We’ve been doing mediation hikes for a year now. They were the idea of one of our leaders. She and I started out leading all the hikes together, but last fall she took over doing them herself. I fill in from time to time on months when she doesn’t have a free Saturday.
The meditation hikes are simple and meaningful. All hikes are somewhere in the Portland area with routes that are about an hour long. Each hike includes time for reflection, sometimes while walking, sometimes while seated. These are interspersed with periods of silence and readings. Every hike also has time for conversations and moments to reflect together on the experience. The hikes are advertised on meetup.com and on the SFC Facebook and website. We get between 6 and 25 people per hike, usually around 10.
This past week I planned a hike dealing with themes of struggle., and boy was that apt. On Friday our daughter and I hiked the park and picked a route. I planned our stops for meditation and was ready to go. As our family arrived early at the park on Saturday we realized something was not as expected. The gates to the park were closed and parking in the area was insane. It turns out there was a family fun run starting at the same time as our meditation hike. I was upset, and took to the meetup app to try to locate people who had arrived. We found some of the folks, but not all and began our hike about 15 minutes late. It turned out to be a lovely experience and we only crossed paths with the fun run at the very end of our planned route.
I took this as a reminder that sometimes it is worth it to keep going, even when things are difficult. The people on the hike and the folks who we didn’t connect with all showed such grace and patience with the chaos. The hike itself was rewarding and helped me to center. Then came the best part. One of the men who had been planning to come to the hike, but who was not able to be there, came to Sunday Dinner. Despite the craziness he took the time to look up the community sponsoring the hike and came to check it out.
Part of what we do at Sellwood Faith Community is to spiritually engage the people around us. We do that with our chalkboard sign, with Spiritually Thirsty, with the hikes, through book groups and service projects. And every once in a while something clicks for someone and they are ready to explore more deeply. So we keep putting one foot in front of the other. We continue to be in our community. We continue to walk with our neighbors. We continue to persevere in the face of the unexpected. When we do we find grace and possibility which is enough to keep us going, stepping along our way.
-Eilidh
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