Category Archives: journey

The Last Day

I started today’s final section of the Hadrian’s Wall Path early in some lovely weather. I met someone on his first day of the walk. It depends if your an East to West person like me or a West to East person, you see.
It was actually yesterday lunchtime when the realisation struck me that there were more miles behind me than ahead of me.
Today there were some beligerent cows, some puddles, a top toilet at St Michael’s Church Burgh on Sands, a lovely pub, the Highland Laddie at Glasson, a lot of butterflies in the sunny bits, and the juicy blackberries were back.
At Port Carlisle there were the ruins of the old structures associated with the former ship canal and many interesting wading birds, including several herons and some egrets. These observations just some of what have made the whole walk both ordinary and extraordinary.
The rain started just as I got to the Bowness on Solway sign but it wasn’t far from there to the final bed and breakfast of this adventure where I was greeted with free cake. It’s been quite an adventure. Tomorrow I begin the journey home.

May the road rise to meet you,
Whatever that means;
May the cattle part before you;
May the blackberries be juicy and plentiful in the hedges;
May the tide be in your favour;
And may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

The Roman Way

Ant-like walkers
Roman stalkers
History catchers
Shower watchers
Wide-eyed wakers
Early mist breakers

Just imagine, if the Romans hadn’t built this wall nearly two thousand years ago then I’d not be able to do this walk today. Just one of the things the Romans did for us.
Me, I like to look on the Brightside even when it’s raining. Milecastle 34 had a brighter inside, with sheltering trees, and some stinging nettles. It was clearly most often used as a sheep fold these days. Sensible sheep.
There were a number of small woods; one was Sewingshields Wood, which bordered a small farm. This was a very wild place with the rain lashing down, but the wood was gentle, green and welcoming. Most bizarre of all the abandoned privy, door hanging off its hinges next to the path. This not One of those things the Romans did for us.
In Houseteads Wood it was possible to walk on the actual Wall. Mostly you just walk beside it or sometimes in a ditch. But the most noticeable thing about today were the ups and downs of which there were quite a lot. Each one has its own gap at the bottom, the best known of which is Sycamore Gap, for featuring in quite a few films.
There were many more people walking today, thanks largely to a trek for the Alzheimer’s Society. This led to some queues on the downs and ups due to the stone steps being slippery from the rain.
Milecastle came and went. Number 39 gets a particular shout out. By now I’m past half way on the Wall and there’s only tiredness in the legs to stop me, which thankfully came true at Twice Brewed. I was revived by sausage and mash and half of ale, before Bob went back to Yorkshire. Coincidently there were some Romans from Eboracum in the pub who cheerfully agreed to a photo opportunity. Well, they’d not met the Rev before. It was just one more thing the Romans did for us today.

In our coming and our going
The Energy of God

Durham

The Surplus to Requirements Summer Adventure starts today. First stop by train from Huddersfield is Durham. This world famous city and World Heritage Site is a very fascinating place with its narrow historical streets and buildings.
First call in Durham is Bells, fish and chip restaurant, housed in buildings dating from 15th to 17th centuries near the market place. The fish was a crispy fresh and welcome as ever for the memory of my fish selling ancestors. It’s certainly busy and popular with both locals and global visitors.
A little further on in North Bailey, St Chad’s College offers guest rooms in the summer and very nice it is too, if you get the right room key. If you don’t it’s doubly nice as you get the free work out on the stairs as everyone tries to help and eventually discover you have been given the wrong key.
Outside my window I can see the small wooden college chapel. A list in the entrance tells the visitor that of those listed on the WW1 Roll of honour, four were serving as Army Chaplains.
I had heard a lot about Treasures of St Cuthbert and had bought a ticket. It didn’t disappoint. The coffin of St Cuthbert and the things that were found in it are quite remarkable. The Anglo Saxon embroidery was not something I’d heard about before.
Although I’d been to the Cathedral before I didn’t remember it all that well. It truly is an awesome place. I started in the Galillee chapel where there is the tomb of St Bede, and walked through the nave to the place where St Cuthbert’s tomb is behind the altar. A small boy was fascinated by the crucified Jesus of the Pieta that was there. He venerated it by sliding down the shiny outstretched arm.
There were many things that interested me: the cross from The Somme in the Chapel of Remembrance to the Durham Light Infantry, the embroidery at the altars dedicated to St Hilda and St Margaret, the story of the Scots POWs kept in the Cathedral in 1650 after the Battle of Dunbar, amongst others. Although it was busy, there were many quiet places.

