 Near the end of one of our five day walks, I was reminded that we could drive the length of the trail in about an hour. Thanks, but my blisters had informed me that a few days prior. My motto is typically "Why walk when you can drive?" Netflix binges. Another hot take on Twitter. Self-driving cars? Even better. But if you drive, you’ll never stop to rest. You’ll miss the picturesque rivers, the hidden waterfalls, and dense forests with soaring pines and rhododendron thickets. If you drive, you might not be slow enough, or tired enough, to appreciate what’s around you. For a year, I went every Friday into the woods (this was BK, or before kids, of course) to wander and meander, until like Forest Gump, I’d say, “I’m pretty tired, I guess I’ll go home now.”
 Theologian Kosuke Koyama suggests that some things God can teach us only very slowly, at a walking pace. Scripture is a story about people who take small, baby steps over a few thousand years. In the beginning God walked with Adam in the cool of the evening. It’s Moses who notices the burning bush on a stroll up the mountain Horeb. Jesus walks among his people through the countryside, the city, even on water. He attends to the impoverished and down-and-out at a pace slow enough to notice Zacchaeus, the wee little man, up in a tree. He waits three days to be resurrected. But we forget that even bread, which is vital sustenance, takes time to rise. The prophet Micah tells his people “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” We cross-stitch it on fabric and print it on plastic picture frames. Be merciful, be compassionate. And yet, I’m still struck by this last phrase: walk humbly with God. He could’ve said run. But God says, ‘walk humbly,’ which could also be translated— “walk attentively.” In other words, pay attention. Here’s a question we’d do well to think about: what does it mean to walk attentively with God in a society that wants to run everywhere it goes? Koyama says, “God walks three-miles-an-hour because that’s the speed of our walking and God walks beside us in love…And the speed of love is slow.” A marriage. Not a hot romance. The Israelites spent forty years lost, walking in the desert with no compass. But God walked with them, teaching them about justice and kindness. Bread—manna—was provided each morning and God told the people to take what they needed and nothing more. While Pharaoh’s economy was structured on wealth and accumulation, the Israelites began the curriculum of redistribution and the common good. God’s people learned how to rest, after spending their lives in an economy that founded their worth on their work—laying bricks and mortar. The ‘school of the soul’ had a course in walking and it taught them compassion.  The point of walking, of course, is to slow down, but that’s too simple. It’s also about justice and kindness. The three are bound together. Justice and mercy only take place when you’re walking humbly with God. Before there is justice and kindness, there is attentiveness and listening—there is walking. Richard Niebuhr says we have to ask, “What is going on?” before we ask “What must we do?” There’s an urgency to our faith—we have the words of life—but we’re not sure how to share it. I’m convinced that one of the reasons the church is lame is not apathy, but lack of humility and attentiveness. We want do justice and love kindness, but we don’t do the hard work of walking with God and God’s people. Our lives are self centered—we get caught up in our own lives and schedules, moving from one thing to the next, that the needs of our community are part of the blurry background that we race past. Or, maybe it’s the opposite. We throw ourselves at every opportunity and get spread too thin. There’s no staying power. Walking is a discipline; it takes practice to slow down and become attentive. If we take the time to listen to each others’ stories, share a table with a neighbor, then God will guide us toward greater understanding—justice and kindness. Start walking in your neighborhood and you’ll see hurt, pain, and struggle—you’ll notice that one who is out of firewood, or the woman who needs her gutters cleaned, or the man who hasn’t had a visitor in months. Then, start walking further toward the outskirts of the neighborhood, seeking out the very people you understand least. I most often change my mind, and the way I live, after I've tried to walk in another's shoes. It's the best way to start taking steps in a new direction. Saint Augustine says, “Solvitur ambulando.” It means, “it is solved by walking.” “Well,” you might be wondering, “what needs to be solved?” And that’s it...if you don’t know what needs to be solved, then you better start walking. Categories All
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