Category: Prayer walks

Mindful Sauntering: the in-coming of Autumn 

There is a suggestion that a saunterer is a person walking to the Holy Land, coming from the French ‘à la sainte-terre’. So let’s consider sauntering to be a form of holy or blessed walking.

For everything there is a season,

a time for every activity under heaven.

A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to harvest.

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. 

He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:1,2,11

“Autumn … makes a double demand. It asks that we prepare for the future — that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks that we learn to let go — to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness.”

  Bonaro Overstreet, “Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness,” in Jean Beaven Abernethy, Meditations for Women (1947)

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It’s in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. Robert Bly)

God, open my mind and heart.

Lift the barriers, 

unbind the strong grasp of my demands 

when I want everything to go my way.

God, reach into my inner space. 

Sweep out all my old clutter, 

enlarge my capacity to receive.

God, empty me of whatever impedes 

the growth of our relationship.

Help me to recognise and accept 

your sources for my growth.

God, soften my resistance to emptying.

May I welcome each inner season 

as a catalyst for my transformation.

Joyce Rupert

God of life, you believe in us, you enrich us, you entrust us with the freedom to choose life.

For all this, we are truly grateful.

Amen. 

Mindful Sauntering – Belonging to God

There is a suggestion that a saunterer is a person walking to the Holy Land, coming from the French ‘à la sainte-terre’. So let’s consider sauntering to be a form of holy or blessed walking.

I’ve been wandering through the pages of my life

Not knowing where to turn

It’s like standing on the edge of a knife

I don’t know, which way am I to go…

I’ve been to places far and wide, 

Witnessing lives of different kinds.

I’ve seen faces living a happy song, 

But I still don’t know where I belong…

Searching every nook and corner, 

For a place that is meant for me.

I took long, to realise that, my question

Should be, ‘With whom do I belong? ‘

Reshma Joy – https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/where-do-i-belong-14/

The Lord is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Psalm 95:7

“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.” John 17:20

The same stream of life

that runs through my veins night and day

runs through the world

and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy

through the dust of the earth

in numberless blades of grass

and breaks into tumultuous waves

of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked

in the ocean—cradle of birth

and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious

by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb

of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Rabindranath Tagore – https://www.poetryverse.com/rabindranath-tagore-poems/stream-of-life#google_vignette

Mindful Sauntering: doubting 

3rd July is the feast day of St Thomas who seems to be always disparaged as Doubting Thomas. Thomas is not alone in doubting. Peter too has doubts and questions, and even challenges Jesus directly. 

But is doubting a bad thing?

Benefits of doubting: we question assumptions, we are more ready to see if there is a different view point, we are less quick to deride others. We learn because we seek to understand.

Today let us question, doubt our place in creation. Are humans really the supreme beings? Should we be more humble, more willing to see ourselves as part of a greater whole, living harmoniously in an intricate and interdependent ecosystem that is beyond our control?

He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.  The earth produces of itself … Mark 4:26-28a

The earth will heal itself

when we are gone 

the earth will heal itself 

when we are gone 

the air will breathe deep again 

when we are gone 

the clouds will carry their spring rain 

when we are gone 

the concrete will crumble to its core 

when we are gone 

the plastic will return to its source 

when we are gone 

the estuary will drink from the sea 

when we are gone 

the bees will nurture new colonies 

when we are gone 

the road will flower into a meadow 

when we are gone 

the tuna will leap for joy 

when we are gone 

the glass will grain into sand 

when we are gone 

the sun will warm new life 

when we are gone 

the earth will heal itself 

when we are gone.

Ian Adams 

Birdsong brings comfort 

to my longing 

I’m just as ecstatic as they are, 

but with nothing to say!

Please universal soul, practice 

some song or something through me!

Rumi

May the eternal creator, sustainer and redeemer go with us as we walk. Amen.

Mindful Sauntering: God will comfort us

As a mother comforts her children, so will I comfort you; 

‘You shall see and your heart shall rejoice;

you shall flourish like the grass of the fields.’

Isaiah 66:13, 14a

Don’t give me the whole truth,

don’t give me the sea for my thirst,

don’t give me the sky when I ask for light,

but give me a glint, a dewy wisp, a note

as the birds bear water-drops from their bathing

and the wind a grain of salt.

Olaf Hague 1985

Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,

    that his glory may dwell in our land. Ps 85:9

Let the field exult, and everything in it.

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy

    before the Lord; for he is coming,

    for he is coming to judge the earth.

He will judge the world with righteousness,

    and the peoples with his truth. Ps 96:12,13

Salvation equals God – ie glory – with us.

All nature has a feeling woods fields brooks

Are life eternal—& in silence they

Speak happiness—beyond the reach of books

There’s nothing mortal in them—their decay

Is the green life of change to pass away

& come again in blooms revivified

Its birth was heaven eternal is its stay

& with the sun & moon shall still abide

Beneath their night & day & heaven wide

John Clare (1793-1864)

Mindful Sauntering 

Holy Ground

The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of a bush; Moses looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then he  said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then God said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you  stand is holy ground. 

