Month: June 2020

Day 67 of the End to End in 2019 was full of excitement and adventure. My chance to be a celebrity came a little later on in the day. First there was Powfoot, a quaint 19th century seaside resort that threw up some unexpected things. The remains of the sea bathing pool later featured on Digging for Britain or Coast or one of those Neil Oliver programmes. There was also a int that there might be Natterjack toads. Biggest disappointment of the day was that none were sighted.

It was a hot walk and a cool drink at the Powfoot hotel looking out to sea was a welcome break. Bob met me and we walked onto Ruthwell. We’d made an appointment to visit the Savings Bank Museum and here was my celebrity photo opportunity. The first savings bank in Britain made a difference to the lives of ordinary local people. Women could have an account here in their own name as could children. It was a revolution and paid for a school and teacher in the local community. The idea of Henry Duncan the local Church of Scotland minister at the time, we see its legacy in the many credit unions run in churches across the country.

Henry Duncan was also involved in raising the Ruthwell Cross, one of the best preserved Celtic Crosses in Britain. It now stands inside the church and tells the gospel story to people in pictures as it has for centuries. An item of controversy at the Reformation, it was broken up in the 17th century and buried, but Henry Duncan initiated its repair and it was re-erected. Originally thought to have stood on the pilgrim route to Whithorn it is believed to have been carved by Italian sculptors.

In the simple church building, backed by the Northern Saints: Aidan, Columba and Hilda, it remains a powerful statement and has all the attraction of celebrity for me. Later, in 2020, as I began my quilt making COVID19 lock down marathon, the first one I made was about the crosses of LEJOG including the Ruthwell Cross. Below is a photo of one side of the banner in Bambi, the Mobile Chapel of St Scholastica.

Try this Remembered bible activity: What do you remember about the cross? Spend a few moments with your own RB thinking of cross connections. Do you remember any of these:

Jesus said ‘Take up your cross and follow me’

They took him outside the city and they crucified him.

Paul writes: ‘I speak of Christ and him crucified’.

What would you add to this list?

Of course, Jesus is not the only person to be remembered in history for being arrested. The cross was a tortuous and barbaric form of execution used to instil fear and maintain power over the people by the Roman Empire. Not everyone killed by that Empire was a criminal. You don’t need to change history to see parallels today. The cross remains a powerful symbol. What does it mean to you?

Christ of the Cross, we call out to you,
abandoned yourself, tortured and killed,
you hung on for us.
May we hang on for each other.

JAL: 19.06.2020 in Longdendale.

On Day 65 of the End to End in 2019 I crossed the border between England and Scotland. Easy enough to do, even for a lone walker. The back road alongside the M6 is the route for all non-motorway traffic so I saw quite a few other Lejoggers. Each on their own journey: two police officers cycling for a cancer charity, an older couple celebrating the joy of still being able to ride (he was 80), and of course the most amazing Mel Nicholls on her hand cycle world record run. It’s no spoiler to tell you she smashed the world record to 6 days, 22 hours and 18 minutes, from Land’s End to John O’Groats by hand cycle. My admiration is boundless.

(above: view of the M6)

Meanwhile, I stopped at the Metal Bridge for lunch with Bob. It was life in the slower lane. It was also life in the same trousers: now getting on for nearly two decades old the blue trousers were the same ones I’d worn in 2012 when Hannah walked into Scotland. I still have them.

The sign on the border says Welcome to Scotland and that felt brilliant. But not every border holds out such a welcome. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to be a refugee but I can have the compassion to say ‘Welcome’.

Meanwhile in 2020 I am still writing my first novel. Set in thirty years time, crossing the border from England to Scotland is part of the story. Some of the dystopic signs that are built into the plot are currently getting a bit too close for comfort. The current pandemic seems to have confirmed that we ascribe little value to the elderly and disabled population. The language used by government ministers too often lacks compassion. Numbers are cited but real lives are over looked, something that is also true of black and ethnic minority people. What sort of border have we erected? What sort of welcome are we offering?

From the remembered bible: One gospel writer mentions Jesus being taken to Egypt as a baby. ‘Out of Egypt I have called my Son’.

No travel documents, no rights, even after decades of living in community.
Trauma, health impaired, all down to injustice,
Too many people over looked and excluded.
This is not right: Holy One may your kindom come,
and may we be its workers and welcomers.

 

JAL: 17.06.2020 in Longdendale.

 

Day 64 of the End to End in 2019 began at the random postbox in Cumbria and proceeded north through Carlisle. It was there that I crossed the Wall. Of course the actual wall is no longer there but there are plenty of signs, two thousand years later, that it was.

