I made a ten mile walk yesterday. It's quite some time since I, with my professed love of walking, walked so far, but I chose well for a first longer walk; by the side of the Selby Canal for 5 miles there, 5 miles back. All on the flat, in good weather.
It's an old canal, with bridges that look as if they would fit into a nineteenth century rural painting with ease. It made for a pleasant walk; quiet, green, an aid to contemplation and inner quiet. With unexpected pleasures amid the plod; the sight of two swans and their seven well-grown cygnets gliding down the canal towards Selby. A crab-apple tree, some sloes, views across the fields.
The words of the 'Nunc Dimittis' accompanied me all the way; Now Lord, let your servant depart in peace, according to your word. For mine eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before all people, A light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel. Why this,and not something else, I don't know. But welcome it was, in the bright and particular light of a late August morning, knowing that the intensity of the summer light was not likely to be seen again this year, to know there was another light to illumine the way as we head into the darker part of the year.
The walk took about three hours. South-westerly there, roughly; north-easterly back, roughly. Long-enough, in a particular direction to qualify, I think, for that definition of life-long faithfulness which I and all Christians aspire to, to apply in some small sense; a long walk in the same direction.
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