The Long Walk
Some time back I wrote a piece about the immutability of God, that fact that God never changes, and why that is so important. If you’re interested, you can find it here: Looking For A Constant
This post is a follow-up piece, trying to capture just a glimmer of that divine attribute while presenting it wrapped in fictional story.
The Long Walk
These were such different sounds. The mechanical push of the ventilator, grinding each breath. The shrill chirp of the oxygen sensor as it sounded out its routine warning. These sounds weren’t right, not natural. They didn’t call from a finch with turquoise blue emblazoned across his breast as it nervously flirted from one tender branch to another. They didn’t escape from the sighing branches or groaning boughs that bowed before the afternoon breeze that carried with it mysteries from some distant valley. These were new sounds. Different sounds.
His eyelids closed, he could hear the nurses speaking in the hallway. “Everything is quiet,” one would say. “Good,” came the well rehearsed reply. A semblance of a practiced smile crept into the corner of his mouth. It was only there a moment. No one else would have noticed. But it was there, or maybe just a memory of it. Quiet?, he thought. Hardly. Within the next breath, decades folded back on themselves.
“Is it always this quiet, Dad?”
“Quiet? Hardly.”
He remembered the weight of his father’s hand, firm but not harsh.
“Listen, son. Stop, and listen. Can you hear them?”
“Who?”
“God’s symphony. They’re singing his praise.” Then he simply stood tall and still, his eyes closed and head turned ever so slightly to the left with his chin standing proud.
This was his earliest memory of ‘The Long Walk,’ a ritual held every year deep in the depths of Spring. Every year his father would say, “Listen. Can you hear them?” And every year he would expectantly ask, “Who?”
“God’s symphony. They’re singing his praise.”
Then they would walk on. Sometimes they spoke. Sometimes they simply listened. His father was right, you know; it was hardly quiet.
Suddenly, they arrived. It didn’t have a name, at least, not one that they knew. They would just arrive. His father would say, “We’re here”, and sit down on the cool stone.
In all the years they walked and listened, it never changed. You might walk by it 1000 times and only casually note it as a place of interest, but to him, well, it was a place of dreams.
The trees didn’t grow too close to this stone where they sat. Maybe the soil was too shallow to take secure footing, but as a young boy, he was sure it was because the trees were honouring the space. This small clearing among the towering timber was the home of an ancient stone. Slate grey with charcoal veins laced across its face, he imagined it staring at the sky above it as thousands of nights marched past its unblinking gaze. And he would sit there, with his dad, until the cool evening air called them to make a fire.
In the morning they would go home. Next Spring they would return.
He grew up on the grey stone under the spinning stars. Serenaded by blue-breasted finches, he walked with ever widening strides in the footsteps of his father. Until one year, sitting on that old familiar stone, on the northern side where the moss grew thickest, his father reached down and held his palm against the seeping cool. “I’m going to miss this place.” That was the last year he ever came. Time had taken its inevitable toll.
As the next Spring deepened, a young man rolled up his blanket, strapped it across his bag just as his father had done over decades of walking this trail, and set off.
“Is it always this quiet, Dad?”
“Quiet? Hardly.”
He turned and waited till his son had caught up; allowing him to drop his small backpack to the ground and take a long sip at his water bottle, he eventually asked. “Listen, son. Stop, and listen. Can you hear them?”
“Who?”
“God’s symphony. They’re singing his praise.”
His son’s eyes widened as they caught the slanting beams of green tinged light that held suspended flecks of gold from falling.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Will it take long? This walk, I mean. Is it a long walk?”
“It takes a life-time. But it isn’t far.”
Tucking his water bottle into its familiar place, he swung his bag with practiced ease to rest on shoulders that were once small and easily wearied.
“If you walk with a steady step, listening carefully to the song, you might discover the singer. He wears a blue blazer that glitters in the sunlight. He is beautiful, but vain. Tug at my coat if you think you see him.” And with that, they walked again into the shadows of yesterday.
Later that night, with the fire dying to a glowing ember, and the never-ending song shifting to its evening minor key, he watched over his sleeping son. Yesterday that was where he lay. He recalled walking onto the grey stone with wide-eyed wonder, flaring his nostrils as he breathed the mossy sweetness deep into his lungs. Much had changed. Yet looking about him, at the small chip in the stone where he had once dropped the cast-iron plate, the deep smooth crease just below the crest where water trickled after the rain, and the line where stone and earth met—yes, much had changed, but much hadn’t.
His breath slowed as he lay his head down on his pack. The stars shone in familiar brilliance as they marched their endless journey across the silken night. Though he had since changed his favoured translation, he still recalled the words of Psalm 19 with ease, learned first from his Father’s well-worn Bible, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Some might think it quiet, but not him. His breathing slowed to match the swelling rhythm of the song that hummed about him, and the years blurred together in an orchestra of glory.
Listen, son. Stop, and listen. Can you hear them?
“I can hear them”—he whispered into the night—“God’s symphony. They’re singing his praise.”
He woke, his son resting his hand against his forehead. It seemed different somehow, heavier.
“You okay, Dad? Were you sleeping?”
The singing had stopped. The sounds were different. He could hear a shrill chirp, but it didn’t sound like his blue breasted friend. The wind in the trees sounded almost mechanical, a forced sound rather than a melody.
Then he remembered.
Quiet? Hardly.
“Yes, son. I was sleeping.”
“Sorry I woke you. Are you doing okay?”
“I’d rather be walking with you, or resting on that grey stone and watching the sun set.”
“Yeah, me too, Dad. Me too.”
For a while, all that passed between them were unspoken memories, long stored stories of misty paths and cold stone with ageless moss. His smile, or all that remained of it, crept back into hollow cheeks lined with long years.
“Is it nearly Spring? Will you go soon?”
“No, Dad. Spring has passed. Summer is gone and Autumn is almost spent. But I’ll go again next Spring, just like we used to.”
“Alone?”
“No, remember I have my own son now. He’s almost seven. Last Spring was his first trip with me to our place.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
“Sure, Dad, sure. We left a little later than we should have, later than when you would have. Do you remember how I used to walk behind? Well, I still am. Your grandson is so eager, so impatient to arrive, I kept having to ask him to slow down. We walked through the lower valley for a while, past the outcrop where I dropped my flashlight, do you remember that? Well, we passed onto the clearing, along the ridge to the left, and then back down into the second valley. We stopped on that flat rock that pushes out into the stream to fill our water bottles, just like we used to. Remember, Dad? Dad?”
“Huh?”
“You okay? You want to rest for a while?”
“No. I’m fine. Keep going. Did you take the path past the fallen log?”
“No, Dad. No, do you remember that the log was swept away? Must have been about 10 years ago now.”
“Sure. Sure, I remember.”
“We took the top path, just for a quarter mile or so, till it rejoins our old path. Then from there we went on till we arrived.”
He could hear his son talking, but his voice seemed so far away, like he was once again walking through those dappled paths under towering timbers, ancient and familiar. Ahead he could see that old grey stone. His father was sitting on it smiling, beckoning him to take his place by the fire that crackled with inviting warmth. Breakfast was cooking—fresh trout and camp-oven bread called to him. He started off at once, legs young and strong again, walking that old path where every bend and stone greeted him as a companion. But far behind him now, came the voice of someone he thought he knew. “Dad? Are you okay, Dad?”
“Sure, I’m fine. I’m just listening.”
“Listening? What are you listening to?”
“Listen, son. Stop, and listen. Can you hear them?”
“Who?”
“God’s symphony. They’re singing his praise.” Then he simply lay tall and still, his eyes closed and head turned ever so slightly to the left with his chin standing proud.