For its whole length the most persistent sign of the Wall is the ditch or Valuum. You can see signs of this in Carlisle and of other Roman structures. There are also sign posts for the Hadrian’s Wall Path, which I had walked on a few years ago in 2017. The moment when you cross over the line of a route walked previously is a great feeling as you gradually link into a network of routes you have been pacing all over the country.

The Wall was one of the things the Roman’s did for us.  Nearby is the village of Burgh by Sands, that I also visited in 2017. It is thought to be one of the first places in Britain where people from Africa lived, in around the 3rd century.

Some folks like building walls, others aspire to do so. Me, I’d rather be a wall crosser. I love the Wall country, the wide open skies, the random piles of stones and their interpretation panels, the way our understanding has changed and developed over two thousand years. There may be a wall here but its history is anything but static. New stuff gets unearthed, ditches give up their stories, we understand things differently. African people first lived in Cumbria a long time ago and Black Lives Matter. We are unearthing new understanding all of the time.

From the remembered gospel: Jesus asked ‘Which of you, when your donkey falls into a ditch on the Sabbath, doesn’t pull it out again, rather than leave it there?’ (I once did this one with some RAF and RN Chaplains in 2007).

‘Tell me the old , old story…’ (a song)

Make me a Wall Crosser like you, Jesus.

JAL 16.06.2020 in Longdendale.

 

 

Day 63 and the End to End was back on in 2019 in Cumbria after a break of a week. If you were going to walk LEJOG maybe you too would think it a good idea to have a break at about half way. I met all sorts of different Lejoggers. Some were doing it in small stages and some were going for world records. I was just plodding along.

Some folks are surprised about the distance. I’d get messages about how far it seemed to be from Land’s End to Gloucester which was the first 300 miles, and it did seem a long way. But most folks were puzzled that the half way point was before the Border with Scotland and how big Scotland is! Indeed it is a whole new country. More on that story later, as they say.

For now we were back in the M6 corridor in Cumbria. Road signs asked folks to look out for red squirrels.  In the process they seemed to have overlooked the hedgehogs. I didn’t see any red squirrels but I did see rather a lot of dead hedgehogs. I’m sure they’re one species to be pleased with fewer vehicles on the roads during lock down.

A doughnut at Southwaite services was very welcome. Southwaite is the poor relation when it comes to M6 services, but it was there and the doughnuts were sweet. My finishing point for Day 63 was a random post box at Braithwaite, except it didn’t look so random. Indeed, further enquiry confirmed that Hannah had stood next to the very same post box in 2012. We trod in each other’s footsteps.

And for today at least, we queue up, mostly sensibly distanced, for things we’ve not been able to buy for a while. I’m fortunate not to need to do so. Bob and I have become quite self contained here in Longdendale: a walk, a delivery of local goodies, and a chance to write or sew seem to keep me going more or less. The second half of the walk seemed amazing at the time, but in 2020 it’s a while since my last doughnut.

From the remembered bible: Out of the strong, comes forth sweetness (not about a doughnut as far as I remember!).

When the lion of Corona virus roars, we kept our distance.
Mindful of the vulnerable ones, we put our sensible heads on.
We’ve learnt to distinguish essential from our wish list and
to begin to weigh new risks.
The sweet taste of success is only possible
if we go at the speed of the slowest and
keep our hearts and minds tuned to God’s ways:
the poor still need feeding, the vulnerable need shielding.
May we keep pace with the weak,
ready to share a sweeter feast in peace and safety.

JAL: 15.06.2020 in Longdendale.

 

 

 

During the break between the two halves of the End to End in 2019 I was contributing some sessions on Remembering the Bible (RB) to the East Midlands Ministers Summer School. It was a risk. It was 19 years since I first visited and began the series of interactions with ministers that were part of Word of Mouth (www.ionabooks.com) and East Midlands were the first Synod to invite me back.

During the week I took some risks. One was climbing a slippery wobbly stile on an afternoon walk. I fell. I got a bruised arm in the process but I would still be able to go back to LEJOG at the end of the week.

In fact, we take risks every day. Some are everyday risks which we know, due to our social conditioning, are OK in our context: we can drink the water from the tap for example.  In 2020 we have to re-evaluate what we understand about taking risks. Perhaps we always did, but then again maybe we didn’t say so much about the subject except in some specific contexts, like rape  for example.

I took a risk when I stepped on the slippery wobbly stile which I should have known about having fallen off a slippery wobbly one a few years earlier. But none of us has ever lived in a post-COVID19 world before. The risks we decide to take will affect other people and the risks they take. That’s how society works.

I read a blog about one persons’ view of what the church should have been doing during the lock down other than arguing about access to shut churches and if what a few people did with bread and wine was in some way ‘valid’ or not. It suggested we should have been doing other things, one of which was ‘giving an account of the hope that is in us’. This LEJOG reblog is an attempt at that. It is a reflection on a set of reflections: 117 days of them. A sea-saw of emotions that took me up the country, past fish and chip shops and ice cream stalls, counting butterflies and remembering psalms: there was a hope in me. It was often very, very, very small. Sometimes it got bigger.

