Walking


On Thursday night, with transport crippled by the bombs, thousands of people in London walked the many miles home. It was quite a sight, people consulting their A to Zs, looking for a way to carry on.

Yesterday I watched a parade of Second World War veterans walking to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the War. It was moving and humbling to see those who had given so much walking in step together.

And on Saturday in Bristol a group of people walked around different religious sites, from church to Mosque to Synagogue to Temple to show their solidarity in times of difficulty and their commitment to mutual respect and understanding.

Walking is a basic human activity. Walking is not rushed, but makes steady progress towards our destination. Above all, walking allows us to talk to those we meet, rather than rushing past them in a car. Walking allows us to encounter people on our way.

It is no accident that the Bible tells us that God walks with us. He does not run with us or drive with us. God walks with us. God moves at that pace which allows time for encounter and talk. Even, perhaps especially, when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God walks with us.

Walking gives us time and space to discover ourselves, those around us and God. We walk together in difficult times. We walk together to remember and to show our support for one another. We walk together as we try to find a way to carry on.

In the midst of horror, it may be that walking is as fast as we can go. However much we’d like to run, it is only by walking with each other that we will we be able to listen and to support one another, and find that God is with us as we walk through the dark valley together.

Given on Radio Bristol, 11th July, 2005.

Comments

Anonymous said…
and when we stop in exhaustion He tenderly washes our feet, dresses our blisters and massages our aching muscles before gently nudging us to carry on once more with Him.

hep.
2:16 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Theology and the Man in Black

Image
I went to hear a paper at the University this evening entitled 'The Apocalypse according to Johnny Cash: Examining the 'Effect' of the book of Revelation on a contemporary apocalyptic writer'. As well as some fine music and lots of humour from YouTube , the paper was examining how we detect the effect of the Bible on the world, and using Cash's The Man Comes Around as a means of doing this. One of the papers themes was that because Cash doesn't name Jesus as the Man (who comes around) he has a weak Christology and leaves his work open to a range of interpretations of who 'The Man' could be - from Cash himself to George W. Bush! Lots of food for thought about how what we say is then heard and repeated in our culture, which has little understanding of the Gospel. But the thing that really stood out for me was the suggestion that it was possible to tell that Cash was really reading the Bible in this song (rather than just regurgitating what his traditio
Read more

Prayers for Evensong

The BBC were at the Cathedral yesterday, recording our Choral Evensong . I wrote some new prayers for the occasion, which I share here: In the evening of the day, we come to you, O God, bringing those we have met, for your blessing, our hurts for your healing, our sins for your forgiveness, our labours as our offering and our lives as our worship; we come to you through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who became like us, that we might become like him. Amen. Lord Jesus, you call us into your church; help us to leave behind the things we cling to, coax us with the treasure of heaven, and in the age to come, when the first will be last and the last will be first, allow us simply to be found within your Kingdom, and to feast at your table, where there is abundant life for all your world, for with you all things are possible, and in your name we pray. Amen. God of all hope, may the light of your justice search out the darkness of our world; may the power of your love banish al
Read more

Taken or left?

Isaiah 2.1-5 ; Matthew 24.36-44 “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” Take it or leave it.   I suspect we’ve all had offers like that. But the Gospel reading this morning asks us a harder question – taken or left, which will we be?   “Two will be in the field, one will be taken and one will be left.   Two will be grinding meal together, one will be taken and one will be left.”    If we look a little harder at the passage, it’s not even abundantly clear which I want to be, taken or left.   When the secret police come knocking, it is clear that you want to be left.   There are Christians and others in the world today who fear the knock at the door.   They desperately want to be left.   But when you live in the midst of war and poverty, you want to be taken to another, better place.   There are many in the world today, not least the many refugees, who long to be taken more than anything else.   The hope and the longing of the refugee
Read more