What My Shoes Say About Me
I have spent some time on dusty roads—pilgrim’s ways that are steeped in equal parts history, Spirit, and intention. I have walked on beaches where monks walked and died. I have walked in mountain streams that pre-date the formation of North America. But I have spent more time on suburban cul-de-sacs, burning off the excess energy and calories of typical twenty-first century life. Ten thousand steps to counteract ten thousand cookies.
I have spent most of my time at an anxious pacing. Fretting back and forth. Around the loop. Down the hill. Sometimes I bring my kids and the dogs. We journey to the other cul-de-sac. Other houses that look just like mine. Yards a bit more tidy and a little less used make me blush. Dogs yell in greeting or warning. Sometimes it is hard to tell. We assume the worst and keep walking. Coming home we pass the bunny lot. The dogs strain against their leashes, making twanging strings out of nylon webbing. “What would they do if they caught one?” a blonde boy asks.
“I don’t know.”
What do any of us do if we catch what we are seeking? I imagine my sixteen pound spaniel would act in accordance with her evolutionary position as a predator. Even with those adorable freckles. She is born to hunt, and I am born to search. She for small animals, me for answers. I sure hope we never catch them. What we would do with them would be revealing. She would not live up to the curly ears and dainty toes. She would reveal her ancestry, Canis lupis. A little more dangerous. A little more wild.
What about me? What about you? Am I truly a creature of the asphalt? Of the manicured lawn? Of the freshly vacuumed minivan? What is deeper in me than grocery lists and tiding up?
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.”
The mist was thick in the field as she walked home. Her passing was silent. The dawning light was barely disturbed by her footsteps. Her arms shook a little from the weight of six measures grain. Would it be enough to become love? If she scattered this offering over months or years, would she love this man who would redeem her poverty? Her road had been long and uncertain. Would this stumbling, leftover, widowed road become a homeward journey?
What do my shoes say about me? I am a short venturer. I am a walker of tiny ways. I am a disturber of driveways. Is that enough to be valued? Do I qualify as a pilgrim along a mysterious, numinous way?
Well, I won’t find out sitting here.
