walking

"Where's your car?"

An interesting, suggestive question.

I was out visiting a lovely, older lady this afternoon. She's not so able herself to be out and about these days and is only a few weeks back in her own familiar home after quite a spell in hospital.

So I'd called by to see how the lady was and enjoyed the time with her.

It was when I was leaving, as she stood at the door, that she asked me about the car.

She was, I think, concerned. Worried, perhaps, that my car had maybe been stolen, since it plainly wasn't visible up or down the street.

"I'm on my feet," I said. "Walking."

A deliberate ploy on my part. To get a bit of exercise. To have some time to think. To meet folk on the way.

And not to use the car.

It's strange how the assumption always is these days that journeys need a car.

It's only a brisk, maybe 10 or 15 minute walk along the road to her house. But the assumption is I'd always take the car.

Economy of time. That sort of thing, I guess, is how we justify that means of travel round the place.

But it's more, I suspect, like thoughtlessness and laziness. And on all sorts of fronts, a fairly false economy as well.

The Lord looks only for me to walk with him. Not to be so driven.