Walking Where The Great Ones Have Walked

As a child how many of us have attempted to step in the exact footsteps of the adults around us? Thinking back, I still remember following close behind my dad as he walked down a sidewalk or even across the yard. Stepping with everything, I had to match his footsteps step for step. How well I recall walking across a plowed field behind my grandfather, making sure that I put my foot into the exact footprint made by his boots.

I reminisce, about the trip we took while still a teenager in high school, to the Norfolk Naval Base and to Washington, DC. I find it all so hard to believe now, but even then I remember thinking about those who walked the streets and sidewalks of that base and boarded ships, many of them to fight in wars in foreign lands and still many who those ships were a one-way trip that they were never to return from.

Walking through the Capitol and the White House I found myself wondering just who may have walked in exactly the spot I was walking. How many of our nation’s greatest men and women, those who have stood and risked life and fortune to guarantee freedom for all, have we walked or stood in exactly the same spot they once stood.

Many years ago, while in the Boy Scouts, we took several long and arduous hikes across some of the many battlefields from the Civil War in our area. Places that stand as a testimony of the scars that war left upon our nation and communities. I harken memories of the sadness I felt inside just knowing that good men on both sides of that war died on the same ground that I was walking. I still remember names like; Rosecrans, Bragg, Longstreet, Johnson, Forrest, and Thomas, generals on both sides of the conflict, and wondered could I be walking where one of those famous men could have walked, or was I standing where a simple farmer, fighting for what he believed, took his last breath?

Recently I walked the floor of an old knitting mill here locally; as I stepped across those worn planks, I wondered how many men and women once paced those same steps, moving raw materials and finished products throughout that old building. My mind drifted back to the efforts of many manufacturing facilities that made the products that enabled our fighting men to achieve victory in World War II. Many times those are the heroes, now forgotten, that we should feel honored, just to be able to walk on those same boards they once traversed.

If you are fortunate enough to work for a company that has been around for several generations, have you ever thought about whose footsteps you may be walking in on a daily basis, men and women who risked everything to create opportunities for those who have walked those same floors hence. How about when you step into the county courthouse, have you ever thought about the great citizens of our land who have walked those floors? On the other hand, perhaps for a brief moment you have cringed to think of those who were a menace to a civil society that have stood in the hallowed halls of the courtrooms to learn of their fate.

In the early 1990’s, I had the awesome privilege of serving in the Tennessee House of Representatives, many a long day sitting during sessions, on the floor of that chamber, my mind would wander to those who had served in that assembly prior to me. Men like Davy Crockett who may have stood in the same spot where I was, eloquently advocating for causes larger than any I could have ever conceived in my mind. Repeatedly I remember thinking how unworthy I was to be walking the same floor that so many famous individuals in our state and country’s history had walked.

Speaking of being unworthy, sometimes I find myself jealously thinking about the inhabitants of The Holy Land and those who have traveled there as well. For a moment imagine the feeling one must experience walking the same roads that Jesus Christ walked? Wondering, that if my some miracle of a chance your feet, could possibly be stepping in the exact same spot on the Via Dolorosa that our Savior stepped, as he made that fateful journey to Calvary. Of all the places one could walk,the steps up that now famous path, two thousand years ago, changed the direction of the world. In my mind, no one could ever be the same who steps on the most historically significant pathway in history. In that same realm of thought, we also know that all who accept The One who stumbled under the weight of an Old Rugged Cross, up that lonely walk,will ever be the same.

The next time you take a stroll, down a city street, across a recently plowed field, through the woods, or even across a beach, think about who may have walked those same steps many generations prior to you. Instead of always hurriedly walking, with only the thought of getting to your destination as quickly as possible, slow down, and think about your steps for a moment. Ponder if you will each step, and think about those who lived centuries ago and their sacrifices and even triumphs that make your town, state, country and world what it is today. Do yourself a huge favor and remember that each step you take you are most likely walking where the great ones have walked.