Day 3 of our #GrandWalkOut and we’re still on our first canal: the Macclesfield Canal.
I started at Congleton and walked to Ackers Crossing. Bob started at Ackers Crossing and walked to Kidsgrove. His destination meant we had completed the Macclesfield Canal and were now heading down the Trent and Mersey Canal.
We also crossed the route of our daughter Hannah’s End to End (she walked it in 2012) just north of Kidsgrove at the Red Bull pub.
There were a number of other firsts today. My first heron on the canal. I always look for these beautiful sentinels. Most importantly though, our first ice cream of the walk: a Snugberys at Little Moreton Hall, which is an incredible building.
In the Rule, St Benedict urges the community to put prayer first, which is good advice. It comes in many forms and it’s good to try several. I was pleased to hear worship in Ukrainian and English from the Catholic Ukrainian Cathedral of the Holy Family in Exile on Radio 4 this morning. It was the first time I’d heard their particular liturgy. But also because, before it became the Ukrainian Cathedral the building was the Kings Weigh Church. A church of the Congregational Union of England and Wales at the time, it was here in 1917 that Constance Coltman became the first woman to be ordained in England. When I last visited, Dr Orchard’s coat hook was still visible in the vestry (he was one of the ordaining ministers, and later became a Catholic).
I begin with prayer. Not a lengthy liturgy but a simple opening of heart, and I return to it many times during the day, from first step to last.
From my remembered bible: In the beginning…. (also part of the Ukrainian Easter liturgy)
Open my heart.
From Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
Janet Lees, Day 3 of the #GrandWalkOut from Congleton to Kidsgrove.