Walk Of Life

During the weak, on my lunch break from work, I usually go for a walk. I get a ½ hour lunch break and because I walk fairly briskly, I can walk 2 miles in that amount of time. I like my walk for several reasons, the obvious being that it’s really good exercise, which I need at my age. Any doctor will tell you that exercise is so important and that walking every day between 20 – 30 minutes is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself.

Initially, a co-worker was walking with me, but eventually, (for whatever reason), my co-worker gradually stopped walking with me and I was left walking by myself, which also left me with nobody to talk to while I’m walking. I quickly realized that all I was hearing was the traffic along the busy street and my own, (sometimes crazy), thoughts inside my head. I’ve often thought that If someone could get inside my head, they might think they were listening to the thoughts of a madman. Don’t worry though, it’s just how the mind of a creative graphic designer works. It’s hard to shut off that part of my brain.

Anyways, after several days of walking alone and listening to my own (sometimes ridiculous) thoughts, I realized that as long as I’m out there walking with no one to talk to, I might as well talk to God, or Mother Mary. So I made the decision that I would say a Rosary during my walks. For a long time I’ve wanted to say a “daily” Rosary, but have never made a concerted effort to do so. 

After nearly 6 months of my “walking” Rosary, I’ve made an observation. I’ve noticed that almost every single time I pray the Rosary, there’s something new about the prayer as I say it. And while I always offer up each Rosary for a specific intention, I also find myself thinking about the words of the Hail Mary, and almost every single time, it’s almost like it’s a brand new prayer every time I say it. It’s amazing. I'll save my Rosary insights for another post.

Here’s the observation that I really want to talk about concerning my lunchtime Rosary. Generally speaking, as I walk, I keep my head somewhat down, looking at the sidewalk directly in front of me, not at what lies ahead. This is not something I do on purpose, it just happens naturally. My walk is the same every day and the distance and direction, never changes at all. It’s the same walk every single day. A few weeks ago, as I was walking, I just so happened to lift my head up and look ahead. When I saw the place that I normally walk to, I immediately thought to myself, “Wow, that seems really far away” when in fact, I already know in my head exactly how far it is because I had just walked it the day before and I know that in reality, it’s NOT that far, it just looks like it is.

So I started thinking about how sometimes we do that in our own lives. We can get so wrapped up in looking at what “lies ahead” in our lives and it can sometimes seem like the places we want to go, are too far away and that we’ll never get there. We start thinking about everything we have to do in order to get to where we want to go. Perhaps we’ve set a goal for ourselves, and when we start thinking about all of those “things” we need to do achieve that goal, it can start to look like we’re never going to get there because there’s simply too much to do in order to make it. And before you know it, it’s easy to just think, “Forget it. It’s just too hard and there’s too much to do, I’m not going to make it”. So often times, we simply give up.

Figuratively speaking, I think sometimes it’s better, to “look down at the sidewalk”. In other words, take life 1 step at a time, 1 moment at a time, without trying to focus on something that’s too far off in the distance to even see.  For example, let’s say you decided you wanted to lose some weight and even set a goal of how much you wanted to lose by a certain date, let’s say 20 pounds. And with lots of determination, started exercising, eating right etc. And as that date approached you’ve only lost 5 pounds, or even 1 pound, you might get very frustrated and decide to just forget the whole thing. But what if you looked at it differently? What if by the time your goal date arrived and you hadn’t lost any weight at all? Would you have failed? No, because while you may not have lost the weight, you were doing other things that were healthier for your body, eating better, exercising. And those alone would be doing other things “inside” that perhaps you can’t even see.

The same thing happens when we pray for things. Sometimes we pray for something and if we don’t see an answer to our prayers, even if we’ve been praying for it for years, there are other things happening “inside” that we don’t see. Have you heard the expression, “Prayer doesn’t change things, it changes people”? There’s so much truth in that. For example, while our prayers might not change what we want, it changes our hearts, our minds, and our souls.

What about getting to Heaven? Do you ever think about everything you need to do to get there? I think anyone who’s concerned about “making it” has given this some thought. I know I have. Maybe you’ve even thought to yourself “That day is so ‘far away’ I don’t see how I’m ever going to get there”. We obviously don’t know how long any of us will live, but like when I’m on my walk, if I try to look ahead, getting to Heaven seems impossible because I can’t see that far ahead of me. So instead, I just try to look at the day in front of me, and use that day as one step closer to Heaven and do what I need to do to get there. And for me, while I may be taking my lunchtime walk alone, I know that for my walk through life towards Heaven, I cannot walk alone. I need others to walk with me. We all do. We need to surround ourselves with people who will walk with us on our journey so that when we fall behind, or even fall down, we have others who will get behind us and push us a little, lift us up, or even carry us for a while on our walk. This is a vital part of our journey.

May God bless us on our walk towards him along life’s path with determination, perseverance, fortitude and Grace. May he always bless us with friends and family to walk with us as we journey towards our salvation. Amen

Have a nice walk everyone. Blessings.