I certainly took pride in being able to keep up with the brisk pace of my fellows.
Now living in west Wales myself, I appreciate the slower pace at which people move – literally and metaphorically. People are less hurried and frenetic. They have time to stop and chat. There is no sense, as there sometimes was on my London commute, that you are merely an obstacle in someone else’s way rather than a fellow human being.
Aside from commuting, even walking as a leisure pursuit can feel like a competitive sport. I was once (very slowly) climbing a lesser-known route up the side of a Lake District mountain. I met several men already on their way down the mountain who eagerly told me how long it had taken them to reach the summit. Perhaps they were going to tick the mountain off their list of ‘Wainwrights’ (the famous fell-walker’s list of 214 Lake District summits).
It’s harmless enough as an activity and there’s certainly a thrill in getting to the top of a mountain after all that exertion. But I’m not into ticking peaks off a list as if they are just another achievement to put on my CV. The mountains do not exist to flatter my ego.
What happens when we see a landscape, a mountain range as something to conquer, an achievement to be ticked off a list? What might happen if we slowed down and listened to what the land might have to say to us? If we spent more time with a landscape and let it develop a relationship with us? How might we see God in all things in the world around us?
3. Journey to the edges
I live in Pembrokeshire, whose Welsh name, Sir Benfro, means ‘headland’ or ‘land’s end’. Other so-called ‘Celtic’ lands have their own versions: aside from the famous ‘Land’s End’ in Cornwall, Brittany has its ‘Finisterre’ and Galicia in northern Spain its ‘Cabo Fisterra’, both deriving their names from the Latin finis terrae, meaning ‘the end of the earth’. The Romans believed Cabo Fisterra to literally be the end of the known world – the place where civilisation stopped.
It was to these storm-lashed, Atlantic-facing edgelands, on the boundaries between land and sea, that Christian hermits were drawn between the fifth and ninth centuries. They were inspired by the Desert Fathers and Mothers of Egypt, but their ‘desert’ was the vast wilderness of the sea. They escaped the temptations of the ‘civilised’ world to seek God in solitude. They relished the challenge of the extremes of weather, meagre food and the menaces of local pagan chieftains, believing that in the stripping away of earthly comforts they would draw closer to God.
What does it mean to live at the very edge of the land today? Even in an age of motorised transport, it still feels very remote, far from metropolitan centres of power such as Cardiff and London. Daily life is subject to the elements of sun, wind and rain. Much of the available work is seasonal and while tourism is a huge boon to the economy, the prevalence of holiday and second homes means there is a lack of affordable housing for locals.
But on a spring day when the flowers are starting to bloom on the coastal path and the sea is turquoise, there is nowhere more glorious. While the beauty of creation is self-evident, the ‘awe and wonder’ experienced by those long-ago hermits must still be sought. It involves a stripping back of all that is non-essential, a stilling of our busy minds and cultivating an awareness of God in all things.
4. Going round in circles
A friend favours a circular route as she hates to ‘go back’ over the same route. I also like to take a circular walk from my home. In the winter this becomes challenging as what I call the ‘green lanes’ that encircle St Davids – hedgerow-bordered tracks, some of them old pilgrimage routes – become largely impassable due to mud. For me, the marker of spring is when these paths dry out sufficiently to become walkable again. In my first few months living here, I got to know the landscape through walking these paths many times over.
I like the familiarity of walking the same routes again and again but the experience is different according to the weather and season. In early spring, blackthorn froths with fluffy white flowers and the first red campion start to unfurl. There is the sweet coconut smell of yellow gorse on the air. The swallows and swifts make a jubilant return. Later come swathes of purple and green as the bluebells bloom. Tall purple foxgloves are a harbinger of high summer. The sun may be beating down or we may go into battle with a south-easterly gale. I go out armed with both raincoat and sunhat.
Some may say, pejoratively, that the Church is always going round in circles. But by following the seasons and liturgy of the Church year, we literally are. As the red campion opens in the hedgerows, we are once again marking Christ’s death and resurrection. As the foxgloves sway in the wind, we are celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit once more. The readings and liturgy may be familiar, but we hear them afresh. We go round in a circle but we are neither aimless or lost.
5. To be a pilgrim
I live in an ancient place of pilgrimage. St David (Dewi Sant in Welsh) founded a monastic community in the Alun valley in the sixth century (St Davids’ Welsh name, Tyddewi, means ‘house of David’). David was beloved by the people and revered for his sanctity and miracles. In 1123, Pope Callixtus II declared that two pilgrimages to St Davids were the equivalent of one to Rome. The current Norman cathedral was built on the site of David’s monastery and alleged burial place. St Davids thus became a major (and wealthy) centre of pilgrimage until the reformation, when many shrines (though not David’s) were destroyed and pilgrimages banned.
Recent years have seen a revival of interest in pilgrimage among people of all faiths and none. A pilgrimage is defined as an intentional journey to a sacred place. While this often, as in the case of the hugely popular Camino de Santiago, means a walk over days or weeks to a cathedral or shrine, it might also be a journey to a football ground or even to Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station.
Planning for a pilgrimage often focuses on practicalities – which route to follow, what to take, getting into physical training. Reaching the pilgrimage destination can be a spiritual high, but as a local pilgrim guide once said to me, the deepest spiritual work happens on the journey itself, often in conversations and encounters with others on the same path. And even more transformation happens after the pilgrimage, when the person returns home and reflects on the experience.
Walking the ancient pilgrim paths around St Davids, I often wonder about those who have walked these routes before me, often risking hazardous journeys over land and sea to get here. What were their hopes and dreams and were they fulfilled when they reached their destination? How were they changed by the experience?
Can you make a mini-pilgrimage this week – journeying with intention to somewhere special or holy to you?
About the author
Tracey Messenger is a writer and editor living in west Wales. She is currently leading a community heritage project, 'Wales as an outward-looking nation' on St Davids' links with Lesotho.
