LEJOG blog

Day 39 of the End to End in 2019 from Bridgenorth to Ironbridge including the first blog dog. Enter Cilla, a black Labrador associated to the Lay Community of St Benedict. My companions for part of the walk on day 39 were members of LCSB.

The walk started at Bridgenorth which is an interesting town. I particularly enjoyed the short trip on the Bridgenorth Cliff Railway which had very little to do with the walk and everything to do with me collecting different forms of transport from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

The whole walk would have been impossible earlier in 2020 due to severe flooding on this section of the River Severn. Temporary flood barriers were erected and people waited to see if these precarious structures would hold back the surges of water that kept coming down the river.

In 1952 the village of Jackfield on the way to Ironbridge had partially collapsed into the river. In 2020 the pubs and houses were once again threatened. The campsite where were stayed at Ironbridge was also in the news: it nestled in the shadow of the old cooling towers of the now disused Ironbridge power station. These were demolished earlier this year changing the view significantly.

The weather in Derbyshire was ideal for a day’s walking where the emphasis is on the sky. There’s always a lot of dogs on the TPT and in some groups more dogs than people. I’m not a very dog orientated person but I try to be friendly even without a waggy tail. Mostly I was just astonished: the sky was so blue, the foliage was so green, God was so present. It was a fantastic day to be praying with the world.

From the remembered bible
Jesus put out his arms as if to embrace them saying ‘Tell them everything and I’ll always be with you’.

Prayer on a clear day from the Transpennine Trail

Risen one,
I hear your call to go beyond blue sky thinking.
The prickle in my sock holds me down.
You hold out your arms.
I risk it, step off and onwards.
The footsteps do not end here:
This is blue sky being.

JAL 14.05.2020 in Longdendale

Day 38 of the End to End in 2019 began with a bee alert. The day before, we had seen a bee swarm at Highley Station and avoided it. The swarm had been moved by a bee keeper and when we returned by train to set off walking to Bridgenorth the situation looked much calmer. However, there we still a small number of recalcitrant bees on the loose and one decided to sting Bob on the head. After deploying anti-bee medication and a sit down for 20 minutes all seemed well and we were able to set off.

The bee was, after all, only doing what it thought it should: defending its colony. That the colony had moved on must have been a bit disorientating. Bees of this sort are a communal bunch and co-operative (there are of course solitary bees). Being co-operative even while social distancing is the challenge for 2020 as is being alert.

Walking LEJOG requires one to be alert. Anything can happen any day. On a train day, trains may not run to time, on a path a walker may be diverted, a river may run high, a bridge may be blocked, a bull may be having a mid morning snack as you cross the farmyard, the ice cream shop may have sold out. Over 117 days and 1110 miles it would be odd if some unexpected challenging circumstances didn’t arise. Even so there’s no real definition of being alert on a walk like LEJOG anymore than there is in ordinary life.

Better to be co-operative; connected by shared concerns and thinking of each other, building each other up into one body.  This is the prayer I wrote for day 38 last year:

Co operation is crucial to community,
From the local to the global on our planet.
Co operation runs a railway, a campsite or a pub:
Bees also know a lot about co operation.
As day turns to night and evening comes on,
May we be refreshed and ready for the co operative activities of tomorrow.

From the remembered bible
Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: ‘A body has many parts and you are like that. Each one brings their own contribution to the body; all are valued.’

Body-wise God, you confirm that each one has a part to play.
May we hone our skills of co operation as we live with uncertainty,
knowing we can be easily derailed into self-centred living.
Help us to play our part in the body:
Give us the buzz that comes from creating you kindom.

JAL: 13.05.2020 in Longdendale.

Day 37 of the End to End in 2019, I was still walking on the Severn Way somewhere in the middle of Britain. In fact most of this section was through the middle bit. It did however, mark  a new development for the walk: the train/walk combo. Mostly Bob drove the wheeled transport and I walked, which did get a bit more complicated on days when we swapped campsites. But in this section we were alongside the Severn Valley Railway and were able to use that to help us to and from the walk for a few days. Later on LEJOG we would do the walk/train combo again on other lines.

There were a couple of other adventurous moments: Nicky and Hilary, colleagues from school, met us on the Severn Way and we walked to Highley station together. It’s great to have walk companions, especially unexpected ones. Arriving at Highley station we walked into a bee swarm, which is highly alarming with two bee allergic people in the group.