A year ago, the second half of the walk still lay before me. It was a risk: there was hope, but the relationship between them was very complicated.

From the remembered bible: Be still and know that I am God.

Still one, with me still,
hopeful one, in my hope,
risk-living one, in my risk:
be in the slipping and the falling,
the tripping and the gripping:
May we rise with you.

JAL: 13.06.2020 in Longdendale.

 

Day 60 of the End to End in 2019 was a damp day in Cumbria. It was preceded by 59 other days of walking and would eventually be followed by a further 57 days of walking. Initially we’d estimated 120 days for LEJOG but actually it only took 117.

Day 60 was a day of junctions and intersections, some of the most unexpected kinds. One of those intersections was with the C2C. This demanding long distance walking route from one side of England to the other is not one I’ve contemplated. It seemed long and very physically demanding (says she who was walking LEJOG at the time) so I’d opted for other routes: Hadrian’s Wall path was my preferred way across the North of England. I met folks on the section of C2C I encountered and most admitted it was gruelling, each section quite long. Whilst our way to doing LEJOG was to break it up into small doable sections and have some support and assistance on hand if needed. Maybe the C2C could be done like that too but I’ve not investigated it.

Hannah had walked this section in 2012 so I knew there were lots of references to stone age remains in the landscape. Surprising though it may seem, our forebears have lived in these hills for a very long time. There were other stone things to see: the limestone pavements with their worn and fractured surfaces for example. That reminded me of geography trips I used to help out on when I was working as a school Chaplain.

There were also large boulders in the landscape. Later we got close to one called the Googleby Stone at Shap, near the tiny Keld Chapel. I’d visited the Chapel before, possibly in 2012 when Hannah was walking LEJOG. Its simple interior is the kind of place my forebears would have used. I was reminded of the story of Ruth and Naomi: Wherever you go I will go.

Our ways do overlap, sometimes planned, sometimes unexpected. So too our thoughts and prayers make an overlapping web, and our stories weave in and out of each other’s lives. Though distant, we are connected; close enough, we are meshed together.

From the remembered bible, Ruth 1
Wherever you go I will go.
Your people will be my people.
Your God will be my God.

Connecting One, weaver of memories,
author of stories, originator of thoughts,
carver of stones, marker of routes,
confirmer of origins and focus of goals:
I am still walking.
Your company makes me who and what I am.
Your people are my people.
You are my God.

JAL: 05.06.2020 in Longdendale.

Day 59 of the End to End in 2019 spanned two millenia at least and included a visit to Tebay services on the M6 on foot. A notice on a gate in the Howgill fells prohibited my access to an excavation of a site to feature on ‘Digging for Britain’. People have been using this communications corridor for a long time. Now the M6 and West Coast Main Line tried to out run each other on the other side of the valley, whilst I walked along the quieter back road.

Tebay is our favourite services on the British motorway system and we’ve been here many times before. Hannah was the first member of the family to walk in on her LEJOG in 2012. I was taking something of a similar route so we stopped off too and got some ice cream, of course.

There were also two poorly marked bridleways before the end of the day, one of which took me back to the line of the old Roman Road. Fast forward to 2020 and for the majority the demand for access to all areas is usually granted: you can get in and out most of the time. Lock down made a difference keeping us all inside until rules started to be broken, regulations lifted and once again some were left behind in the access race. That this should also have happened in the House of Parliament was, to say the least, ironic.

I’m sure if I’d worked during the lock down I’d have a very different view of the pandemic. But as the advice was for only essential travel, I didn’t. I continued to walk as much as I could but I saw far fewer people and I was only too aware of the quieter roads and skies. I made use of local delivery services for some provisions and I missed some of the small local shops in the village high street being open. But I never had to wear full PPE to sweat out a long shift day after day.

Just as when walking LEJOG, a sort of routine has developed. This time walking is alternated with writing, gardening, sewing and cooking. Praying weaves in and out of these activities much as it used to, but with different concerns at the forefront. That’s one area to which we all have continued access.

From the remembered bible: Jesus said ‘When you pray, try doing it like this…’

Prayer Teacher, alert and ready for the zoom equivalent of daily devotions,
I thank you, for the time, the space and the tranquillity
that this small space gives me.
Street Dancer, alongside the kneeling and those kneeled upon,
there in the tear gas and hail of rubber bullets:
may we pray here in solidarity and love with the most vulnerable.
May the Holy Spirit weave between us all,
including the socially distanced ones and the isolated ones,
and unite us, in the quest for universal access to justice.

JAL: 04.06.2020 in Longdendale.