Chris Ewing is a United Church of Canada minister in Kindersley, a town in west central Saskatchewan, Canada.
Walking… that most quintessentially human yet also universal creaturely activity. It is one of the first things we undertake as we leave infancy, and one of the last we give up on the way to death. In between, walking binds us to each other and to creation, and often serves both to mirror and to medicate the soul.
I think about this sometimes as I hike around town. I am blessed with a healthy, strong body that loves to walk. Most days, if you put me outdoors and let me go, I stride freely and smoothly, head up, drinking the wind, smiling, and any passer-by can see that all is well. But there are days when some pain of soul or (more rarely) body curbs my stride, hunches my shoulders, droops my head, and my embattledness can be read a block away. The gait, like the eyes, gives away the soul.
But it also cures the soul. Like singing (another form of embodied prayer), even if I start out in pain and disorder, if I keep on I find that after awhile the act of moving works out knots of body and spirit alike. The beauty of the day – whether the sweet, bright beauty of a perfect summer morning, or the fierce glory of grey skies and bitter, wind-driven snow – the wild perfection of the day finds its way under my skin, lifts me outside myself, reorders and reconnects me. If I stay outside walking long enough, I come home whole.
I have walked stalled sermons into existence and nagging questions into quiescence; I have walked through both unendurable grief and boiling anger to find calm. Mostly, though, I have walked for the simple pleasure and utility of it in daily rhythm.
One of the indulgences of small-town living is the daily walk to the post office. When I find myself spinning my gears in the office, or worn out with people’s problems, I know it is time to come up for air: go and get the mail. It is only just over a block, hardly a proper walk at all, but it is often enough to put refreshment back in the day. Main Street is wide enough to allow a satisfying glimpse of the vast and living prairie sky; and if I look all the way down the street past the Peavy Mart and the railway I can see the fields rolling away to forever, room for the soul to spread out. A deep breath, and another, and by the time I’m halfway down the block the world is looking pretty good again.
And the walk usually affords some agreeable human contact. People smile and call greetings to each other whether we can remember each other’s names (or even recognize each other) or not. Coming in and out of the post office one often has the pleasure of holding the door for someone, or having someone hold the door for you. Eyes meet, smiles are exchanged, bonds of community are reinforced.
Even those of us who do not frequent Coffee Row go to the post office. As we stand at the table weeding out the junk mail and reading the funeral notice cards, we catch up on the news, remark on the weather, and hold each other up through life. Just this afternoon I flagged down Sharon (who teaches computers and office education at the community college) on the post office steps and asked her what to do about the much-used formatting icon I somehow managed to banish not only from my toolbar but seemingly from the program altogether. I know she’ll walk me through that until we’ve got it figured out. Walking together is what small towns do best.
My friend drops by for coffee – not just in the church kitchen, let’s go out. It’s two blocks to the restaurant, and if we walk rather than drive some of our most important conversation happens on the way. Walking does that.
Some of my most important conversations with Life happen while walking, too. When I can’t see my way clear, I sign up for a journey – preferably an unreasonable one. The Eston River Trek (www.estonrivertrek.ca), 40 rolling prairie miles in a single day, just because. Or a two-week backpacking expedition, solo, to see all the things I’ve driven past too fast to notice. The endless hours of walking empty out the soul until there’s room for a new voice to speak. Realizing how long it takes the unaided human body to get anywhere of importance helps me remember the same is true of the human soul, and gives me patience and courage to wait for things to come clear. And accomplishing what I wasn’t sure I could do physically gives me confidence I can do whatever else I have to do in life, too… as long as I just keep walking.