One Step Further - Jim Melnyk

One Step Further

There were times I knew I couldn't take one step further - one more step up the hill to a clifftop - one step further down the hill to a beach. My damn knee hurt too much. Or my legs were too tired. The rocks were too slick. There were times I knew I couldn't take one step beyond the last step, which was one more step beyond what I swore was my last.

But there was always someone taking those steps ahead of me to inspire me, or by my side to encourage my lagging spirit. Morris and Alice struck out immediately for Hell Hole at Malin Head. I wanted to follow, even though I knew all the initial downhill portion of the trail meant an uphill trek coming back to the bus. Jennifer, Jenny, and Matt quickly caught up to me and passed by - but Jenny and Jennifer each spent some time walking alongside me. I joked about them driving me forward, but actually, they were accompanying me in a way that seemed to share their strength and energy. And there were so many others - who took time to check in on me time and again. Pilgrims who walked with me along the Derry Wall and Derry's Bogside (thanks Corrine and Allison), or sat with me to rest climbing up from Maghera Beach, or shared a room in Dunfanaghy (thanks, Don!).

On All Saints' Day we talk a lot about being surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses - but that most often refers to those saints who went before us in ages past. Now, I'm certain Brigid, Brenden, and Columba walked with us to Malin Head that day. I could feel their presence enfolding me. But even more important was my pilgrim community walking with me along the furthest northern reaches of Ireland - a communion of living saints. Thanks be to God.

Without my fellow pilgrims from Little Coracles I wouldn't have stood on the cliffs' edges of Slieve Liag, watching a ewe and her lamb grazing at dizzying heights, or tossed my three rocks to the Wishing Stone on Tory Island (though I only landed two of my three tosses). Without my living

communion of saints I wouldn't have found myself stretched out over the edge of the island cliff to photograph the Puffins - wondrous creatures who make my heart sing and my soul laugh. I wouldn't have stood at Malin Head that day and experienced the roaring, buffeting winds, the captivating view of the icy blue ocean waters crashing of the jagged rocks far, far, below, or stretched out on the grassy mountain's edge in the bright sunshine, on what felt like the very top of the world.