These times were made for walking

By Emilie Bouvier

If you’ve seen me from across the Zoom room at a meeting or virtual event lately, you likely have noticed the favorite thing that I’ve discovered about working from home this past almost-year of the pandemic: When I’m at my desk, I like to be walking!

So yes, if you see my head bouncing up and down a little in my frame, it’s just my normal pattern. While 98% of the time I’m terrible at multitasking, apparently my secret gift is being able to walk and type at the same time.

It started out as a way to combat Zoom fatigue early into the pandemic. Especially after learning that without office colleagues or travelling to meetings (even if they’re just down the hall), I could accidentally go hours without even standing up, let alone tending well to my personal embodied-ness. So, I got a treadmill pad, set up an extra-tall card table, piled on some various stands for my computer and keyboard, and off I went!

I’ll confess, I do miss walking the trails in the mountains that I explored now more than a year ago at Holden Village. Yet, there’s been something beautiful about having literally walked my way through the ups and downs of these past months, within the four walls of my upstairs home office.

 

WHAT DO WE KNOW as we walk away from 2020 and into the hopeful but still uncertain 2021? Well, we know that none of our ministry looks the same, but that it’s more vital than ever. We need to listen and care for one another and our communities. We need to proclaim the daring, compassionate, incarnate God in our midst. We need to shift the systems of injustice by showing up together and holding our elected leaders accountable, even when showing up means entering our Zoom boxes to do the work.

And, we know that these days even simple things can feel harder and small joys can make all the difference.

“We know that none of our ministry looks the same,
but that it’s more vital than ever.”

So, when I pick up the phone to try to connect (because seriously, it’s so hard to actually catch up with people at online events), I’m likely walking from window to window in circles while we talk. When I answer your email, in all likelihood I’m doing so from my walking desk. And when I feel overwhelmed by it all, I remember how grounded connected I felt to God while on the trail – letting the memory of the smell of warm pine needles and sounds of the forest calm me as I walk.

I think of the words of early twentieth-century Spanish poet Antonio Machado: “The path is made by walking it.” There’s so much we can’t control right now. But what we can offer is simply putting our feet to the ground and walking a path one step at a time, faithfully, together.