PRAYER WALKING

"Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." Genesis 5:24

The 100-year-old house sat atop a steep green and rocky yard on Crescent Road in the West Virginia hills. It took about 75 stair steps to reach the long narrow porch where my Mom sat stringing green beans. 

I still remember the grey wooden planks on the porch, the red asbestos shingles on the house, and the walks I took with God all around that property when I was a little girl.

God and I were constantly talking about family, flowers, the watermelon patch, Dad's Friday night surprises, our little dog Mia, my quietness, the cool outfits that Aunt Martha sewed for me, and about Vacation Bible school with our neighbors, where I learned the story of Enoch. 

How I loved that story! I literally thought that someday, if I was just good enough -- and WALKED ENOUGH -- maybe I could just walk off to heaven with God too.

To me, that is a pure and simple type of prayer walk. 

It's also kind of selfish, slim on outward focus. Not really the kind of walk Enoch had with God. Of course, dealing with our own lives is a solid first step to broader prayer of any kind.  

So far, I have not found any Biblical commandment that requires prayer walking. Some say since the Bible clearly says "pray without ceasing" and walking was a major part of life in those days, prayer walking was also.  Or at least it should be followed as one of the New Testament ways of the church

I don't make those leaps. 

BUT... while I strongly believe that God can hear and answer my prayer for a merchant on a street in China whether or not I am standing on that street or a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, I do think there is real benefit to prayer walking. 

We sing "open my eyes to see like Jesus sees" but if we wall ourselves off from PLACES to see and the PEOPLE there, how can we fully receive answer to that song? Prayer walking is a way to SEE (the walk),  to DO (pray) and to CONNECT (belong, invest).

A google search of "prayer walking" turns up a boatload of articles on this simple subject, though the sails usually come back to: WHERE, HOW & WHY.  

The why sail swirls around these 3 winds:

Devotional

I usually think of Crowder's song OPEN SKIES for this kind of prayer walking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwM8vgulzdI

For me, the best devos almost always involve music, especially outside.

Incidental

Talking with God about whatever pops into my mind, much like I did as a child. 

Intentional

Did you know you can go on a MISSION trip INTENDED just for prayer walking? Or we can join one of the world-wide movements that teach how and where to do this type of prayer walk. For instance, if the intent is to pray over local elections, how about prayer walking around City Hall?  If it is to pray for the physical health of a community, maybe the prayer walk would focus around the perimeter of a local hospital.  

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The HOW sail might focus an activity (like high school football in the town), structures (like a storage facility), service (like clerks at the Motor Vehicle Department), change (like widening of a road), hope (for a business on the brink) or need (like for affordable living places). 

HOW also means whether the walk is a group, partnership or individual effort. Some times prayer walks even morph into big, public events. 

The WHERE sail stems from the Why and and How sails. 

But WHAT does one pray during these outings?  Various writers espouse:  Discernment, Blessing, Empathy, Leadership, Peace, Truth, as well as praying specific Scriptures during the walk. 

Then there's the simple way -- "Lord, teach us how to pray on this walk."

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HOW DOES THIS CONNECT TO PLACE MAKING?

I submit that prayer is

the very heart of real place making. 

When we invest God's love for our community into prayer walking, it takes ALL of us:

Our time, our physical being, our emotions, our intellect, our thought into the space that surrounds us.

Our eyes open to needs and dreams and PEOPLE 

that surround us in fresh, new ways.

And it becomes a symbiotic relationship, give and take, where we see and pray, then pray and see. 

And then...it happens...

we start to get connected in personal and real ways.

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My Experiment in Prayer Walking

To date, I have not done this in our new community. 
I first want to be able to  huff more than 1 sentence. 
So, next installment: HEALTH WALKING

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LEARNING TO LOVE 

OUR NEW CITY 

BY LACING UP!  

My Chapter 2 Experiment from This is Where You Belong by Melody Warnick

I literally HATE walking. It hurts my feet. It hurts my legs. I huff and puff. And nobody likes to walk with a turtle like me. IF this chapter had REALLY been about walking, I would have tossed this book in the rubbish.

But it's not.

It is a how-to of one of the big Mom-ism that my daughters will never forget: KNOW where you are in the world. Especially geographically.  

The author's checklist is a way to start CONNECTING with that geography. CONNECTING creates BONDING creates ATTACHMENT and doing this with your city brings PLACE ATTACHMENT, at least theoretically.

Here's what happened to the theory in real life:

TASK 1: 

Get a map (I used one of those old fashioned PAPER maps!) and draw a circle around your address with a 1 mile radius. Then walk or bicycle that mile from all directions so you can do errands, buy stuff, get to know people. Eat.

