Beating the streets

Over the past few weeks I have, on a daily basis, been beating the streets, tapping boxes as I go, sometimes alongside other enthusiasts. Beat the Street is a borough-wide initiative, in which people walk, wheel or cycle between Beat Boxes attached to lampposts, collecting points every time they tap their cards. We can take part as individuals, or as part of teams of any size: judging by the website, almost every school in the borough is taking part - certainly, the people I bump into at a Box tend to be families from local schools, all taking part with great enthusiasm. (Though I really keep hoping I will bump into someone from the team intriguingly called Sacred sisters...)

I didn't originally plan to spend my Lent doing more walking every day, but that's exactly what has happened! Except for in places like the Thames Path, the Beat Boxes are rarely set out in a straight line, and rarely adhere to my normal routes to anywhere. Instead, if I want to tap as many boxes as possible I must make small detours, cross roads (and then cross back again) - even walk past my destination. I have to go further, and make more effort; to stretch myself and be stretched. I have to walk with more intention, and, on a new route, with more awareness, as I look around for the next box to tap. I have to, very literally, go out of my way.

And as I walk and ponder, I realise that this is very much what Lent is all about! It's a time for going further than usual, and for being stretched, and taken to new places. And it's a time when we journey as individuals, each one in their relationship with God; but also together, as part of our Church community, encouraging and bearing each other along. 

In Beat the Street, as in Lent, I too am journeying together, as well as individually - which is a great consolation, whenever I look at the leaderboard! I'm currently joint 263rd, along with several other people, all on 750 points. I'm nowhere near the bottom, but I'm also a long way from the top. That's me, on my own - but I'm also beating the streets as part of my parish team. And together, we are currently 30th overall - with 29 schools ahead of us; which means we're currently lying 1st in the Community & Workplace category, with a very solid lead of more than 31,000 points! 

Somewhere within those 31,000 are my 750; plus the points, however few or many, of every other person in the team. And isn't that how life is? Our solo achievements can be limited, paltry even; but every single 'widow's mite' is magnified when it becomes part of a much greater treasury. It's why people join campaigns and movements, and, indeed, it underlies membership of a religious community. We enhance, and are enhanced by, each other; carry and are carried, according to our capacities and our need. In the Society, I know that the poverty of my prayer is enriched, and the limitations of my loving are widened and stretched, becoming part of a much greater, more substantial tide of prayer and loving. In the Society, my 750 points are transformed into everyone's 31,000!

So much to think about, every time I tap my card, or plot my route! Blessedly, Beat the Street has become a means for reflecting on community, and Lent, and my journey with God, each time I set off for a walk, or to the shops. May I walk even further, with more effort and intention, as I accompany Jesus into Passiontide...