Walking Man

I recently made the claim that secularism offers no good answer to anxiety. This is quite true, for secularism offers no good answer to anything, including itself. A friend responded that surely walking is an answer to anxiety, and on top of that it is a secular answer to anxiety.
       I do not doubt that walking can be an answer to anxiety. I have experienced the benefits myself, especially on colder days when I have my family in tow, or perhaps when my family has me in tow. I do have greater peace in those moments, and I do sense that the unfounded cares I carried with me are easier to forget than I had previously thought. But I doubt everyone has always experienced walking as a cure to anxiety. I expect many men have experienced the opposite. For I’m certain there are men who paced the beaches of Normandy, ambulating over dead men’s chests, who indeed experienced more anxiety than ever before in their lives. Far less courageous, I have seen men walk through a thunderstorm, pacing in a way that proves they are more anxious, not less. Though I have never experienced this, and most certainly pray I never will, there have been men who take their last walk along “the green mile,” whose peace is not settled and therefore whose anxiety is greater than ever. A man with the heavy yoke of guilt or pride cannot face death without death’s handmade, anxiety.  ​

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