The Beginning of a Daily Trail: Two Miles in the Hood and Quiet Time

If I am going to be a conditioned backpacker then at least I need (and want) to be a regular walker. If I am going to be a faithful servant then I need (and want) to spend some time with the Master. So for about a year I have taken up early morning neighborhood walking to get those legs in shape and that ticker pumping. Each morning about 6:15, after the coffee gets going, I take one of several routes of about two miles. My standard and favorite takes me about 30 minutes and is exactly 2.0 miles, which calculates to a speed of 4 mph, about twice what I accomplish on backpacking treks.

So, out the back door and across the yard past M's garden on Forest. Those Shasta Daisies just keep multiplying. The garden is producing well; we had so much lettuce, cucumbers are prolific, beans OK, tomatoes on the way, other flowers in abundance. Now I head down Stuart Hall Road past Trinity Methodist and where C&T used to live back in the day of youngsters at home. Trinity is a wonderful part of the neighborhood. At noon and six in the evening the chimes play some of our favorite hymns, a fitting testimony to the grace of God. I walk over the creek and then up to Baldwin Road where I take a left. This creek flows down to the lake at University of Richmond. A walk over there and back takes an hour (about 5 miles) and is for the most leisurely of days. 

Here's a typical street view with overhanging hardwoods and spindly pines. Over the course of weeks I see that same folk mostly with the same pets. Squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, birds, cats, and leashed dogs are my animal companions.

Turning right I am now on Hollins Road, a lovely divided street with a small creek down the median. I ignore the sign that says Do Not Enter and forge ahead. At the top of the hill I turn right again onto Woodberry Road for one block then down the hill on Sweetbriar Road. To make the trip total 2.0 miles I bear left on Rock Creek Road and continue all the way down past Baldwin to Forest Avenue on the other side of Trinity. I zig zag over to University and then left on Arlington Circle which loops up, around and back to University. Another zig zag onto Essex Avenue for a block, a right on Fairfax Avenue and I am coming up on the back side of the house with a good view of the Mini-Monster (a short green wall that is supposed to remind me of the Green Monster in the Fens). Looks like the WSJ is waiting for me in the driveway, coffee in the kitchen and morning devotional materials in the garden room. I use a devotional guide called Encounter with God by Scripture Union, a plain Bible (no commentary), a journal, and prayer cards (index cards for various themes) to continue the day. My walk is peppered with all sorts of musings depending on what happened recently or the plans for the day. I make all these wanderings of mind into prayers since God is interested in what I am thinking and He can better speak to me in those quiet morning moments if my mindset is on Him. So there we have it, the beginning of a day ripe with opportunity.