In our coming and our going
The Peace of God

Reflections around Knapdale

Tarbert was the first place for reflections on our tour around Kintyre today. This small bustling town gathered around an active harbour has some lovely rippling reflections. The colourful buildings grouped around the harbour are reflected back in today’s warm sunlight. There was fresh bread, vegetables and fish, of course. The core of an ancient castle guards the town from the hill above.
A detour for petrol took us to Lochgoilhead, which meant crossing the Crinan canal. We retraced a few miles and then took the road around North Knapdale. We had our picnic lunch on the shores of Loch Caolisport, the hills and sky reflected in the clear blue water, the shore a treasure trove of stones and shells.
We made our way through the green lanes of Knapdale to see the stones of Kilberry. They are housed in a small smart shed and echo back a history of over 1,500 years. Some of the oldest stones carved with simple cross marks are made of a local mica type stone and still shimmer. Others, not quite so old, show more complex carving: figures, animals, decorative panels. The Christian story has been part of this landscape for a long time. The information panel explains how the stones came to be ‘in the care of the State’. Something we might well take for granted until we reflect how many other stones world wide are not accorded such protection.
In our last section around Knapdale we notched up several standing stones. They represent an even older story that we are still trying to piece back together. Could the story with which we are familiar be lost? Might it happen soon? What part might our silences play in such a loss?

If Christ’s disciples keep silent
These stones would shout aloud

We know a song or two

Just at the Southend of the Kintyre peninsula is a small ruined chapel, some caves and a well linked to St Columba by what are said to be his footprints.
He is said to have stopped here in 563 on his way to Iona. The Antrim coast is visible and pilgrims made the crossing from there up until the mid 18th century.
The graveyards have a long history and many stories, not least the three grandsons of the local minister lost in WW1. My song was ‘Jesus, remember them’.
We took the switchback Road that leads to the Mull of Kintyre, ruminating on opening a Paul McCartney theme park in a local disused hotel. At the end of the public road the small car park was almost empty. We set off downhill to the lighthouse 2 kms away. There were many Magpie Moths trying to navigate in the wind, and a lovely range of flowering plants including heather, harebell and scabious.
The downward journey took half an hour and the journey back, with 280 metres of ascent only 50 minutes, which given the rather relentless gradient was satisfying. We could see the rain clouds gathering over the Antrim coast. Obviously there was only one song for this part of the journey. Join in when you know it…. Mull of Kintyre

Over my head, I hear music in the air:
There must be a God somewhere

Sea, sky and stones

We finally found the ogham stone a little way behind the church yard. It was coveted in whiskery lichen and the ogham marks very well eroded, but then it has been waiting there for sometime, in this bee loud meadow. There was a female common darter (dragonfly) chasing round the ragged rocks and red campion.
Gigha is a longer, flatter more arable island than Iona. The ruined church remembers St Cathan who brought the Gospel to Kintyre and the Western Isles in the 6th century from Ireland.
Fringed by green woodland the road south from the ferry also boasted two ‘honesty tables’, one selling shortbread and woolly hats the other eggs and candles.
Hannah had a cycle up and down and then we had some lovely lunch at the Gigha Hotel followed by ice cream from the little shop. This is a diversification in the Gigha economy and is made on the island with milk from the very cows she had cycled past on the north end.
The shallow bay by the south pier was a draw to almost everyone. Reached through another lovely wild flower meadow, with a wonderful crop of common orchids, it stretched on and on and was shallow enough to wade across which was pleasant and a cooling way to pass the afternoon.

From the warm sun and the cool sea
The green woodland and the colourful meadow,
The welcome and the care
Of this small island,
There is much to celebrate,
And remember gratefully.

The second leg

Reading this you may wonder about the first leg, which was Huddersfield to Kilmarnock via the Yorkshire Dales. The best bit was the cheese shop n Ribblesdale where having been pressed to try many kinds of cheese we came away with 10 to last us the week. We ate some in a small picnic at Teabay. Whichever way we go round here we cross over routes we have taken before, particularly Hannah’s End to End five years ago.
Kilmarnock has won the strap line Scotland ‘s most improved town. We visited an award winning fish and chip shop.

