What started as a minor hiccup in the flow of my visits to churches and places of worship is now well into its third month with no definitive end in sight. Through television and radio and the full spectrum of the online world I’m blasted with nonstop coronavirus information and guidance but, as befits our impotence in the face of such a force of nature, no easy answers. An invocation to keep active has been at the heart of the wealth of help and advice being beamed into the homes of those undertaking a fairly isolated lockdown. Keep yourself healthy by doing your exercises while avoiding slothful comfort-eating. Gaze at YouTube for every instruction and inspiration you need to leap around the lounge worshipping everything from Aerobics to Zumba. There was even, during the lockdown’s stricter days, a special licence to haul the old bicycle out of the garage and get your heart pumping with a quick half-hour dash round the neighbouring streets.
The shortcoming I’ve always found with exercise regimes is that they only ever seem to cater for the physical not the mental and thus are only half the picture of what the soul needs particularly in these highly testing times.
I have plenty of friends whose worthy attention to healthy living means they rarely put anything unwholesome in their diet - no treats or stodgy, fast food rubbish etc - but who would never dream of applying the same laudable rigour to what they put in their minds. If you only eat one meal a day, they seem to say, make it something healthy that has to merit its place in your body. To which, perhaps, should be given the reply that if you only watch one thing on TV don’t make it Eastenders or Love Island or Avengers 7. Your mind needs a filtered intake every bit as healthy as your body.
Thankfully there is an exercise which seems to me to be as healthy for the mind as it is for the body - well, this far-from-ideal corporeal self at least. And so for the last eight weeks and counting I have done little other than work and walk. Round the golf course, into the fields behind the castle, through the town or, now that we’re permitted to use our cars to move the starting point, slightly further out. Regardless of the location, the pattern is always the same; I walk and I think.
Perhaps it’s the act of taking oneself into somewhere less populated - and the current pressure of social distancing even conspire to help here by keeping distractions to a minimum - that makes think-walking both possible and fruitful. The gentle rhythm of the footsteps along very familiar paths allows the mind to flit, to land somewhere and to ponder upon whatever it finds.
There is of course a great wealth of example for journeying (and walking in particular) as a metaphor for moving from one state of understanding to a higher one within the rich spectrum of religious texts. Jesus, so the story goes, is out wandering in the wilderness when he faces his greatest temptation to let his standards drop; Buddha is invariably out and about when enlightenment comes calling. Even in the observance of pilgrimage you can see the key role of sticking one foot in front of the other and walking somewhere. Some two and a half million people take to their feet and let their minds focus every year while circling in Mecca during Hajj.
Life’s great questions have yet to feature in many of the literal and metaphorical ramblings I enjoy. Sad to relate but I haven’t managed to stumble on any truths profound enough to carry the weight of any religion. I’ll let you know if that happens. But it has been invaluable in trying to make sense of the changes around me and the comparative unimportance, when seen against that background, of many of life’s smaller questions which plague me daily. And through the sweat drips from my face and my feet and knees lambast me for not having bought better shoes, my mind certainly feels the benefit of this lockdown-beating workout.
