Reveries of a solitary walker*

I heard somewhere off somebody that walking is a discipline and I thought it was true when I heard it but now I know it is even more true. I have tried to make a habit of walking at night for several reasons:

- it gives me time to think
- the sky at night with all the stars firing their lasers off is spellbinding
- so I don't end up on the Biggest Loser
- it makes me think that perhaps our world isn't as mean and nasty as the news and papers have us believe.
- perhaps I will make a new friend
- I can be an asshole and say things to complete strangers like: "beautiful night(?)" or "evening!"

The whole nightwalking thing also makes me wonder about how much I miss when I am inside. The world seems to sparkle at me when I walk and I don't go very far- maybe thirty or forty minutes- and yet I know that the outdoors is precious and special.

I wonder how someone like John Howard, who walks every morning, can emphasise all those buildings and numbers and business deals over the beauty of sunrise or the way the stars fall into the cracks of darkness. I enjoy the outside world far more than flashy, big television screens but I am a long way away from finding a rhythm to describe what God has done. My prayer is that my rhetoric rests in my heart and that the environment breaks through my ribs and out of my mouth.

If you have read this far: I like you, thankyou very much.

*This title is stolen from the book of the same name by Jean- Jaques Rousseau. Most of my ideas and much of my philosophy is based on his writing so you should check him out.