{"id":1228,"date":"2020-07-24T09:29:05","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T09:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/?p=1228"},"modified":"2020-07-24T09:42:49","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T09:42:49","slug":"gates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/2020\/07\/24\/gates\/","title":{"rendered":"Gates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 98 of the End to End in 2019 continued on the Great Glen Way from Bunloit Pottery to Drumnadrochit. This was the third time we’d used this part of the route in that monster village. Near the beginning there was a lovely honesty stall selling locally printed t-shirts and a bit further on a small honesty shed selling cakes. I love this system and always partake fairly.<\/p>\n

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There were also a few gates, including one I remembered from Bob’s 2003 walk when Hannah, then aged 9, was walking with him.<\/p>\n

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There are lots of gates on the LEJOG: some you go through, some you don’t. Some you should go through and you don’t. Some you shouldn’t go through and you do.<\/p>\n

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Gates come in all shapes and sizes and all materials: wood and metal gates are the most common. Some have latches and catches, some you have to climb over. But, on the whole LEJOG, not one of them had a gate keeper, if you discount the odd patch of nettles or thistles to put you off. Gate keeping is a thing some people do in institutions. They feel obliged to check on those asking admittance, see their up to scratch or likely to behave properly. A sort of semi-benign bouncer system that easily goes off the rails.<\/p>\n

Whilst gates may have had the original aim of keeping things in, I think of them as ways through: part of a route to somewhere else. I’m not necessarily stopping long, just passing through. Note that Jesus is not the gatekeeper, but the actual gate. In my remembered bible, the Jesus-gate doesn’t seem to need a gate keeper.<\/p>\n

The walking day, after fish and chips in Drumnadrochit, ended 14 miles from Inverness by road. But the route I was taking, there were bound to be more gates.<\/p>\n

From the remembered gospel: Jesus said ‘I am the gate…’<\/em><\/p>\n

In his Rule, St Benedict didn’t have much time for those who ‘pen themselves into their own sheepfold’ or who, just passing through, ‘never settle down’. But then he was trying to encourage the creation of community and he saw these two types of seekers as disruptive. They seemed to do whatever they wanted, either in their own small huddles or by just drifting about. Yet both of these types are common in our time, just as they must have been in his. So, dismiss them or embrace them, that’s the question? I certainly have tendencies of both types myself. If Jesus is the gate, then a real kindom community has nothing to fear from either of these sorts of seekers.<\/p>\n

May we kindom seekers, go in by the gate,
\nwelcome others and in openness receive from them.<\/p>\n

JAL: 24.07.2020 in Longdendale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 98 of the End to End in 2019 continued on the Great Glen Way from Bunloit Pottery to Drumnadrochit. This was the third time we’d used this part of the route in that monster village. Near the beginning there was a lovely honesty stall selling locally printed t-shirts and a bit further on a … Continue reading “Gates”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-remembered-bible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1228"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1233,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228\/revisions\/1233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}