Walking

The mild weather and glorious autumn colours have encouraged people to go out walking and exploring their local area. Lots of families this weekend have been walking around our churchyard enjoying the amazing variety of trees, insects, wildlife and birdsong that can be experienced there quite apart from the sense of history and calm.

Even just walking down our road or street, with the different weather and temperature there is so much to notice and enjoy. R.S. Thomas, the Welsh poet-priest wrote of walking out:

The Moor

It was like a church to me.

I entered it on soft foot,

Breath held like a cap in the hand.

It was quiet.

What God there was made himself felt,

Not listened to, in clean colours

That brought a moistening of the eye,

In a movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said. But stillness

Of the heart’s passions — that was praise

Enough; and the mind’s cession

Of its kingdom. I walked on,

Simple and poor, while the air crumbled

And broke on me generously as bread.

R. S. Thomas: The Moor, from Pietà, 1966

 

Another poet David White describes in The Journey how such walks can suddenly surprise us : 

 

Sometimes it takes

a great sky

to find that

first, bright

and indescribable

wedge of freedom

in your own heart.

from House of Belonging by David White

A simple prayer:

Lord, just as you walk with me, Help me to walk with you