RESULT 1: 

FAILURE  

Bicycling is a "long ago dream" and, it's too hilly where we live to for Steve, Holly, or me to even walk much around the neighborhood. (OK...I know that's odd because I grew up in West Virginia but, hey, I'm old now! And Holly has a bum knee.) Even if I could do the mile, it would not matter because there's only one thing to do (golf!) within that 1 mile radius. Don't believe me?

The Walk Score of our address is a big fat 2, with 100 being the most walkable and 0 being pretty much UNWalkable. What’s the walk score of YOUR address? https://www.walkscore.com

TASK 2: 

Explore unfamiliar areas with a GPS. By foot or bicycle.

RESULT 2: 

So-So

If we RELIED on GPS or Siri to get us places here, we would be lost constantly! Clearly, google updates are in order!  Plus phones and internet are kind of sketchy in this neck of the woods. Amazing in a place that birthed Microsoft and now houses INTEL!

But all is not lost. EVERYTHING is unfamiliar and my daughters will testify that I have always done these adventures (in a car) because I'm like UPS...I don't generally make left turns.

So in my 1 mile radius of The City of Vision, I have now learned how to meander around housing developments, where traffic vans sit (pretty much EVERYWHERE!), what neighborhoods seem to have the most repair vehicles, which houses are older and where the in-fill is developing, how to get in and out of my street the back way. Yeah, I think this task produced a sliver of connection.

TASK 

Go on an historic walking tour. We trudged all over OLD TOWN ALBUQUERQUE for this because our own city was only incorporated in 1981 whereas ABQ touts a 300+ year history though not incorporated until 1885. 
(NOTE: OLD TOWN is now a fun, touristy place. So Steve drove us through the older part of the real downtown ABQ. Not gentrified much yet, this area is with peppered with hole-in-the-wall eateries that Steve loves to discover but also heartbreaking homelessness.)

RESULT:

FAILURE 

While the walking tour enamored us of ABQ, it didn't really connect us to our place, which is about 30-45 minutes from ABQ if we stay on the back roads.

TASK: 

The book ticks off a number of other things one can do to almost FORCE more people to walk the same 1 mile radius but we're not into commandeering a group. For now, this is a family experiment for us. However, the suggestion for individuals to try to draw from memory the things around the 1 mile was worth a gander and sharpened our mindfulness when we were out and about.

RESULT: 

So-So

I can draw stoplights, stop signs, some road names, a few vacant lots, the golf course, and some plants that are very near our address. It really did help me to better "know where I am in the world." I think the timeline for this connection could be boosted by a photographic tour (in our case, by the passenger in the car, of course!)

CONCLUSIONS

On the TV show SHARK TANK I recently watched a woman who failed at making apple jam turn the mistake into plant based honey! Likewise, I think the mostly failed results of my Chapter 1 experiment turned into HONEY because....


Although our neighborhood isn't very walkable, the parks in our city are plentiful and offer a Prescription Trail Number. A park with the highest number 3 offers challenging walking areas for the physically fit but a 1 offers accessible, easy walking space. For turtles like me! YAHOO...we live near a 1! I don't know if all states have Prescription Trails, but check out https://prescriptiontrails.org for New Mexico's.

Only it's NOT the walking at the park that matters so much in CONNECTING....it's the OTHER park feature upon which we stumbled that's the real honey for attachment:

DOG PARKS!

THIS is where people socialize! 

Day or evening! 
Old or young!

THIS is the place to connect with people that have a common interest. 

Conversations strike right up: 

"Where did you get him? Can you suggest a vet? Where do you buy her dog food?"

Research shows that is NOT just OUR FAMILY's experiences. For the very reasons noted above, dog parks are the fastest growing segment of municipal parks today! It's good for the dogs, it's good for the people, and it's good for the CITY. http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/culture/how-cities-may-benefit-from-dog-parks

And DOG PARKS ARE really, really good 

for PLACE ATTACHMENT.

But back to walking....

Although the purpose of Warnick’s walking wasn’t fulfilled by her task list on what I now call PLACE WALKING, park walking has proved prosperous as a prayer walking and health benefit. I plan to delve into those in my next postings, though they are off the beaten path from the book.

NEXT EXPERIMENT: Prayer Walking.  

And then Health Walking.

Although there's more to fully unlocking the feeling of belonging, the necessity of walking for life, without a car, in Blacksburg and China was a MAJOR KEY as to why we "belonged" in those places.

NEXT EXPERIMENT: Prayer Walking.  

And then Health Walking.