Exodus 3:2- 5

There is the suggestion that a saunterer is a person walking to the Holy Land, from the French ‘à la sainte-terre’. So let’s consider sauntering to be a form of holy or blessed walking. May our walking bring us closer to God.

Good Ground by Malcolm Guite 

I love your simple story of the sower,

With all its close attention to the soil,

Its movement from the knowledge to the knower,

Its take on the tenacity of toil.

I feel the fall of seed a sower scatters,

So equally available to all,

Your story takes me straight to all that matters,

Yet understands the reasons why I fall.

Oh deepen me where I am thin and shallow,

Uproot in me the thistle and the thorn,

Keep far from me that swiftly snatching shadow,

That seizes on your seed to mock and scorn.

O break me open, Jesus, set me free,

Then find and keep your own good ground in me. (1) 

  1. https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2015/10/10/good-ground-a-sonnet-on-the-parable-of-the-sower/

Mindful Sauntering: Embracing the moment

There is a suggestion that a saunterer is a person walking to the Holy Land, coming from the French ‘à la sainte-terre’. So let’s consider sauntering to be a form of holy or blessed walking.

The scriptures give God many names as people try to describe their encounter with the presence of holiness. Such names – or descriptions – include beloved, father, mother, midwife and shepherd; or  rock, tower, shield, light and sun of righteousness. In our prayers we may talk of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit or alternatively as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.

I wonder if we have our own particular name that describes our experience of the presence of holiness.

i thank You God by e e cummings 

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

The heavens are telling the glory of God; they are a marvellous display of his craftsmanship. Day and night they keep on telling about God.  Without a sound or word, silent in the skies, their message reaches out to all the world. Psalm 19:1-4a (Living Bible)

‘To pray is to walk in the full light of God, and to say simply, without holding back, ‘I am human and you are God’. Henri Nouwen

Mindful Sauntering: Pentecost 

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”  Cynthia Occelli

Pentecost was in origin an agricultural festival celebrating the harvest of the abundance that each grain, sown in the spring, had produced. Today, at Pentecost, we celebrate the abundant riches of the Holy Spirit.

God’s Grandeur by Gerald Manley Hopkins 

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Reaper with wheat field and sun (part thereof) by Vincent Van Gogh

As we walk under the sky and on the earth, may God the Holy Spirit enfold us. Amen.

Mindful Sauntering – between Heaven and Earth

A collage variation of Chagall’s Jacob’s Ladder (source unknown)

And Jacob dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Genesis 28:12

Heaven and Earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even smaller. A thin place is where the veil that separates Heaven and Earth is lifted and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God. (Celtic tradition)

Nothing Is Far

BY ROBERT FRANCIS

Though I have never caught the word

Of God from any calling bird,

I hear all that the ancients heard.

Though I have seen no deity

Enter or leave a twilit tree,

I see all that the seers see.

A common stone can still reveal

Something not stone, not seen, yet real.

What may a common stone conceal?

Nothing is far that once was near.

Nothing is hid that once was clear.

Nothing was God that is not here.

Here is the bird, the tree, the stone.

Here in the sun I sit alone

Between the known and the unknown.

And Jesus said, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’ John 1:51

Christ came down to raise us up, for Christ joins Earth with Heaven.

Lord Jesus Christ, through your life and death, you opened wide the way between Heaven and Earth, come close to us now that we may glimpse Heaven on Earth and so be inspired to lift our lives up to you. Amen.

Mindful Sauntering: High as the Heavens

The following material is as an aid to reflection whilst gently walking in a green space.

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;

    I will sing praises to you among the nations. 

For your loving kindness is as high as the heavens;

    your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

Psalm 57:9,10

High Flight   by   JOHN GILLESPIE MAGEE JR.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air ….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. 

1 John 3:1a

Walking with Jesus 

18th April 2026

Come … let us walk in the light of the Lord. Isaiah 2:5

You Lord, are the source of all good things: 

We praise you.

You call us to tend and care for your creation: 

May we strive to do your will.

You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives: 

May we live together in peace.

A reading from Luke 24: 13-17, 25-29 

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.  While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them,  but their eyes were kept from recognising him.  And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!  Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’  Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. 

When we walk 

our minds are free.

When our minds are free 

our eyes open. 

When our eyes are open 

we see the truth.

When we walk 

our minds are free.

When our minds are free 

our inner chatter quietens. 

When our inner chatter quietens 

we hear the truth. 

When we walk 

our  minds are free.

When our minds our free 

our hearts open.

When our hearts open 

we can embrace the truth.

Jesus, friend and companion, 

walk alongside us today.

Open our eyes.

Quieten our chatter.

Speak into our hearts.

Fill us with understanding.

Show us new ways of living

Renew in us love for the world.

And as evening draws in, 

meet us in the breaking of bread.

Amen.

The Grace