It all started when one of our cars gave up. After talking with my wife, we decided to see how long we could manage with just one car. It was spring, the weather was nice, and I decided that I could easily walk. Well, it is almost 4 years later, and I am still walking the 2.5 miles to work (if there is lightning or the temperature is in the single digits, I pass, but most days I’m out there slogging through whatever Mother Nature sends my way). What began as an experiment in cost efficiency has become something very important to me, not that I have to do it or that I’m happy to do it, but it is very clearly something that I am allowed to do.
So far, I have found three benefits my daily walk brings me, and these go beyond the fact that I now have a cool collection of hats I wear to keep the sun out of my face.
Why Taking Care of Your Body Matters to God
“Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it’s never too late.” Jack LaLanne
You have probably heard it said that our bodies are temples, but the more accurate reading comes from 1 Cor. 6:19-20: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit…Therefore honor God with your bodies.” So while my body may be more of a Taco Bell (not really good or tasty, but it gets the job done) than a temple, I still feel the need to take care of myself.
And I must admit that after 4 years of walking at least 15 miles a week, I have lost no weight, I look about the same, and more body parts hurt every year. Wait a minute…where was I going with this? Oh, right…I owe it to God to do what I can to be healthier so I can provide His Spirit a home. And though I don’t see myself becoming ‘Buff,’ the joy of the movement and the fresh air in my lungs does tend to rejuvenate my spirit, if not my muscles. But this is the least of what I have learned from my walks.
Finding God in Nature and Everyday Life
“The Mountains are calling, and I must go.” John Muir
Ok, maybe not mountains, but there is one not-insubstantial hill, and every day I can spend time outside in the world God created. One of my favorite activities has always been hiking through woods and meadows, and this walk along two state roads running through my town is not that, but I have learned in this walk through town that lily pads flower in multiple shades first thing in the morning and close by early afternoon; I have seen the variety of colors that a sunrise can make at differing times of the year; I have listened to the way that the world becomes silent in snowfall; I have felt the anxiety of having a thunderstorm moving quickly at my back in the last quarter mile to my destination. In this last one, I also learned that running is no longer an option.
Being in nature, even if separated by roads and fast-food restaurants, can bring you closer to God than just about anything other than prayer. Paul wrote to the Romans that “since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what he has made.” 1:20.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay “Nature” (1836) that we understand all things, including God, when we choose to study the natural world. He points out that we only have concepts of shape, color, and time because the world around us had them first. And the 17th-century Puritan poets used the natural world around them to develop a fuller understanding of who God was and what He intended for us. For example, our understanding of death and resurrection is clarified by the changing of the seasons.
My favorite example of what we can learn about nature comes from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854). After spending the better part of his summer weeding his bean field, he declared that “I will not plant beans and corn with so much industry another summer…(after all) Shall I not rejoice at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are granary of the birds?” In other words, what Thoreau grew to understand by hoeing his garden every day, all day, in order to bend nature to his will is that when man goes against nature (God), nature (God) always wins.
I have been taught this myself. I am a man who likes hats, and one spring day, I was parading my newest one on my walk through town when the wind lifted it off of my head, not in the 98% of the walk which is dry land, but on the bridge over the inlet to Edinboro Lake. Nothing can teach you about your place in the world like watching your brand-new $50 hat flow downstream until it disappears under the water.
Finding Time with God Through Rest and Quiet
“When despair for the world grows in me…I come into the peace of wild things.” Wendell Berry
Though the benefits of exercise and communing with nature were probably apparent to all of you, what has benefited me most is that during my walk, I am neither here nor there. For those 45 minutes, I am not concerned with what is going on at work, and I am not home to see a lawn that needs mowing and cats that need feeding. I have that little bit of margin that acts as therapy for any troubled aspects of my soul.
Isaiah wrote that “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength,” and, more famously, David sings that God “leads me beside still waters, and he restores my soul.” I’m not going to claim that I always spend this time in prayer or contemplation, but I do always feel that I am in the presence of God, for no other reason than that I am away from many of the world’s distractions.
And so, if I may mimic David, that even if He leads me beside active waters and stealeth my hat, feeling the guidance of the shepherd in the strengthening of my limbs and the quieting of my mind, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Amen.
