Sacred Connections: Walking Back
Years ago, on the Camino de Santiago, a friend I was walking with had a cardinal rule – there would be no “walking back”, we would only move forward. This may sound a bit harsh for a spiritual pilgrimage, but after only a few days, I readily bought in. There were so many steps in walking across Spain; any steps backwards would add to the count, and at times the pain. So, we moved forward, sometimes briskly, sometimes at a crawl, but other than when we were lost, we always walked toward our destination. It wasn’t always easy. There would be the small eatery we had passed in hopes of finding something more appealing, only to find nothing, and yet we continued to move forward. No turning back. Something so ingrained over those weeks and kilometers can be a hard habit to break.
Fast forward to now, I walk my dog, SweetP in the neighborhood several times every day. She catches a scent and wants to go backwards to follow it. Invariably I hear myself say, “No SweetP, we’ve got to move forward, there’s no turning back.” My cognitive mind is aware of how seemingly out of step this is in our current circumstances. What are a few more steps, a few more minutes in the course of a day working from home during a pandemic. I mean, “Really?!” She’s on a scent, let her enjoy. Yet that ingrained sense for some of us, to be moving in a direction, to make progress, to reach a destination can be very compelling indeed.
The idea of “walking back” comes with some inner angst, discomfort, while sensing the wisdom and gifts of that too. Last Sunday a hand-full of us were participants in our first livestream service from Church of the Redeemer since our closing of the building some five months ago. Walking back in that space, processing down the center aisle, was deeply moving, holding both the joy of being there, and the sadness that others were not there as well. But the nature of our liturgy invariably has us entering for worship, then going back out into the world. We are always going back over the ground traversed, hopefully, enlivened, inspired, and sharing what we’ve experienced and learned. We step back, yet with something more.
Stepping back also allows space to calm, to breathe, in these overly compressed and concerning times. As we were preparing the Sunday Prayers of the People this week there were individual prayer needs, but also many broader concerns seeking voice, the continuing prevalence of COVID-19; the gun violence in Cincinnati; the fears among students, parents and faculty around school start-up this fall; the wildfires raging in the west. Those don’t even begin to touch on our additional concerns about the workings of the post office, voting in a pandemic, unemployment, the partisan stalemate – and the headlines go on. There are simply so many concerns, personal and in the broader community, that we may choose to numb, or we feel overwhelmed, even at a tipping point.
In the midst of all this, there’s wisdom in slowing down, walking ourselves back from that edge of fear and worry. Walking back is not numbing or denying or creating additional steps; it’s simply giving ourselves enough space to have a little distance and take another look. Walking back allows us to remember it’s not all up to us. We can step back and see more clearly where we can help, where we can lovingly make a difference. And when we step forward, let us remember we walk in Christ’s love, that’s the only path we need to know.
