Before I injured my foot, I didn't pay much attention to walking or to climbing stairs or to pressing the gas pedal or the brake pedal or to kneeling or standing. But for the past three weeks, I have been acutely aware of what part of the foot stands, walks, climbs, presses, and kneels. It amazes me how many muscles and nerves and tendons are all intricately connected and dependent on one another, and how focused I must be to walk or do anything involving my foot.
How easily I used to walk. How unconcerned I was with how my foot landed or with which toes were touching where or with what part pushed off the ground. Not so now. Now, I must think about it. I take care. I concentrate. I am aware. I notice what my feet are doing, how they do it, and what it feels like when they are doing it.
This new awareness strikes me as important, and I wonder what I have been missing as I go through my habitual life, doing this, doing that, without noticing the how, the what, the where, the why. Paying attention to my feet has encouraged a kind of wholeness, body wholeness. It is as though my feet want to be noticed for what they do and how they do it. And oddly, I want to notice them. I want to feel them, to know what it is they do, and how they contribute to my experience of life.
I have the sense that noticing my feet these past weeks honors God. I have had to slow down and notice something that is part of me, something that God gave me. The gift of walking, climbing, running, standing, pressing, and stepping. My feet are part of the kingdom, and they deserve a bit of recognition. So here's to my feet, and to my right foot in particular. May you recover fully and be all that God has for you in the kingdom.
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