Walking Worship, Walking Prayer

It was Tuesday. Jack Frost visited over night, finally, and it was just the incentive my oldest needed to get him out of the house for an early morning walk. The sun was coming up, it was 8:20am, and the air cool and crisp. The orange glow in the air whispered change. This morning setting became the space of our worship, where we walked our prayer, and it was so natural and so beautiful, so unscripted.

"Oh, wow! Look at that Mama," was our first song. The hill behind us, the one that faced the coming sun, was unusually orange. The light hitting it just so invited us to pause and watch.

The instruments we carried were our cold toes, our feet crunching and popping the ice out of the tire tracks left in a plowed field. Some puddles were deep, some shallow. Wondering what sounds each will make and how long it will hold our weight became our dancing prayer. Crunch. Pop. Crunch. Pop. Crunch. Crunch. Pop. Splash. Mud blessed our trousers and as it landed on my knitted scarf, I practiced letting go of order.

We passed dogs and their walkers. Greetings of peace exchanged. Admiration for this beautiful morning shared.

And when the path got slippery, the four of us walked with joined hands. If one slipped, we could catch each other. The small trees, our brothers and sisters, flanked us, encouraged us along. Their firm foundation provided security and community. Their branches showed us the way.

Like all good prayer and worship there is a moment when we are aware of holy presence. It could be an 'aha' moment or a small epiphany or some small action when we know we have touched the Divine. As our walk was coming to an end, the houses in sight, the gate at the end of the field near, we spotted a small pond with several rings of circles. It was as if our entire walk, our entire purpose was to stand on the edges of this pond and wonder and ask and smile.

A new song now replaced the old. There were several verses to this one: "it looks like a spiral," "I wonder how it got this way," "is it deep?" Admist the verses vocalized was a song of silence. We knelt down to touch the frozen rings, to admire their presence. We knew without speaking that this pond was not a pond for crunching or popping. We left it as it was for the next walker to see, to experience, to sing.

Our walk was a prayer of wonder and creation. It was our dancing joy. And like all good worship and prayer, it changed us, forever.