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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nI will confess that I have never walked anything like a Camino pilgrimage. I love to walk, more so as I get older, but I\u2019m not a long-distance hiker. As they say these days, I try to get my steps in.<\/p>\n
So on a beautiful, crisp fall morning, I leave the house with a cup of hot coffee in my hand, not my usual practice. My husband laughs at me for drinking coffee as I \u201cexercise.\u201d But with a tight-fitting lid on my travel cup, I can walk at a good clip with an occasional sip. I see guys riding by on their bikes with a coffee cup in one hand so I feel vindicated.<\/p>\n
This is my morning prayer walk. Today, I am more concerned that Jesus walks with me than I am about my pace.<\/p>\n
I think we all struggle to pray. We are all beset by distractions, doubts, worries. So sometimes we switch it up and try a new way of praying. A prayer walk is my current new way. One thing I leave behind is my phone. In the midst of frustration over my lack of prayerful attention, I can resort to checking one \u2014 or more \u2014 of my online prayer sites for inspiration.<\/p>\n
That might be a good thing if you do it before your prayer time begins, or after. Reading and praying with the day\u2019s lectionary readings can also be fruitful. But scrolling for \u201cinspiration\u201d during prayer is just another detour from prayer, and takes your eyes off God.<\/p>\n
In prayer, God is present. All the time. Unfortunately, I am not always so present.<\/p>\n
So, as I begin my walk, I ask Jesus to give me a listening heart. I begin with thankfulness, gratitude. Then I acknowledge to him my present worries. I try to be very honest with Jesus about my fears and my feelings. I avoid the insistent prayers of petition that I can sometimes invoke, instead just briefly lifting them to Jesus to hold. I ask for the grace of listening, noticing.<\/p>\n
I lift up the people I love, people who have asked for prayer, the world\u2019s deep needs. I whisper a good morning to my favorite saints who may walk with me on this journey around the neighborhood. I push distractions away, yet consider that sometimes a distraction may be precisely what I\u2019m called to pray about, and I give that to Jesus as well. I ask Jesus to help me be discerning as I face decisions this day. Sometimes I cry.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s another expression, \u201cTwo people shorten the road.\u201d That\u2019s why books like McManus\u2019 can be helpful. As he prays on his pilgrimages, he spends time in solitary prayer but also reaches out for the community you find on the road.<\/p>\n
I think of Mary of Magdala, and the conversations and friendship she must have shared with Jesus on the long walks Jesus made with his friends.<\/p>\n
On my morning walk, I make my own path but I don\u2019t journey alone.<\/p>\n
Effie Caldarola is a wife, mom and grandmother who received her master\u2019s degree in pastoral studies from Seattle University.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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