Walking without excuses

From the Nelson Mail:

Bishop Richard Ellena is planning to walk 1000 kilometres around the Nelson Anglican diocese to celebrate the city's 150th birthday and retrace the steps of Nelson's first bishops.

Strangely, I'm still haunted by a comment Erik made nearly two years ago to the effect that he wouldn't be involved in something like walking the Nakasendo if he didn't think he'd end up with material for a body of artwork at the end. Partly this is because I continue to feel guilty that I haven’t contributed anything to the art project since the end of the walk. But also, although I'm sure it wasn’t intended as such, I took this remark as a slight in the form of a denial that walking the Nakasendo had value in its own right.

Recently I've become firmer in my opinion not only that walking does have intrinsic value, but also that people who use walking to promote some cause or to fundraise are denigrating this value. So I get slightly annoyed whenever I read in the newspaper about someone walking the length of the country to raise awareness of such-and-such an issue, or to raise money for such-and-such a cause. I'm not doubting that in most cases the issue or cause in question is important. It's just that I find it disappointing that people either feel the need to come up with some excuse to walk, or regard it as some kind of sacrifice that deserves reward in the form of publicity or financial contributions from others.

I'm not sure where the bishop stands on this. Wherever it is, I wish him well on his epic walk.