Nourishing and draining times

I have found time and again that walking long distances is good for the soul. Long-distance walking is not merely a spiritual exercise, but an experience that engages the whole person. The fascination with pilgrimage is inspiring more and more people to pack their rucksacks and set off on a journey or a pilgrimage. Our lives have become very fast-paced, and many long for a steady rhythm like that of ‘step by step’. The speed of walking quite simply matches the speed of the human soul – and that does us good, slows us down, brings us back down to earth. There is a great longing that grips me time and again.

Walking pilgrimages always have three dimensions: body, mind and soul. Anyone who spends 21 days on foot experiences the same effect as after a spa treatment. You become fitter, have no appetite for heavy food or alcohol, and lose weight. Mentally, you repeatedly reach your limits and learn not only to see the path, but to visualise the destination. Anyone travelling alone feels very clearly that they are connected to others in a very deep and spiritual way. It confirms that everything is connected to everything else – not technically via a mobile phone, but through a deep spiritual dimension. Anyone who sets out with an open mind will experience a sense of bliss. Incidentally, even four days on the Johannesweg are enough for this.

During my journeys on foot, I have learnt that you cannot tinker with life, because life—because God—comes to meet you anyway. Whilst walking long distances, I also realised that you don’t need much to live. This gives rise to something like a ‘happy contentment’. The fundamental question then becomes: how can one live with less and yet retain what is essential? When that ‘less’ hits the mark, that is happiness.

Pilgrimage is not an achievement either; pilgrimage is a gift. I have also told this to everyone who has congratulated me in this context and in this spirit. Walking on a pilgrimage route (but just as much on any other path) allows the otherwise omnipresent ‘performance mode’ to take a back seat, and the ‘mode of being’ is given ample space. Now I am here, in the here and now. This also opens me up in a special way to encounters and to a wide-awake view of the world.

It is clear that the mode of walking has become my actual ‘way of life’. I have learnt to think about and shape everything whilst in motion, whilst walking, because these experiences are absolutely formative. I approach things differently. I now know for certain that I cannot plan and control everything. And that it is normal for there to be nourishing and draining periods in life. So that I do not forget this, I will set off again in February 2026 for three and a half weeks. Walking nourishes.

 

Ferdinand KAINEDER, MA 
Communications consultant, coach, theologian and author, President of Catholic Action Austria (KAÖ)
www.kaineder.at