“Walk with me” The words to your friends in Eden’s cool evening tumble through history. Enoch, walk with me Noah, walk with me whilst I explain carpentry and rain Walk with me, Israel, through parted seas and barren desert. I'll walk you to the promised land though you wriggle to escape my hand. Even as they feasted on milk and honey, they strayed. So far that none could hear your voice. So you yourself came Looked us in the eye and bid, ‘walk with me’ And we followed and walked from Galilee to Jerusalem and back many times, walking and talking. You were our friend, walking with us. Your crown was hid, and when your plan was revealed and disguise cast away You merely asked us ‘pray with me’ yet we slept, and on waking, we fled. Death could not hold you. Alive and risen you took again to the road with ordinary people. ‘May I walk with you?’ And you walked and talked explaining the plan, only leaving when light had dawned upon our dull brains that this was you and you were alive. Despair dethroned by Hope. Here we stand Urged by ancestors to walk with you A cloud of witnesses watching our steps until we will come to the city where no one shall say to another ‘know the Lord’ for all shall know You. All shall walk with You in a place beyond time itself. But for now, as gravity pins me to earth I hear the call of love the call to friendship You almost sound lonely, and certainly yearning: “Walk with me”.
