Short Walks, Long Walks

I have touted the benefits of walking for learning and thinking, as opposed to sitting and meditating, or running, or even driving, which I find most similar to walking. (Riding horses at distance may also provide benefits of which I know nothing.) All of those are fine things, and sitting to meditate especially has a long tradition of being used for deep thinking and self-improvement. Walking has not held its reputation as well, despite our knowledge that Jesus walked long with his disciples, Aristotle was peripatetic while both thinking and teaching, and more recently George Santayana, in “The Philosophy of Travel”, wonders if this privilege of “locomotion” is the “key to intelligence”, writing: “The roots of vegetables (which Aristotle says are their mouths) attach them fatally to the ground, and they are condemned like leeches to suck up whatever sustenance may flow to them at the particular spot where they happen to be stuck. Close by, perhaps, there may be a richer soil or a more sheltered or sunnier nook but they cannot migrate, nor have even the eyes or imagination by which to picture the enviable neighbouring lot.” Moving around allows animals to experience more of the world, to imagine how it might be elsewhere.

Tolkien and especially Lewis were both walkers, and the tradition of pilgrimage alone, a custom that was largely Christian but is know in many cultures should red flag this idea of walking toward wisdom for us.

Yet even I, the advocate, have been walking less, for reasons I shall not bore you with. But on today's walk I was entirely wrapped up in exactly the same pointless circle of unresolved conflicts as I have at home or doing errands - on the first mile. Only on the second mile did I begin to break out of that, into some thoughts on the Incarnation that led to what I think will be the next post.  I have been chafing a bit that little of what I have written the past few months has derived from thinking, but more by reminiscing, replaying, and reading. I resolved to walk a bit more even today, on Christmas. We had three services plus home Advent ceremony and Narnian Advent devotions yesterday, and family does not come until tomorrow, so we have only breakfast (together!), the last minute pre-cooking preparation, the final wrapping (mostly of books being given to others that we are finally done with ourselves), and then dinner out with Kyle, who needs to be fed good things often, for Christmas Day itself.

We'll see what the next few miles brings. Perhaps even a little wisdom? Just as a change of pace for me this year?