But the second leg, the original subject of this entry, was wet. We met Hannah at Ardrossan harbour and eventually we were all loaded onto a Cal-mac ferry for Arran. The famous Cal-Mac breakfast with Lorne sausage well worth the wait.
From Brodick to Lochranza it rained. Very open country, the road wandered by the coast, but there was no avoiding Hannah getting soaked on her bicycle. She made very good time but was wet and cold. The 12.00 ferry to Claonaig was warm but brief. As a port it boasted only a bus shelter. Hannah decided to press on. A newly resurfaced single track road of 14 miles with quite a loose surface had to be negotiated before a bar came in sight 1 mile from our destination. Let’s hope some hot food and a chance to dry out concludes the second leg in a more satisfactory way than it started.

Evening came on gently and the rain cleared such that sky, sea and hills were various shades of soft grey. It is quiet and calm.

In our coming and our going
The Peace of God l

Loosing The Way

A room full of silence. Each one of us lost in some way, with our own thoughts and emotions. Fifty days may seem a long time to some but actually 49 of them had passed very quickly and most of us were still raw. There was denial, shock and anger still gangling about inside and between us and no one really knew what to say.
I sat down on the floor, my back against the wall looking toward the small window. Outside the sunset had just got to that point when it seems the sky is on fire. I watched the fire rage and then burn down low as the sun finally sank below the horizon.
What next? He had said we should wait and wait we had. We were still waiting, not all of us graciously. Arguments flared up, things were said or not said: it was a mess. Only Mary his mother looked at all calm. She was waiting as he said and we did our best to wait like her.
There was plenty of time, plenty of time for thoughts to weave back and forth. It was impossible not to relive the past. There was the trauma of his death of course, but I could slip back beyond that sometimes to the green hills and valleys, the blue lake, even the dusty road. There had been good times as we’d listened and learnt and travelled together. He had shown us a way. It had been extraordinary. Not religious in the confined sense of obligations but in a joyous sense of freedom and new discoveries. Each view of the landscape linked to a thought or action, each meeting together a crucible of anticipation. Change had travelled with us, welcomed and exciting. The call to justice was strong; to live in peace, to be merciful. We all wanted those things and he had awakened that longing in us, with his stories, the prayers and most of all the silence.
‘Wait’ he had said and in a few hours the sun would come up on the fiftieth day. Would it be different to the previous 49? Would we, feeling that we had been loosing it all this time, finally rediscover The Way?

In our life and our believing
The Love of God

For churches in Yorkshire and beyond, who are struggling to find The Way again: Pentecost 2017

Prayer for a dying friend

The tide is going out,
The sand is smooth,
The rock pools isolated.
Standing on the shore,
The horizon joins the sky
At the edge of the world.
How often have we stood like this
And hoped to stand here again.
But the waters are moving faster now,
Tugging, pulling, more insistent,
Determined even, leaving:
Is there still time to visit the rock pools?
The treasures they contain,
Reminders of others days,
And memories to retain,
Until the next tide.
Our fingers touch, our minds too:
Can we let go yet?

God of the tide and the shore,
With your Spirit in us,
May the letting go and the loss
Be possible this side of your horizon

In our life and our believing
The love of God

Table re-setters

He overturned the tables
cake
Yesterday we had a meeting, just three of us: me, Gwen and Lisa. Now given my acknowledged meetings phobia you might be surprised by this. But it was a different kind of meeting. There was cake and as you can see by the photograph, it was chocolate cake.
We sat around the table and ate the cake and talked, remembering the bible as we went, remembering those with and for whom we worked, telling stories of families and friends both near and far away, cataloguing our prayerful concerns and our priorities for action. We were three women and some might have called us wise.
We were re-setting the table. On the day when we remembered the table up-setter who said ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’ we were resetting a perfectly ordinary table to be the centre of such a revolution.
In my remembered bible this is a week of tables, from those upset to those reset. Just as the stuff slips off of one table so it is placed more carefully on another. Of course we can, and do, become obsessed with furniture. I once heard of a church that had to have a secret ballot to move a lectern six inches. It could be one of those church myths but I don’t think it is.
You see this table re-setting is not about the actual table but about what goes on around it and where it takes us. It’s more about who is invited to the table and the sharing that happens there. This week I have been reading Lavinia Byrne’s book The Journey is my Home (2000, Hodder and Stoughton) in which she tells her own faith story. I used to know her when she was ‘Cybernun’ at the CCBI but we’ve not been in touch since then. I wanted to tell her how much the book had helped me to ‘re-set the table’ this week, so I’m telling this blog in the hope it goes into cyberspace somewhere.
Later this week, I will take a journey to meet a new community, the Lay Community of St Benedict, who have invited me to reset the table with them. I’m looking forward to it and I’m hoping there will be cake.