Darlene, Rowland Croucher has passed your request to me in Melbourne [and Ross Kingham in Canberra]

A resource you may find helpful is

Linus Mundy, 1997, A COMPLETE GUIDE TO PRAYER WALKING: A SIMPLE PATH TO BODY-AND-SOUL FITNESS, Crossroad Publishing Company, New York. [168pp.]

If for some reason you can’t get access to a copy, I could fax you a few pages, if you send your fax number.

But, for example, p.152ff:

A guided prayer walk “A stroll with your soul”, has 5 steps each with an introductory prayer: 1. Look up –as you walk, be alert to and note, and give thanks for. what is above you; what connects me “upward” with God ? 2. Look down — what “grounds” my faith in God’s presence ? Help me dig in and dig deep. 3. Look back –every journey toward, is also a journey away from. What baggage do I carry, what foorprints have I left, mindfulness of yesterdays even though I live in the present 4. Look around –I’m walking on holy ground in the here and now, alert to God’s gifts and possibilities; what speaks to me in the place, this environment of God’s companioning presence ? Wlak with me Lord, all th way home. 5. Look ahead –the perfect prayer path takes us back to the beginning, to see with new eyes, refreshed, taken deeper. Thomas Merton’s prayer “Thoughts in solitude”.

Annie Dillard’s book “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” is a superb example of deep awareness and mindfulness of God’s creation in all its intricacies. To read a few passages to Retreatants before they commence their prayer walk will open up some possibilities for looking with new eyes [or what Celtic saints called “clear eyes”]

Mundy has a good bibliography, and scores of other helpful ideas.

Another approach I have found good is to take an appropriate Psalm, for example Ps. 1:1-3 read the verses several times slowly, and in one’s mind’s eye see the trees of the Psalm as trees familiar to where you are walking; find a place to settle for reflection, lean against a tree, reminisce, pray, give thanks, see God working creatively all around you,identify what is sustaining and nurturing for the trees and creation, and what nurtures and sustains you at this time; write in your journal –prose, a prayer, a poem, “document” your sense of God’s presence in this place and this time.

I hope these few thoughts are helpful, and more particularly that Mundy’s book is available to you and will trigger many possibilities !

Grace and peace.

Robin Pryor