On Ascension Day I zoomed early morning prayers from the quarry for the Lay Community of St Benedict. This small greening space can seem like an outdoor room with the tree canopy overhead. Wind was blowing down the valley from the east, not too hard, but enough to ruffle emerging leaves. The birds were singing. It’s beautiful place for worship.
And the air there is lovely: clear and fresh. Air is essential for Ascension Day. without air, no ascension.
Reflections of Longdendale.
Of course without air, lots of others things would be missing too, as we’ve learnt so unkindly during this COVID year. Others are still caught up in the desperate need for air, a mix of atoms and molecules we can’t even see.
Right now air is one of the things that unites us with each other and with Jesus. That sense of being united in one breath is vital to our community building. Right now all across the world, people need to remember that we breath the same air.
On a very clear day in Longdendale, with the air is very clear and the reservoir is being a huge reflecting pool, all of heaven and earth open up to what I call The Mighty Blue. May we be open to that too, to the sharing of the air and the dancing through it, to the breathing in and out, to the unity of God and humanity. To the Air!
The Mighty Blue
From the remembered gospel: Jesus blessed them.
Bless us with earth, fire and water, but most of all bless us with air!
When Julian of Norwich sees a Hazelnut, it appears that she did not immediately crack it and eat it (although she may have done so later). She looked at it. It was very small.
We’ve been out walking in Derbyshire again this week. The Peak District National Park is 70 years old this year: Britain’s oldest national park. Small is relative. The National Park is a lot bigger than a hazelnut but small on the surface of the earth. It’s very beautiful.
I recently heard about a project to map the lost temperate rain forests of England (here). This fascinates me as Woodland is one of my favourite habitats. Local walking for over a year due to the pandemic has opened me to many smaller and small things and I’ve begun identifying stuff I’d not previously given much consideration. I have a fungi book and thanks to the lost rain forests website I’ve also downloaded resources for identifying mosses and lichens.
Moss and lichen in Longdendale
Things get smaller and small. As I look at these tiny species I see a new world. Julian of Norwich remarked that the hazelnut was ‘All that is made’. That’s how the world is. A complex interweaving of smaller and small things, all that is made.
smaller and smaller worlds
So as I walk a bit further afield over the next few months continuing our ‘Joining the Dots’ project (an attempt with @therevbobw to link all our various walks together) I shall continue to use my new knowledge of small things as I make my pilgrimage and gaze at all that is made.
From the remembered gospel: Jesus showed them a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds.
Thanks for the small!
JAL: in Derbyshire, 8th May being the Feast of St Julian of Norwich
My friend Doug has written a book about social media. Like The Rule of St Benedict it tackles some of the issues about how we live in our age. Here’s my review
Written with passion and energy about Christian engagement with social media and especially about our need to ‘Post Peace’ rather than contribute to the increasingly divisive nature of the world of the internet. It’s a worthy project, both in the US where the book originates and in other parts of the world like the UK, where I live. We can, all too easily, find examples of increasing hostility, hate and division, fed by social media. And some of them we write ourselves. It is to this that the author, with his experience in things techy has paid attention. He has reflected on the bible and shared his testimony in the hope that we, his readers, will take up his challenge to Post Peace. The book is full of sound material and each chapter ends with helpful questions for the reader’s reflection as well as two challenges to Post Peace. Although I’ve not yet tried any of them, I have been changed and challenged by the book. Firstly, I am more attentive to the thoughts and feelings that my engagement with social media evokes. I notice what makes me sad, angry, confused or hopeful. I enjoy being part of Mushroom Twitter and have learnt how to recognise many fungi as a result of my engagement with social media. But is that enough? Here in the UK we also have #BLM and #MeToo. Recent examples of violence against women, particularly the death of #SarahEverard mean I cannot with integrity remove myself from social media use. Doug has helped me to consider how God is calling me to use the space for reconciliation: it’s a work in progress as far as I’m concerned. In this respect I’d have found it more helpful to have chapter 10, on justice and reconciliation, nearer the front of the book. During the COVID19 pandemic the global connections of social media have enriched my life. I will continue to reflect on the need to Post Peace and enjoy following the author and others, not only people I agree with. If you are also concerned for the polarisations seen on social media and are looking for a nudge towards a greater awareness and practice of reconciliation on line, then I commend this book to you.
@Bambigoesforth
From the remembered bible: Go out joyfully, advance with peace.
Peace be with you
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
I’m writing this on the eve of the second anniversary of my End to End walk in 2019. I started at Land’s End on 2nd April and finished at John O’Groats on 12th August of that year: 1110 miles in 117 days. It is the anniversary of my full profession as a walker.
At Land’s End on 2nd April 2019
It had taken me 60 years as a novice to fully embrace the walking way. My End to End (also called LEJOG) had been proceeded by many other walks both long and short, some alone, some in company. I’d been working up to it for sometime. I’d supported Bob and Hannah when they walked their LEJOGs, in 2003 and 2012. A sort of mini walking community: The Community of the Good Traveller.
Let this be a sign to you…..
Holy Week is a good time to remember that travelling community, it’s origins and experiences. As we remember, this is my body, I remember what it feels like to walk more than you think you can. For others ‘This is my body’ will recall other physical experiences. None of us are disembodied cells and neither was Jesus.
bread….
