Walk out and walk on.

Departures and new beginnings.

Was your year like that? Mine sure was. Some unintentional, some deliberate. But that’s a story for another day. One thing is sure, I’m going into the new year with these words: walk out and walk on.

Both actions. Not just one, without the other. In her book, Walk Out and Walk On: A Learning Journey into Communities Daring To Live the Future Now, Margaret Wheatley explains that walk outs are people who have deliberately chosen to leave one situation or environment to walk on to new horizons with the intention to use their gifts in new ways and in new places.

As I thought about the concept, I could see the biblical heroes of old: Abraham, Moses, Joshua… get up and get going. I could also see countless other historical figures who left their own comfort zones to heed the call issues of burning importance to them: Jesus, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and so many others. They all dared to embark on the Hero’s Journey, as author Joseph Campbell calls it. Walk out and walk on.

No two ways about it: they saw an issue of injustice and resolved to doing something about it.

Walk out and walk on, despite the cost.

Walk out and walk on, despite the opposition.

Walk out and walk on, despite the confusion.

Walk out and walk on, despite the pain.

Walk out and walk on, despite the risks.

Walk out and walk on. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep speaking, caring, teaching, serving, creating…

Let me leave you with the poem Wheatley shares at the beginning of her book. I felt it was fitting here:

This is the setting out.

The leaving of everything behind.

Leaving the social milieu. The preconceptions.

The definitions. The language.

The narrowed field of vision. The expectations.

No longer expecting relationships, memories, words

or letters to mean what they used to mean.

To be, in a word: Open.

(Rabbi Lawrence Kushner)

Walk out of 2020, and walk on to 2021. Walk out of isolation and walk on into the crowd. Dare to connect; their place of need is perhaps your place of gifting. Are you open?

Thanks for reading. If you liked this post, please like, share or comment. I appreciate it!

‘Til next time – no, year! – keep learning, – Claire xx