The Relief of a Simple Walking Practice
Microseason No. 16, April 20-24
At the beginning of every hike, I’m holding on lightly to my dog’s leash and to my own expectation of finding something new breaking through today— some hint of the continual unfolding story of the microseasons.
I mentally set down my heavy bags of accumulated stress and enter the quiet immensity of the forest.
I want to stay compassionate and curious— to let go of expectations of how things should be, and receive the day as it is.
Simple walking with a focus on the microseasons is counter-cultural. It’s a luxurious, healing and generative practice in a fast, fragmented digital world. I find so much relief in reclaiming this healthy life-giving way inside an age of information overload. For me, it feels like a chance to break free from all the noise and practice the utter freedom of analog Simplicity.
Getting outside and paying attention to the life around me helps me listen to my heart’s truest desire to be in love with my own Life— to be fully awake—and to use the short time that I have to make something of lasting beauty.
My creative energy is renewed.
This is the heart of my simple practice:
To walk and return, over and over again, to my five senses.
To receive the gifts that they are collecting.
Though it’s not the focus of my writing here, I will say that I see my life through the lens of a very simple, pared-down faith in God and in the beauty of living an imperfect, human life as a follower of Jesus. In other words, I live in hope. But not hope for a someday experience of heaven. I live with a quiet awareness of the New life that surrounds me now. Heaven is always breaking through— every day.
The Creative One walks along with me and knows how to love me—lavishly— through the beauty and wholeness of the natural world. Even in my broken state of worry, or selfishness, or fatigue. I am not fixed; I am mended by God. Artist and author, Makoto Fujimura beautifully explains this when describing the Japanese art of Kintsugi pottery.
My walking prayer is simple: “Help me find something to love in the day around me.”
And for decades, I’ve continued to find something new and surprising every day. The wonder of it humbles me to my core. I try to use this wonder as fuel to do my own creative work, to love and serve my patients, my family— and anyone who might read these words.
Generative love and creative energy is here and waiting to be used by all of us in each tiny microseason. If only we choose to pause, to turn off our glowing screens, to step outside and receive it.
We also know that we’re completely free to live confined by the confusion and chaos of our digital world, if we choose.
God never forces us.
Go easy, my Friend— begin simply. Be patient and trust the process. You will slowly find your own unique ways of savoring and responding to the gift of the microseasons.
May the simplicity of it mend you and nourish you for your work in the world.