I decided not to rent a car for the month of July.
When we found out that our summer learning program was going to be relocated to Berkeley, California for the summer – and that it would begin in a few days’ time – I quickly found a small home to rent that looked perfect for my needs. A small craftsman-style townhouse in the Berkeley Hills with a back deck that offered a view of the bay. I snatched it.
A few days later, we found out the location of our daily learning. Two miles from my rented home. No problem. I was glad to have the time and opportunity to walk to and from our learning each day. I packed my most comfortable walking shoes and left for Berkeley.
On our first day here, I laced up my sneakers and strapped on my backpack and began the walk downhill towards the synagogue where we would be meeting. I loved every moment of the walk. The cool morning air. Encountering diverse flora everywhere. The new bird sounds. The part of my walk that took me through the UC Berkeley campus and past its redwoods and eucalyptus trees. An invigorating way to start the day.
At the end of our first day – a long first day – I began my walk back home. The morning walk was downhill. The return was all uphill. The walk became a hike, as sweat broke out and my legs started to ache. Am I really going to be able to do this walk back home, each evening?
But along the way, I had a new thought.
After this past year with my health challenges, I have worried about my diminished lung capacity and my ability – or inability – to return to my old activities, to my usual fitness level. I have already had to relinquish my old running routine. My lungs just could not keep up. And the uphill climb home, up through the hills of Berkeley, was definitely challenging my lungs. I had to stop a bit more and breathe with greater focus. But at several moments during the walk home, when I paused to reclaim my breath, I felt surges of gratitude. That I could still make this climb. That my lungs were working harder and allowing me to walk with vigor. The walking opened me to deeper gratitude. And to broader smiles.
Back at home, my daily life revolves around my car. Suburban living – at least life in my suburb – does not allow for much walking. I walk when I make an intentional plan to ‘go for a walk’ but the doing of my life almost always revolves around getting in my car.
Walking, of course, requires more time. It necessarily slows you down. It brings you into closer contact with your surroundings. It gives you time and space to look and smell and observe.
As we walk, we slow down. We look. We observe. We take in the sights, the sounds, the people around us. The walking gives space for us to bring more reflection and intention to our lives. We observe and we reflect and we meet each other along the way with humility and grace. Maybe this is what it means to “walk humbly with God”.
One more thought about walking: when we restrict ourselves to walking, our radius contracts. Our world shrinks. We can only travel to places to which we can walk.
The world feels particularly overwhelming and heartbreaking right now. It can often feel that the news from around the globe can swallow us up in its pain and pull us towards so many directions in need of outcry. Maybe it is not a bad idea to contract our world once in a while – to narrow the boundaries of our world – in order to gain the perspective and grounding that will help us to eventually widen our world again. Constriction for the sake of expansion with new understanding.
I am so glad that I have many long walks ahead of me over the next three weeks. Walks to help me open my eyes and my heart in new ways. Walks to challenge my body and cultivate newfound gratitude for its healing capacity. Walks to temporarily contract my borders in the service of expanding them with deeper stability.
And I hope to continue to walk in conversation with the teachings we will be studying, observing and questioning, and continue to walk alongside of you as well.