Meanwhile in 2020, Bob and I were wondering if the LEJOG seemed to go quicker if you were remembering it rather than walking it. Not an easy idea to test or even draw a graph about. At the moment I am, like so many, in the middle of a situation not of my choosing, in a country run by a government not of my choosing. I’m easily defined as middle class: another middle. But other things put me in different groups: I’m retired so I can’t be furloughed, a home owner so I can’t be evicted. This doesn’t mean I have no vulnerabilities but I probably have fewer than some folks.

Middle or not, I do have strong opinions. I’m particularly angry about the lack of respect or value our society places on people with disabilities, something which is especially noticeable in this Pandemic. I’d be interested to know if any one who has supported the ways the response to the virus in England is currently managed has had a conversion experience as the result of the death of a family member from COVID19?

Each day I look at the information about those who have died and lament that we seem content to let numbers stand alone, without any names. Whilst war metaphors are common, even war time practices were more humane, recording public lists of the names of those who had died. Where will we build our Menin Gate or our Thiepval Memorial?

All along the route of LEJOG, each village and town had its own war memorial. Sometimes a name appeared on more than one memorial as different communities mourned the same person for whatever reason. A year ago, I used the song ‘You’ll never walk alone’ in my daily reflection. It reminded me how long was the struggle for justice for the 96 and how the active period of mourning for them is not over. ‘Their names liveth for ever more’ it commonly says in the war grave cemeteries I have visited. May it always be so.

From my remembered bible
God says ‘Your name is written on the palm of my hand’.
Jesus said ‘Look at my hands’.

Name writer, Wound bearer, Hand holder,
these and many other names I call you, God of all.
As close to me as the blood in my veins,
I am moved by your wounds:
I am honoured to see my written name.
May our acknowledgement of shared vulnerability,
bind us together, hold us closer than breathing.
Help us to leave behind the ableism that separates us
and embrace the kindom way of mutual accountability.
And for those who mourn:
we shall remember name after name after name,
in your beloved name.
Amen.

JAL: 12.05.2020 in Longdendale.

Day 36 of the End to End in 2019 started at Grimley and continued along the Severn Way. There was a small Parish church at Grimley and one at Holt; they will both be closed now. But after my second breakfast, it was a small notice on the door of what looked like a refurbished stable block that caught my eye: ‘Faith at Work Worcester’ it read. It was the office for the workplace chaplaincy of the Diocese of Worcester. It was good to know that workplace chaplaincy still existed in these parts.

That it still exists in 2020 looks essential as we move on from being pilgrims to prophets. Of course the two are not unconnected. Pilgrims may walk but so too may prophets. Whilst many definitions of being prophetic seem to concentrate on having a view of the future my understanding is firmly linked to the here and now. Being prophetic is being willing to live and speak against the grain, especially against the thrust of power as it marginalises some people and leaves others more vulnerable. Prophecy is about setting the scales straight so that we call attention to and set right what is at the root of inequality. That the meaning has changed to some sort of vague notion concerning future utopias is itself concerning but maybe just another sign to confirm what a church leader once told me: ‘There’s no room for prophets in the churches’. ‘Ah, so they’ll be dead churches then’ was and is my reply.

When Elijah, that most prophetic of prophets, called out Ahab and Jezebel, he was not concerned primarily for the future (note that I am of course using my remembered bible here) but for all the abuse of power in the royal court at the time and its consequences. He found himself under attack from their supporters (you can think of many modern equivalents I’m sure) and ran away. Well, who wouldn’t. God reconfirmed the prophet’s calling on an exposed rock ledge outside a cave in the wilderness.

What God required of Elijah at that point was to confront the abuse of power; to go back and put the ruling class to rights. Of course all of this does depend on what sort of bible you are remembering, to paraphrase Desmond Tutu. That name alone, amongst all contemporary prophets, should give you a clue to the bible I remember.

I first read his speech before the Eloff Commission when I visited South Africa in 1984. In the subsequent decade it was liberation theology that made the most sense to me and in 1994 we were in South Africa as the first democratic elections were held. Religion and politics, well to me they are like pilgrims and prophets: the same stuff.