From tomorrow I’m going to leave off writing to you for a while, but I couldn’t go without remembering this anniversary of profession. Not quite what monastics mean, I know, but I think of you and your embodied lay community (Rowan Williams reminded us about them being a lay community in his recent talk) and all the different professions that contributed to it. So too our Lay Community has discovered many different gifts and skills during this lock down year.
During my adult lifetime I’ve discovered many gifts myself and my contribution to the Community of the Good Traveller has changed over time, and will change again I’m sure. At the moment I’m an admirer of nature, recording my local wildlife sightings, making every step count.
If I don’t write for a while, I’ll not have forgotten you. I’ll take my remembered Rule with me and reflect on it. As a result of our correspondence there’s more I remember this year than last. There’s also those bits I’ve left out so far, still pondering them, particularly those sections on leadership. I’m not alone in still wondering what kind of leaders we need now. Ones of truth and integrity maybe obvious, but it’s clearly not as straightforward as that.
When thinking about leadership, too often we look to the Great Men, and now even occasionally to the Great Women of the faith. It’s good to know they’re there, members of the Community of the Good Traveller. But I’m looking for the more ordinary, dusty road traveller, hot cross bun eater.
bun…
I remember Margaret and Brian with love: their hospitality, affection, creativity and friendship. When we returned from South Africa in 1994, Margaret gently said, in response to our enthusiasm, ‘Not everyone can go so far, you know’, and six month later they were staffing the library of a theological college in Zimbabwe. It was a change from Twickenham High Street, but just as hot and holy.
But she was right, stay local if you can. We’ve stayed local all through the winter lock down, and hope to begin some further journeys later this month. But local is good, even in Royston Vasey (which, in case you’re not sure is the alternative name for the village where we live).
Recalling the opening titles of a certain ‘League of Gentlemen’
Meanwhile, I’ll ‘Walk on‘ and hopefully ‘Be back soon‘ (two travelling songs I sometimes sing).
From the remembered bible: Jesus said ‘Follow me’.
LEJOG Anniversary Declaration
I inhabit a space made by the Creator, lived in by the Son and animated by the Spirit.
That space is around
me and within me.
I commit myself anew to The Community of the Good Traveller,
staying local where I can, treading gently on the earth, making each step count, ready to salute the species around me, and celebrate our place in the universe.
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St 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 in a car park
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.
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.
Frogspawn seen on the TPT this month.
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.
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.
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.
I can’t decide if time goes more or less quickly during a Lockdown. It certainly seems odd, nearly one year after the first Lockdown to be seeing the seasons begin to repeat. I make my daily pilgrimage through Longdendale, stopping to admire each breaking bud or gaze at the reflections of the valley. These are my hours, my opus dei.
Snow Moon setting over Longdendale, photo by Bob.
In a community things need some organisation. It helps to have a timetable for community activities, especially the most important ones as you point out in chapter 47 of your Rule. One of the gifts of the COVID year to our Lay Community has been a very full timetable of on line events developed since Easter last year (see website for details).
However, the gyrovague in me is still off up the valley in my ‘What shall we do about Janet’ habit gazing at the moon and admiring the reflections of the valley. My smartphone replaces my rod and staff as essential equipment.
Reflections of Longdendale
There’s a lot to see here even after a year. Each day reveals some other glory, as the psalmist puts it.
Every fungus frill gives a thrill
There are no bells in the valley so no one summons me home, only my tired legs and the promise that God will grant a quiet night.
Sunset over Longdendale.
From my remembered bible: The sun announces God’s glory from one end of the day to the other.
Glory to God!
From A Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay community of St Benedict.
I’m thinking about your chapters 44-46 which are especially concerned with accountability. Reading your Rule in 21st century some details are different: whipping youths who stumble over reading loud would not be allowed these days, thank fully. But the basic notion that being in community puts you in relationship with others to whom you are accountable is fundamental. You mention various places in which this accountability has obvious consequences: in worship or work, the chapel or the kitchen for example.
In our 21st century context work can look very different. Before lockdown there was commuting, now there’s zoom. There were visits to hospital, now there’s COVID19. Schools were open, now they’re shut, soon to open again. All this has happened in a society in which the notion of accountability has been changing. Some of that change is recent: in an emergency what does accountability look like, some might ask?
Books at the Savings Bank Museum near Ruthwell
But some of it has been going on for longer. To fly to far flung destinations or own a particular sort of car is to some an individual right, even if that damages the planet and we neglect our accountability to the poor. If we can make money at something does it matter if we impoverish someone else? To Benedictines it matters a lot.
This Lent I’m practising being human and accountability is both a welcome and an unwelcome aspect of human integrity. My humanity has a knock on effect to the way I respond to the humanity of others. I’m fortunate to have a warm, dry , safe place to live. This is a fundamental human need. I do not therefore think it acceptable that other human beings don’t have this. A landlord should not make money by renting an unsuitable dwelling. The government should not house asylum seekers in a place reported as unfit to house military personnel.
What do we do with our accountability? If we want others in our community to recognise our shared accountability, how can we do that? The main challenge of interpreting your rule today is this larger canvas. I could with hold ‘seconds’ to those who have not done their share of the weeding but what can I with hold from the dishonest landlord or those making unfair decisions in government. A society in which there is less accountability is a sicker one. How do we reinstate accountability to the civic agenda. It seems to me, enough is enough!
From the remembered bible: Do justice, love mercy.
Help me understand enough!
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
