The Silly Walk

A major Fortune 5 company once upon a time decided that it would encourage its employees to become healthier by launching a major initiative encouraging employee health.  Being in the healthcare division of that same company , a group of employees decided to take to heart the advice to get up and move about more.  At first it was perhaps 8 – 10 of us going out and walking a mile or a mile and a half.   A few folks had aches and pains that kept them from wanting to go the whole distance.  Those who remained took up a faster pace (it turns out the employees of this company are very competitive people, especially when a simple, fun activity can be turned into an inappropriate competition).  Soon we were walking 2.3 miles (measured by GPS) in approximately 40 minutes every day.

Spring became summer, cold spring rain and winds became magnificent summer breezes.   Three, four, sometimes even 5 of us continued to walk, most days.  I made it a point to walk every day because in addition to the companionship, the fresh air, the sunshine, the turning of the seasons in the woods, the tall grass, and the wetlands out on the campus “back 40” kept me in touch with reality.  I could see the spirit poured out on the earth in its cycles of death and rebirth, and I could see that in the midst of Midwestern suburbia, far more life was going on than meets the eye.

By winter I was walking alone most days.  I brought boots as I had previously brought in walking shoes.  I remembered how to dress for even sub-zero weather.   The starkness of winter, which I once treasured in my youth, cross-country skiing to class, flooded back into my consciousness.  I remembered tracking in the snow, coyotes, deer, mice, rabbits – even the impressive wing prints of a hawk that had swooped down to make a kill.   I was reminded that in my younger days, I had said “the outdoors is my church”.  Although strapping on a 30 pound pack and disappearing from sight for 4 or 5 days is no longer in the sensible plans I might make for a weekend, touching base with the woods often helps me see a fresh approach to a problem.

Now I’m probably 7 or 8 years into this habit, and I almost always walk alone.  I do walk indoors now when the weather is miserable, as I feel it more in my bones.  But I live for days like today when it is only March, and yet the pond has thawed and the frogs are singing.   The geese are here early chasing one another through the hair and honking loudly.   The turkeys were strutting on the hill this morning, the Tom strutting his stuff for apparently indifferent hens.  And I flushed the Sandhill cranes as I walked down the path – they barely cleared the fence. I would have recommended a different traffic pattern.

The wind blows as spirit.  The warm energy of the sun reminds me of the presence of light in the world, and in ourselves.  The coming and going of the water with the seasons reminds me that life marches on.  I’ve had some of the big experiences in life – literally mountaintop experiences looking down on the mountain’s shadow on the clouds and seeing the earth rotate, seeing it lengthen and watching the stars rise, planets aligned in the same plane.   And I’ve had the little experiences – of seeing the crane’s chick, spotted running through the grass as Dad threatens to skewer me with his beak.   I’ve chuckled at the turkeys generally choosing to roost outside the executive offices in the trees.  I figured out what the critter is that leaves strange tracks where the trail crosses the drainage ditch (it’s a mink).  And I saw the snowy owl that had ventured to far south in the crazy cold winter a couple years back.

Some days I need to know there is a world out there.  I need to let God open a hole in the clouds to let the sunshine, or have the odd crayfish crawling across the path.  I need to know the world is alive and drink it’s spirit to refresh my soul for the afternoon.  And that regardless of who is on the next telecom, life will go on.