Walking is good for us. We’ve probably all done more walking this year, especially during Lockdown, so we’ll resonate with the theme of the October issue — to walk humbly with God. We discovered over the weeks of restrictions that walking became a community activity and even as we kept to our bubbles we encouraged one another to keep within the constraints for the sake of us all. While out walking we noticed more about the plant and bird life in our neighbourhoods as well.

The walking Micah refers to is more than about dropping a kilo or two or boosting our fitness. He’s reminding us that all of our living is done within the creating presence of the Divine. While walking we can experience being immersed completely in Earth — the ground under our feet and the atmosphere stretching above us till it runs out in space. We’re enclosed in Earth. It’s our home — shared with teeming life in diverse forms. Our walking is with an attitude of humility, acknowledging we belong as kin in this creation.

My sister and I walked across northern Spain from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic Ocean on the Camino de Santiago six years ago. I’d recovered from a major illness and as a celebration of life I decided to follow in the footsteps of medieval pilgrims. The walk was varied, taxing and exhilarating. The uphills were my nemesis. My sister ascended them effortlessly while I puffed up behind — very behind. She’d wait for me at the top. One particularly hot day of relentless climbing, I’d collapsed beside her thinking we were metres from a cold beer and she announced we had five kms more to go before we could stop for the night. Feeling murderous, I semi-crawled the last bit with every skerrick of pilgrim’s progress leached from me. But on the trail I came across a little black snake basking — my first ever sighting of a live snake. And when I finally joined Margie we got the last two beds at the albergue.

Walking the Camino was a liminal experience yet also life in a nutshell: idealism encountering reality, gratitude vying with whinging, companionship alternating with solitude, awe overlaid with dread, strength giving way to vulnerability — the gamut of hopes, dreams, relationships and experiences. Funnily enough it felt like an anticlimax when we arrived at St James Cathedral because, I realised, it was the intensity of the journey itself rather than finishing it, that had tested and confirmed my return to health. And, newly tempered, I could walk into whatever came next — this year around the block with our neighbours, a humbler walk.

The contributors to this issue offer their perspectives on Micah’s words. They give us riches of reflection, research, faith, inspiration, art and craft. We thank them.

And as is our custom, our last words are of blessing and encouragement.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 253 October 2020: 2