by David Melton
By the time you read this, another crop of extraordinary men and women will be ready to walk across the historic stage of Faneuil Hall in Boston to receive their degrees from Boston Baptist College. It’s quite a site, quite a moment. I wish you could see it. Where heroes of the past once stood — heroes of faith for the next generation will walk. Young people we have shared mind and heart with, like Bobby and Lauren and Dan and Michelle, will not only walk through Faneuil Hall, but, in one of my favorite Boston traditions, will take a final Boston walk together. In full regalia, we walk past the very spot where D.L. Moody was converted, and with flags unfurled and bagpipes blaring, we will walk past the statue of Samuel Adams — that honors his integrity on our way into the building often called “the cradle of liberty.” I love walks in Boston.
For some reason walks seem to come up with regularity in the life of our college. Our campus has a “Walk of Light” — a tribute to lifelong faithfulness that illuminates our campus and inspires us to emulate that biblical quality. If you go downtown, you are supposed to walk the Freedom Trail (those trolley things are kind of cheating!). Then, last month, I had an incredible opportunity to share another famous walk with a bunch of our students. While in the UK on our study trip, some of us spent the day at Oxford. It was an amazing day (too much for me to tell you about here, but feel free to ask me later). Except for holding ancient papyri of Scriptures in my hands, I don’t know if any part of that Oxford experience was more meaningful to me than meandering around Addison’s Walk at Magdalen College. Addison’s Walk is the path that J.R.R. Tolkien walked with C.S. Lewis as they talked about the reality of the One true God. After one long twilight walk, Lewis would finally crumble before that God — whose reality he had long opposed — and the rest, as you know, is history. That’s quite a path!
College is a marathon. It’s a precursor to church ministry, where “a long obedience in the same direction” is worth so much more than making a splash. But on that marathon we sure do need a few good walks. We make a point of that here in Boston.