Prayer Walks: You never know what life, your feet, and faith, will bring you

I love to walk, to feel the blood pump through my legs and fresh air fill my lungs.

In warmer months, that happens in a T-shirt and shorts. In mid-December, with daytime temperatures in the mid-20s (F), that means warm socks, thick fleece pants, gloves, a sweater and a warm coat.

And lately, I combine the physical exercise with spiritual nourishment via recordings on my iPhone: maybe a monk reading from the Psalter, or Orthodox prayers chanted in Byzantine style by Eikona (http://www.eikona.com/prayers-for-orthodox-christians/), or podcasts from Ancient Faith Radio (https://www.ancientfaith.com).

Sure, I could walk on a treadmill in a nice warm Planet Fitness gym (I do have a free membership through AARP). But I like to feel like I'm actually going somewhere -- in both a linear and metaphysical sense.

Which (finally, thanks for waiting) brings me to the theme of this entry: You never know what life your feet, and faith, will bring you.

On Wednesday, for example, I was doing my few miles on the Jordan River Parkway when I came upon a young woman, in her late teens I would guess, sitting hunched over on the side of the trail. As I got closer, I could see the sadness, that look of hopelessness.

We've all been there. And we all remember how it feels. You look at the cold, gray skies -- and in this case the snow-covered Wasatch Mountains rising in the east -- and watch your breath as a wreath of mist, its warmth and hope gone before you can inhale again.

I couldn't just walk by. I mean, I probably could have done . . . but, for crying out loud, I had just heard a homily about the Good Samaritan through my earphones seconds earlier.

So . . . "Are you all right?" I asked, and tried to smile disarmingly. Shouldn't be too hard for a 66-year-old, gray-haired and -silver bearded, bundled up grandpa with a walking staff.

When she turned to look at me, her eyes were swollen, red, wet. "I live over there," she waived toward a residential treatment facility about a quarter-mile away. "I just needed some time to . . .", and her voice trailed off.

I stayed quiet. She looked back up. "I'm missing my parents. I can't reach them. I don't know how they are. They don't know how I am."

Loneliness is the worst, especially this time of year, when Christmas is so hyped as a time for love, gifts and everything bright, yada yada yada.

So, I told her to try to look at herself, from outside herself. "This feels awful now, but life changes, sometimes every time we just stop and look around. I get up, walk, sleep, and get up, and it's changed. Always. Sometimes not much and not for what seems a long time, but sometimes, you realize what hurt so much is yesterday, and today is new."

There was a glance of hope, or at least interest. She was listening for more.

"I lost both my parents this year. Just me and my sister left, and she's almost a thousand miles away," I shared. "I miss them very much, but I pray for them every day, and I know they pray for us."

I suggested that there are people who care about her, too. They may pray for her, they may think of her with love and concern, and that, too, is a prayer of sorts.

But we are not alone. Hope finds a way, and faith helps guide it within us.

"Things will get better, sooner or later. Trust it will, and until then, just do what you need to do to get where you need to be. God bless your day, young lady."

She nodded, sniffed, and seemed to calm a bit. "Thank you, sir." She took my hand and squeezed. We both smiled, and I resumed my trek.

Half an hour later, as I returned on the way home, she was gone. I whispered a prayer for God's mercy and protection for her.

And I wondered, had I done enough? I may never know the answer to that question.

What I did know, however, was that or this senior citizen, the day had a purpose.

Of hiking, prayer and the sacredness of both

 Sometimes, you pray on your knees in private, perhaps while standing during liturgy at church, or through a thought or whisper at your desk . . . maybe it's while spreading mud for bricks, raking the grass, or quickly, at a stop light in stalled traffic.

 Prayer, or perhaps what you might call thoughtfulness, meditation -- whatever connects you to the Divine -- centers you in realities beyond your five senses. 

 For me, that reality is the Triune God taught and worshiped for the past 2,000 years within and through the prayers, scriptures, teachings and traditions of Orthodox Christianity.

 And, personally, that is increasingly expressed not only within Sunday and occasional weekday Divine Liturgy services (precious as they are to me), or even daily moments in my "prayer corner" at home, where candles are lit, a thin stream of burning incense fills the air, and the icons of Christ, the Theotokos and several saints reflect the flickering flames.

 Heaven and earth also meet, and ask for your company, in nature, where sunlight dapples leaves of pine, oak and cedar and a breeze moves flower pedals in testimony to creation and creature. 

 The trees, grasslands and soft forest floor are icons, too, and birdsong the splashing of rushing streams are the eternal cathedral's hymns.

 And so, I went to church -- again -- along the trail systems of Murray's Wheeler Farm area, where the sights of flora and fauna, sounds and scents of the natural world, and the glow of sunlight on my neck, punctuated the slow movement of prayer rope knots slipping through my fingers.

 Miles passed under my feet. But Eternity was in the moments, with each heartbeat, and riding every breath.

 I sensed that this particular communion is how it was meant to be. . . when we take the blinders off, when we pay attention. 

 Saints and sinners. Author and former monk  Thomas Moore wrote that, "Walking inspires and promotes conversation that is grounded in the body, and so it gives the soul a place to live."

 Added Friedrich Nietzsche: "All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking."

The late Fr. Alexander Schmemann put it this way:

"The natural dependence of man upon the world was intended to be transformed constantly
communication with God in whom is all life [but] when we see the world as an end
in itself, everything becomes itself a value and consequently loses all value . . .
only in God is found the meaning of everything, and the world is meaningful only
when it is a 'sacrament' of God's presence...."

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