W-A-L-K-I-N-G

I wish I was a runner.
With knees and perseverance made of steel.
Like Maniac McGee I would run along the train tracks, straight out of town.

Running makes my heart beat faster than walking.
But I can not run as far as I can walk.

Running gets me faster to my destination,
But I do not always know where I am headed.

Running makes me feel hardcore and burn more calories
But burning calories and feeling hardcore is not what is going to get me through life.

I wish I could run through the tape at the end of a marathon called “Being Healed”
But unfortunately this marathon is longer than 26k and calls for good rounds of sitting.
Sitting acknowledges, accepts, and prepares me to move.
Sitting in pain, loneliness, reality how I’ve messed up, and how others have messed me up.
Sitting in being loved,
Sitting in being loved,
Sitting in being loved
by the father of lights, the father who spoke this earth, this sky, this day and me into life—

This kind of sitting turns into movement:
Walking with this love spilling out my pockets, skipping, dancing, and maybe even flying,and living out of being loved, loving others out of being loved.

I have started walking to the bus stop on the other side of USC rather than the one that is only three blocks away.

I pass by the museums and the Rose Garden at Exposition Park.
This morning fog filtered a brilliant rising sunlight through the trees.
I stopped walking to breathe in the sight and then I continued.
I also pass through USC. I stop there too, by a fountain, by a library which has a wall that reads, “He that loses his life, gains life everlasting.”
I sat, and resisted taking out my journal to write down my prayers as proof, I did not take out a book to increase my knowledge, I sat and I breathed.
And I asked God if he really loved me.

Then I continued walking to the bus stop past the USC fanfare of some sort involving many tables and red and gold table cloths.

While I walked I sang, “I’m going to show you love in every language, I’m going to speak the words that need no form.”

I like to sing while I walk. In the noise of the city, no one notices and if they do, for some reason, I don’t care.