March 2021 – Notes from Bambi

To boldly go!

Dear Benedict,

We’re still in lockdown in England which limits how far we can go. The wanderer in me is frustrated so I wander in other ways, up and down local footpaths looking for frogspawn and other signs of Spring, across social media looking for posts about these things. Of course I’d love to be out there and I’d particularly like to be out there in Bambi.

Bambi is my small ageing campervan, but it is also my oratory, not that I knew what that was before becoming a Lay Benedictine. Vocabulary is just one of the ways in which groups create their own language known only to insiders. We all need to watch that.

Anyway, back to Bambi, the Mobile Chapel of St Scholastica. It is currently unfortunately still under winter wraps. But to have a place to pray was a long held yearning for me. Fortunately, I had my own room when I was growing up and could arrange it to my preference. Searching for places to pray is part of my life long journey, one I very much enjoy as some of the most unexpected places can turn into a oratory, or prayer place.

Hermit’s Ledge, a prayer place in Longdendale.

‘Simply go in’ to that place, you write in chapter 52, whether mobile or not, roofed or roofless. It’s good to have a space that we set aside for worship and the continuance of our relationship with God. I’m pleased to have found some lovely ones here and there. At the moment the ledge on the edge of the valley serves this purpose well, opening up as it does onto the side of the reservoir at the end of the Longdedale Valley. Many moods may be encountered here and once in a while the whole place opens up as a wide reflective mirror. I call that the Mighty Blue.

The Mighty Blue: reflection at Bottoms Reservoir in Longdendale.

It’s an awesome sight and it has been one of my mainstays over this third lockdown. A place of extremes, where great and small things meet in the eye of God. About 400 yards from my house it is a fitting oratory for the days when I am less mobile.May you know such a place.

From my remembered bible: Keep me as the apple of your eye, shelter me with your wings.

God is eye to eye with me.

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Holy Ground!

Dear Benedict

Today I went on a walk as usual, a short journey from home and back again. I was not going for or for a long time and I’d be back for lunch. It was as described in chapter 51 of your Rule.

Bob dropped me off at Torrside Crossing on the Transpennine Trail (TPT) and I set off towards home. I’d hardly gone any distance at all when I saw that the very waterlogged ground of the trail on the bridleway side had been churned up by a heavy vehicle. I could hear it up ahead and soon saw it and the path it had taken as it flailed its way along the small trees and bushes that lined the path.

A bit further along and a different vehicle blocked the footpath. The driver soon moved it. I introduced myself and asked about the work. It was part of a large maintenance plan, I was assured. But that in itself left me with many questions. The path has been torn up before, I’m afraid and each time there are promises to reinstate it, which usually just means ‘wait for nature to get back to work’.

I was disturbed by the use of flailing to trim the hedges and trees as I’d heard this were not a good idea. Spring is advancing and timing did not seem great. I walked on a bit further looking for the TPT contact information on my phone. I love this trail and have walked the whole thing coast to coast. I was not expecting to find this happening on my doorstep but it was a pressing matter as you mention in chapter 51 and needed attending to.

Further information from my smartphone confirmed that hedges and trees should not be trimmed or cut between 1st March and 1st September, according to the RSPB website amongst others. I was therefore puzzled as to why this work was going on at this time.

Then I saw the frogspawn. I’ve been searching for it recently and have seen several other patches on the trail. This was not a patch I’d seen before but it was right in the path of the work if the hedge flailing machine carried straight on. It was holy ground.

Now what to do? I fired off several tweets to the TPT. I spoke to a few other walkers coming by. I walked back to the driver and spoke to him about the frogspawn, showing him the place it occupied in the path. He was polite and listened. Are driver’s trained to spot frogspawn I wondered? How would they see it from their vehicle?

Amphibians are amongst the fastest declining groups of wild animals in Britain. Yes, we can make garden ponds, but they already have their own holy ground and return to the same places year after year to breed.

A frog seen on the TPT almost exactly a year ago.

Once I’d returned home, and eaten my delayed lunch, I emailed TPT about the work and restated my questions. My social media has been replete with too many examples of natural destruction this month already. I don’t live near the route of HS2 but the environmental damage that is being done there without any regard for the current inhabitants appals me.

We must learn to reverence the earth, to treat these places as holy ground. I want to share the TPT with other creatures, especially those that hop.

