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Journey

There's something I don't quite get: why would anybody pay good money for a treadmill when there's a perfectly good footpath just outside their front door? I guess there are some perceived advantages to staying nice and safe and cosy inside your house while you walk, but there are great disadvantages too. Namely, that it is nice and safe and cosy. We walk out of our little street, turn left and head up the hill. There is a bit of a wind from the South and the sky is threatening rain.  At the dirt path on Highcliff Road we begin the gut busting slog up steps which are never in quite the right place, and stop halfway up on the pretext of taking in the view. The hills shield the harbour from the wind so the water is silvery and still. "Look at where we live", she says. I take a picture. I can't hope to capture the grandeur of what lies just past our place, but I try. We walk on and down the other side with my thigh muscles asking what the heck do I think I'm on about with every step of the long steep descent. And this is all part of it. The sky and the hills and the sea; the tussock and the birds and the gorse; the wind and the rain and the watery sunshine. All jumbled up in a sensory salad of challenge and ease, pain and pleasure, hot and cold, sweat and breath and effort and ease. Like the rest of life. Every walk is a little Camino. Every walk is a little sacrament of our longer journey.
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A friend sends me a text. "sorry to hear your cancer is back." Well, that didn't take long for the news to spread - the Anglican Church is, after all, one of the mass media. I'm grateful for the well wishes, but actually the cancer isn't back. It never went away. When I was diagnosed in 2008 I was told that it could be contained, but it wasn't curable, and over the last 11 years we've managed to contain it pretty well. A few years back it started to grow alarmingly, but every three months since then, a shot of gunk under the skin on my belly (of which I have plenty) has kept it quiescent. This wasn't an end to my cancer story, just another part of the journey, and this year, it seems that the gunk is losing its effectiveness. So sometime soon I'll meet with the people who know about these things and discuss what might be next. There is, apparently, a range of things they can try. None of them will cure it, but some will keep it at bay for a while longer. And what's a while? Your guess is as good as mine. And in the meantime I'll keep fit, eat well, meditate and walk, and expect a life as rich and blessed and wonderful as the last 11 years have been.
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I've been re reading C S Lewis lately. The Great Divorce. The Narnia Chronicles. Soon I'll start the Space Trilogy and my very favourite, 'Til We Have Faces. Interspersed with the fiction I'm reading the essays. These are books which helped form my faith back in the day but I haven't read them in decades. Superficially they have dated - language, and social attitudes seem old fashioned - but there is a powerful simplicity about them which belies the rigour of their philosophical and theological and devotional under girding. It's interesting to see how far I have moved on the journey of faith since I last read them. And, how little.

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Peter Carrell said…
Dear Kelvin,
I hadn’t heard that. (I’ll sack the Anglican grapevine managers.)
Prayers ascending.
Peter
14 May 2019 at 18:42
Alden Smith said…
Kelvin. Very sorry to read this news. Your approach ".. keep fit, eat well, meditate and walk" is a wise strategy.

On this journey that we all are taking, you can continue to bless us all by telling your unique story through your truly great photographs and insightful writings. Thank you.

“Something of God... flows into us from the blue of the sky, the taste of honey, the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot, and even from sleep itself.” C.S. Lewis

Alden
14 May 2019 at 21:40
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