Practice Christian meditation with The Walk

 

THE WALK is a tool to help us all to detach from the confusion around us in order to have a richer attachment to God and to other human beings.

 

There are no set guidelines. Merely suggestions.

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Meditative walking helps us to see more details. Just by walking, the world becomes smaller and we become more connected. This also makes us more vulnerable to absorb a little bit more of ourselves. Walking meditation helps us to find peace. Marianne Williamson has written, “Ego says, “Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace.” Spirit say, “Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.”

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Take a deep breath; then very slowly breathe out. Pause and return to your walk and your form of contemplation. From this pause we can return to a place that is more calm, clear, and open rather than retreating to our old ways of thinking. The more we practice meditative walking, the more we will be here for ourselves and for others in challenging moments.

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Quiet the noise.

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Keep your own counsel.

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Enjoy the solitude.

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Henry David Thoreau penned in his journal, “Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move my thoughts begin to flow.”

 

Take some time alone to move mindfully through your own area: your house; your yard; a neighborhood; The Emerson Fields; Bradley Palmer State Park. The location is not important. The length of the walk is not important. You are invited to use this walking practice to envision a more human way that honors Human dignity, honors and protects our Planet, and honors our own inner journey.

 

Concentrate on 4 or 5 things most important to you.

 

Listen.

 

Take some time alone to move mindfully through your own area: your house; your yard; a neighborhood; The Emerson Fields; Bradley Palmer State Park. The location is not important. The length of the walk is not important. You are invited to use this walking practice to envision a more human way that honors Human dignity, honors and protects our Planet, and honors our own inner journey.

 

Concentrate on 4 or 5 things most important to you.

  

• ​Our walking meditation reminds us to breathe in and to breathe out slowly.

• We focus on planting our feet on the earth to reach down like tree roots which reach out to other roots and interconnect. 

• We, too, must connect to what we find most meaningful. We are not alone but have an interconnected web of life----interdependent together.

• We have the capacity to change; however, we can only change ourselves.  We can focus on our own actions and judgments which are human consequences of human choices.

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And we want to focus on treating others the way we want to be treated. 

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In her book WHEN THINGS FALL APART, Buddhist nun Pema Chodron explains how when we start moving away from right versus wrong, we widen our circle of compassion.  She calls it a “middle way.”  She asks the question, “... Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are?”  The “middle way” asks us to do this over our own need to prove one side right and one side wrong. 

 

In our Walk, may we slow down and close our ears to their words and try to see them as their underlying emotions.

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Think about cutting back on the amount of time you spend keeping up with the news.  Create space for positive messages.   A walking meditation can sufficiently redirect our lives so that we can deal with human life successfully.  Thomas Merton wrote,  “Meditation has no point and no reality unless it is firmly rooted in Life.”

 

As you walk, may you appreciate your own great tolerance and even appreciation for differences---knowing that all are created in God’s Image and are equally beloved---differences of faith, culture, language, skin color, sexuality, or other traits.  Let us seek to understand and honor others and to live in harmony with them.

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(Thanks to Charlotte Melling.)

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