Last night I read some words by an Anglican asking ‘Where was the prophetic voice of the church’. I looked up some things. It is there, standing alongside those who need food banks and the like, but at the moment the church in its many forms is mostly concerned for the pastoral, and far too concerned with whether churches are doing the right kind of zooming or not or whether we’d like to enter a logo colouring competition. Of course pastoral concerns are also prophetic. If there is a predisposition to ignore the most vulnerable and leave them to die in care homes then it is prophetic to be along side them. But we also need some contemporary Elijah’s. We are not called to be sycophants and flatter government ministers. We are called to request clarity and equity. And the most pressing question: ‘Who will go for me?’

From the remembered gospel
Jesus said ‘Don’t worry about what you will say. The words will be there from the Word and will get right to the heart of the matter’.

Although it can be disconcerting to hear the small voice,
easy to ignore as a whisper of a breeze in leaves,
simple to say we are occupied elsewhere,
less trouble to keep our heads down and claim it’s not our issue,
ultimately we cannot ignore that we are the ones God calls.

Word of Life, equip your knock-kneed, tongue-tied prophets:
from rock ledges to the corridors of power,
take us to the places where you words must be liberated,
unleash your kindom of equality through us.

JAL: 11.05.2020 in Longdendale.
(As I’ve mentioned before, kindom is a word I use instead of kingdom, as it has a more gender neutral meaning and yes, these things are important)

 

 

 

Day 34 of the End to End was, due to weather related issues, along the A38 to Kempsey. It therefore seems a perfect time to write about orchids.

Wild orchids are amongst my favourite British flowers and my LEJOG route  was packed with orchids (even along the A38). This had been true since Devon at least and would remain so right up to the final day in Caithness. Different species of course and indeed one of the joys of the walk was coming across orchids, often species I’d not seen before, in the most unexpected of places. The orchids themselves varied from isolated spikes to whole meadows full at one time. Beside any path for the next 750 miles or so, there would be orchids.

Some of my friends thought I became a bit obsessed photographing orchids. With my trusty camera phone in my hand I’d crawl and crouch and collect photos by the dozen, or hundred even. Of the 11,000 photos of the LEJOG more than quite a few are of orchids. But they are fascinating plants even though I’m no expert. As diverse and as beautiful as they can be unexpected.

But was it all just a distraction keeping more from more important thoughts? No, I don’t think so. Biodiversity is vital to life on our planet. When, by our human activities we limit that diversity then we threaten our own existence as much as we threaten that of any other species. There was a lot of talk about Action for the Climate in 2019, much of which is now over taken by COVID19 talk. But the two are linked as reduced emissions illustrate.

And COVID19 talk is of course also a cloak for other important concerns. Take any subject in Britain today and you will find opinion pretty much polarised: democracy, racism, VE celebrations, PPE and care homes or whatever you choose. We should keep churches open, we should keep them closed. Foodbanks are vital, foodbanks should be closed down. Older people are valuable (they hold important memories of WW2), older people are expendable (let them die of COVID19 in care homes). We’ve already forgotten the real lessons of WW2 anyway.

If you examine any of these issues you will see the split for yourself and it is always a split that exposes the vulnerable ones in our society to further vulnerability. Stay strong is the potent message. The land of the strong and the fit is the new version of Hope and Glory. On one side the message is there’s a difficult call to make between bodily health and economic health. For this read: the rich are bothered that they too might loose money. On the other side there is the call to respect vulnerable people and not just reel off figures and statistics as if counting sweeties.

As the survivors of WW2 die in dozens, killed by the COVID19 bungling of a government that says it values them the most (even if they have to walk laps to keep the NHS going), what dies with them is the story of the real rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s. I’ve tried to be an ambassador for the stories of real ordinary people caught up in for example the Holocaust (thanks to the Holocaust Education Trust) but ultimately we are going to have to do more than tell stories if we are really to check the poisonous effects of our current obsessions with ourselves, our money and our strength and our Glory.

From the remembered gospel
Consider, if you will the orchid, it neither sews nor spins, but I tell you that Solomon, in all his wisdom, never got it so right as one of these barometers of the health of our shared planet.

We are all gloriously connected, Cosmic One, through you, God of all.
On my knees before even the smallest parts of your creation,
I see all the interlocking complexity of life in a blade of grass.
May we who espouse the side of the poor and vulnerable,
Just like your Son, walk decently, with integrity,
and may the paths of peace we take extend to all
a shared way of hope and love,
that leaves none behind and overcomes even death itself.

