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Good morning

Yesterday the King gave his first Christmas Day message, following in the footsteps of his mother, Elizabeth II, his grandfather George VI and great-grandfather George V. This time, the speech was filmed in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where Queen Elizabeth is buried and where her committal was held in September. As I listened to the King pay tribute to his mother, I thought of the people who knew her well at Windsor. On December 23 I was at a carol service in the chapel where people in the congregation talked of the Queen they had worked for. She was part of a community there; at her committal, the Dean of Windsor spoke not only of her care for her family but of her neighbours too.

At Christmas loss is felt so keenly. The spaces around the dinner table that would once have been filled by those we loved. The gap on the mantelpiece where a card from a neighbour would once have stood.

But Christmas continues in spite of these losses. Somehow people find a way to maintain particular traditions, often by engaging the next generation. Christmas continues, through food eaten, games played and the decorations put on the tree year after year.

One of the most popular traditions of the festive season is the Boxing Day walk. No doubt countless people will set out today, walking off food eaten yesterday, and trying to clear heads after a fair few glasses of wine. And there’s something about a walk that is particularly energising, that goes beyond exercise. It’s the feeling of all going in the same direction together, of the sense of purpose – something that today’s guest editor, Lord Botham, knows well from his walks to raise money for leukaemia research.

Walking is something that is mentioned frequently in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures as a metaphor for being as one with God and humanity. Walk in God’s path, says the prophet Isaiah. Walk in his ways, it says in the first book of Kings. Noah walked with God, it says in Genesis.

Luke’s Gospel records how two of Jesus’ disciples set out to Emmaus when they are joined by another man on the road. At first the pair, deep in conversation, don’t recognise Jesus himself, their friend who had been crucified and risen from the dead. But he reveals himself in how he is on the road – full of empathy. That walk to Emmaus is a metaphor for accompaniment. But a walk, literally, is also that. Not just exercise, but a time for companionship, for listening heart to heart.

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