Magical Miles and Green Silence

An excerpt from The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane

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By Ryan Wentzel
August 06, 2025
Hilda Margaret Fairbain, The Beech Avenue, 1913
Hilda Margaret Fairbain, The Beech Avenue, 1913

In his book The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Robert Macfarlane gives a splendid description of a walk along the Icknield Way in southeastern England.

Those early-day miles were magical, up and down hills, through beech and coppice hazel woods, with a marine light in the beech woods that gave the feeling of walking in cool water. Among the trees, a taste of moss in the mouth; green silence.

Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot (New York: Penguin Books, 2012), 52.

The Weary Pilgrim

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Ryan writes for weary pilgrims learning to follow Jesus through the wilderness. For nearly nine years, he served as a lead pastor at a church in Escondido, California. He currently works as a chaplain with a hospice organization in San Diego.

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