From my remembered bible: God’s voice came from the bush saying ‘You are standing on Holy Ground’.

West African Proverb: Tread gently on the earth.

I’m hopping, Holy One.

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay community of St Benedict.

Lent!

Dear Benedict,

As I plod through another day of COVID19 Lockdown, I am thinking about chapter 49 of your Rule, which is about Lent. You begin by saying that monastic life should be ‘a continuous Lent’. It has been suggested that this Pandemic year has been, more for some than others, a continuous Lent. And it’s true that is something few have the strength for, if indeed it is strength we need.

After I post this I’ll go for a walk in Longdendale, the valley where I live. It’s a very blustery day, and so I turn to my remembered Winnie the Pooh and the story of Pooh and Piglet going to visit Owl. It was while they were at Owl’s house, having tea and sharing stories, that a particularly strong gust of wind blew Owl’s house down. It was Piglet who saved the day by doing a very brave thing, climbing through the letter box and running for help (thanks to AA Milne).

How’s your remembered Winnie the Pooh this morning?

Going to Owl’s house is not an option today unless Owl is in your bubble. Pooh and Piglet would need to take a socially distanced walk. These limitations to social interaction make Lockdown hard, and they’re not really anything to do with Lent. Although prayer and abstinence are mentioned in your Rule (the traditional ‘giving it up for Lent’) there’s nothing about giving people up for Lent specifically (although joking is frowned on, I’m afraid).

I’ve not been giving people up for Lent, or given up being human for Lent. It seems to me that Lent is all about being human and our need for different things during different times and seasons. Last night I took part in the launch of a book to celebrate 75 years of Christian Aid. The whole zoom of 180+ people began with the question of whether or not we should celebrate this 75th anniversary at all. Was it a good thing that we’d needed this for 75 years and still do?

This book is published on 18th March 2021

Most agreed that it was the shared humanity that lies at the heart of Christian Aid that made it so memorable and vital to our life of faith today. The book is called Rage and Hope and will be published by SPCK next week. It seems to me that is what Lent is really for; to connect with our global family, to Rage against injustice and Hope for the living promise of Christ’s kindom. Don’t give that up.

From my remembered bible: Forty Days and Forty Nights, phew!

Acknowledge my rage, infuse me with hope!

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Work!

Dear Benedict,

Chapter 48 is one in which you give a detailed account of the sort of daily labour generally expected in community. Once again you are thorough with hours marked out for all to understand. From bringing in their own harvest to quiet reading, everything is covered. Perhaps detail was important for this experiment in communal living.

Now nearly a year after the first COVID19 Lockdown in England, Lockdown fatigue is a real thing. It’s hard to maintain a timetable after all this time, even with a lot of encouragement. Emotions may be running high or low, apathy or anger may emerge in response to injustice. I always thought the third lockdown would be harder, due to the knock on effects of the previous two as well as seasonal factors and the looming anniversary.

Even so, we can become too obsessed with timetables and continued lockdown does give us some opportunities to see the way our time is often colonised by unnecessary activities as well. In pre-lockdown times it appeared too challenging to rein in the proliferation of meetings. Some role expectations ramped up and up. Leisure became a competitive industry.

In these days, simple things can help us reset ourselves: bake a loaf or a cake if possible, take a short walk, listen to some music.

Take time to make a tart: the Yorkshire rhubarb season is very short.

We are more than our work and life is not meant to be all work. Inequality plays a big part and survival might depend on it amongst the poorest. This week we’ve seen once again how inequality is promoted as a means of social control. This is directly contrary to your Rule, which was meant to ensure equal participation and responsibility.

Whilst it may seem harsh that those who neglect their duties, whether manual labour or reading time, should be punished it was consistent with your earlier sections and at the time added up to an honest attempt to create a harmonious whole. What of us now? It’s not just Lockdown that has put work and play out of kilter but it may give us opportunity to review and amend it. One things for sure, we desperately need to undo the bad work that inequality is contributing to communal distress. A leadership that lies and cheats is not going to create fairness and harmony, only more resentment and fear. In the last line of chapter 48 you have words we really need to hear. As for the sick or weak, the leadership ‘must take their infirmities into account’.

From the remembered bible: There is a time to work and a time to play.

In my apathy or anger, take me fairly into account.

From a Friend on Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.