River City Review

As I have mapped out my most recent prayer walks, I realized how much of Mason City I have walked.  I only have about 3 or 4 more sections of neighborhoods to walk.  I do not know what my prayer practice will then become, but I have been asked if I would lead a Walking Moai as part of the Mason City Blue Zones Project.  The Walking Moai is a social group built around a weekly practice of "walking."  Maybe, come April, I will shift to walking a fixed route rather than the street and neighborhood routes I have been using.  It is very exciting to see all the streets I have walked and to realize how many homes and sidewalks I have been able to walk and pray since moving here.

One thing I have learned is that praying takes on a different dimension when you pursue it publicly.  Even though I generally pray inside my head, there is still a sense that I might get "caught" when I pass people on the sidewalk or wave at someone who is raking leaves in her yard.  Also, there is a sense that the prayer is real; embodied in a way that is very different from prayer in my own private space with Bible or prayer book in hand.  Being musically inclined, I have often used my iPod and listened to Psalms while walking.  The other practice I have tried is to "feel" the Spiritual energy in an area.  I wrote early on about sensing tiredness or sickness while walking streets near the hospital.  I do not know how much of that has been a real sense of the Spirit, and how much has been a projection outward of my own inner landscape.

I do know that walking and praying has really built some connections and care for Mason City.  I know which potholes are being discussed at the City meetings.  I also know that the walks where I was joined by others really stand out in my mind.  I associate those places with the people that walked them with me, so that relationship has not just been building with the spaces, but with the faces there as well.  A delightful side effect has been realizing which homes belong to church friends.  To know that I brought their church into their neighborhood, even in silent Psalms sung in my mind, is really amazing.  I don't really know why.

Below, please enjoy the map of my walks.  Also, I have posted a slideshow of the pictures I have taken.

View Prayer Walking Master Map in a larger map