Walking by faith

Abraham packed up his wife and nephew and headed to Canaan in response to the call of God. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. Jesus and the disciples always seemed to be walking somewhere in the Gospels. Down through the ages believers have gone on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela. I recently had the privilege of accompanying Chautauqua Area Lutheran Youth (CALY) on a sacred journey to 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans to practice discipleship, peacemaking, and justice.

We used the trolley system where we could, and even got to ride a school bus once, but many of our destinations required us to walk. That's a good thing. You see and experience a place differently when you walk. Years ago, when I first became involved in ministry I had the blessing and the curse of a 15 passenger van. It was a blessing because it made travel so much easier and pleasant: hotel to conference center on the thruway in ten minutes flat! A quick trip to the mall when youth needed to unwind! Easy access to familiar chain restaurants where the food would taste just like it did back home! It was a curse too, although I scarcely realized it at the time, because we never really experienced our destinations or got to know anyone, because after all, a stadium is a stadium is a stadium… A motel is a motel is a motel…

Walking a city is a very different experience. It engages all the senses. There was a sense of joyful discovery in New Orleans—live jazz and blues seemed to pour out of every window and door. The architecture, so different than back home, was delightful. We tried a lot of unfamiliar food (some of our group were more adventurous than others). The warmth and the humidity clung to our bodies and clothing. Not everything we experienced was so joyful—the homeless man hunkering down for the night during a thunderstorm. Drunks fighting and abusing each other. The women selling themselves on the street in broad daylight. Sirens at all hours of the day and night. The poverty, the garbage, the questionable smells every morning on Bourbon Street. Yet, these things were just as important to experience, because the youth are at an age when we do them a disservice to portray a myth of the perfect existence. If they are going to change the world—and this crew just might—they need to know the stakes.

Walking made us think intentionally about what we carried. We took things like canteens, maps, and other necessities. We didn't want to be weighed down with extras. We paid attention to our surroundings and each other. There was very little "tuning out" with headphones or texting. We met people that we wouldn't have otherwise by our slow mode of travel and took time to listen to their stories. We had to carve out time for rest and that fostered leisurely conversations about our experiences over lunch or resting on a bench. Our mode of travel was demanding—and we have the blistered feet to prove it. The dirty clothes in our luggage—phew—bore witness to the heat.

We came up with a joke during our time in New Orleans that went something like this:

Question: "What has 32 legs and stinks?"

Answer: "CALY!"

Yes, young people, you really did stink in the most wonderful way. Often we associate the smell of incense or altar flowers with spirituality. But there is something profoundly holy as well about a sweaty, stinky youth group doing its best to practice peacemaking with each other for a week, learn about justice issues, and walk as disciples. It was physically hard, but spiritually uplifting. May you never forget the sights, sounds, smells, taste, and touch of New Orleans.

The gospels would have been so much shorter had Jesus taken a taxi or a limo. He never would have met the Samaritan woman, or the Centurion with the sick servant, or called Nicodemus down from that tree, just to name a few. The faces and desert roads would have just been a blur from an air-conditioned capsule. And I think the message would have been different, too. Maybe there wouldn't have been so much in there about the poor if he didn't run into them so much. We would have never read the beautiful passage "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them" (Matthew 9:36 NRSV).

This trip has got me wondering. Now that I am back home, I wonder how it would impact my faith if I spent more time walking? Might I notice people and situations that need compassion and love that are invisible from behind my steering wheel? Might I be more apt to hear first-hand stories of my fellow travelers? Perhaps I may sneak out of worship some Sunday soon to see what the rest of neighborhood is up to and maybe even get a chance to chat. Maybe I will find that I have some compassion ready to spring forth, too. Anyone interested in a stroll?

Ian Eastman, M.A. is the Youth Coordinator for the Southwestern Conference of the Upstate New York Synod, the Coordinator of the Shared Lutheran Youth Ministry in Jamestown NY, and a Youth Minister in the Pastoral Care Department at Gustavus Adolphus Family Services. He is a student at the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Chautauqua Area Lutheran Youth gratefully acknowledges the support of the Karl Peterson Funds & Lynn Foundation Fund of the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation in making this project a reality.