Today, Saturday, I was reviewing my plans for the walk that is just one month away, and I noticed my ambitious start. More than thirty kilometers the first day, and about twenty-four on the second. Hmm. Do I really want to do that? Do I need to?
So, I altered the plan. See the sidebar for the full 'tentative' schedule. I'll put in my first ten kms or so on Sunday, my last day at Digby Baptist. I will have my final service and sermon at 11, followed by an informal farewell party at the Church. After an early supper, I can walk to the Bear River Bridge. I'll start with the blessings of those who want to gather and see me off. I'll likely be joined by a few friends for this first part of the journey. Then, on Monday, it will just be twenty-one kms to get to Annapolis. And so on.
This reason to 'post' gives me an opportunity to say more about the origins of this idea. A newspaper reporter from northern Nova Scotia asked me this just yesterday, over the phone, "Where did you get this idea?"
From Arthur Paul Boers, ten years ago, at Acadia University. Theology professor Boers was giving the annual Simpson Lectures of the Acadia Divinity College, and spoke a great deal about walking as a spiritual practice. In particular, he talked of his experience walking the Camino de Santiago, in Europe.
This was my introduction to this ancient exercise, and so caught my attention that I actually pondered walking from Windsor to Digby when I was making that move, in 2014. I didn't do it. I'd never done much long-distance walking, not to mention for more than two days in a row. But now, after eight years in Digby, my walking has (I might as well say it) taken a few steps up. A 50 k in one day walk in January of 2018, and then 80 k in one day that November are far different from a 'camino' or pilgrimage, but they are a sign of my walking far distances now.
And my pilgrimage this summer is far different from the Camino de Santiago. I'm walking familiar territory, and to a permanent destination. I'll leave most of my reflections on this for when I blog every day of the walk. Suffice it to say, this long walk has been a decade in the making. Also, this surely won't be my last pilgrimage.
A month ago I finally read Boers' book, 'The Way Is Made By Walking.' Let me end this post with a quotation from him. (Arthur Paul Boers, IVP Books, 2007, p. 32)
Sojourning to Palestine is most familiar to us. Some claim that saunter comes from the French, Saint Terre or "Holy Land," a reference to pilgrimages to Palestine. (Or so Thoreau asserted: he was not too shabby when it came to walking, often doing so four hours a day.) I like to think that walking makes any place holy.