JAL: 09.05.2020 in Longdendale.

 

 

 

Day 32 of the End to End in 2019 was the beginning of the second section. In our planning of the walk we had decided this early on in order to change our accommodation style. Up to the end of part 1 we had used static accommodation set at reasonable intervals along the walk; caravans, lodges, hostels and so on. But I had planned to camp some of it and if Bambi couldn’t do it then we needed a temporary replacement.

Enter Bambo! This was a bright red VW Campervan we hired from Glossop. We found it on line and decided we’d try it for 20 days. As members of the Camping and Caravan Club we had access to their wide network of sites and we only needed four to fill the gap between Gloucester and Wigan.

Everyone admired Bambo. A smart shiny reasonably new red Campervan with a pop top, Bambo was the darling of the campsite. We were not used to be the recipients of van envy.

I started walking again in the car park in Gloucester where we had encountered the shower of rain a few days earlier. I was soon back on the Severn Way and up over the hill to the Red Lion at Wainlode. Much of this was similar to the route walked by Hannah in 2012. It was good to be walking again and enjoying the scenery and the flowers.

In 2020 we look forward to these longer walks in the future. We are fortunate to be able to walk locally on the Transpennine Trail and for forty days from March to May I watched the Spring develop on our doorstep. You can view the photos, all taken from similar local parts of Longdendale, here:

From the remembered gospel
Jesus said ‘Spread out! Go everywhere! Tell them everything!’

Cosmic God, there’s a wonder in everywhere:
In our lock down confinement, we struggle with the urge to be out there.
It’s difficult to put the needs of others before our own economic security.
On blue sky days it’s hard to resolve to put the planet before planes
or choose between the fast track or emission levels.
As the full moon rises again on our much emptier streets,
may we be watchful, waiting for the moment,
eager but not egocentric,
mindful that joy comes in the morning,
the right morning, the morning for starting again.
Meanwhile may we be ever ready, to serve God and each other.

JAL 07.05.2020 in Longdendale.

Day 31 of the End to End went as far as Gloucester. This would be over 300 miles from Land’s End and the end of the first section of the walk. What better place to mark this achievement than at Gloucester Cathedral. One of the great Gothic Cathedrals of England it has a long and complex history, more than its fair share of monuments and a quiet cool atmosphere.  It’s no museum: home to a thriving forward thinking community in 2016 it became the oldest building in the world to be adapted to generate power using a solar installation.

Inside it was the light that struck me. Each Cathedral I’ve ever visited, whether ancient or modern, has something to say about light. Hardly surprising as it is a key theme in the Christian gospel. Even so, as human beings, we will probably never quite capture the whole message light has for us, even though we try very often and in many ways.

Here in Gloucester Cathedral the light message comes in stone and glass and space with the whole cosmos streaming in to make reminder of the incarnation of the Light. Poets and musicians are also reflected as those who have illuminated the subject. Ivor Gurney was a chorister here and is remembered: ‘Do not forget me quite, O Severn Meadows’.

One year on, in the Spring of 2020, we had a couple of showery days, light obscured by clouds leaping back out again as they pass. The roll of those who have died of COVID19 mounts daily and more and more people find themselves in the dark wondering if the light will ever come back. They lament the distance the virus has put between them and those they mourn. In some cultures politicians have words and rites for mourning that they weave between statistics. Not ours it seems. There’s a real separation of Church and State as the press conferences roll on and on and death is only mentioned clinically. If you have been affected by these issues and need more support, ring a helpline, is the well rehearsed tag.

Outside Gloucester Cathedral in 2019 was dark enough. A spring thunderstorm had blown in and the pavements bore testimony to the old rhyme. It’s no wonder Dr Foster never returned. But we would, in five days time. Until then a brief rest with the memory of the light and the meadows of the Severn.

From the remembered gospel
The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never got the better of it.

Light Bringer, mourn with us.
In the darkest spaces, may the gentle glow come again.
As the statistics roll across the screen,
help us to breathe our humanity into each number and name.
May we do whatever it takes to bring a sliver of light to lock down:
an apple cake on the doorstep, a kiss through the window.
Kindle in us that hunger for your justice
that lights your kindom and never goes out.

JAL: 02.05.2020 in Longdendale.
[You may notice I always use the word kindom rather than kingdom. It’s not a typos. I prefer the former as a word reflecting a gender equal space]