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Were the Gyrovagues really that bad?

There was a group of monastics frequently condemned as dissolute by early church leaders: the Gyrovagues. These wanderers were judged as taking more than they gave in their peripatetic life style going from monastery to monastery. St Benedict wasn’t keen on them.
But then why would he be? He was trying to establish a rule for settled communities. If being a Gyrovague looked too good, who would bother with his Rule. Everyone would be off like a shot leaving behind the dour brethren and repetitive roles of these communities for the more attractive life of the Gyrovagues.
Just imagine, you turn up and you get welcomed. People listen to your stories and feed you. You see new places and experience worship in different settings. For an early monastic this must have seemed a winsome option.
I’m about to become a Gyrovague. On and off for the last few summers I’ve done a bit of wandering, physical and spiritual. This has often involved walking a way somewhere: St Cuthbert’s in the Borders, the Cleveland Way in North Yorkshire and the Hadrian’s Wall Path have all been completed.
Next year I will attempt my end to end. I’m in training for it with my 1000 mile challenge. If I complete it, I shall be the third member of our family to do so. It all began in 2003, when Bob, then 50, walked LEJOG as it is affectionately known, ‘via the margins’ for his sabbatical. This walk has fed us ever since. Hannah was 9 years old and determined to do it herself one day. On this day in 2012, aged 18 and having just completed her A levels she began at Land’s End, finishing in September at John O’Groats before going to university.
I shall retire at Christmas and intend initially at least to become a Gyrovague and do my End to End, from Spring 2019.
This weekend in Hereford has been an interesting introduction in many ways. The newly launched St Thomas way is more than just a walking route. Ideal for Gyrovagues of all ages, it includes on line exploring for those who’s digital footprint is easier to access than their physical one
Here in the Mobile Chapel of St Scholastica, where there are at most two of us to share a host of roles, this weekend has been a blessing of welcome and worship, food and education. Did we give much back? I doubt it. We were enthusiastic and there is this blog, but essentially we were Gyrovagues, dissolutely taking more than we gave, and we are grateful for the opportunity.

In our life and our believing

The love of God

For John the Baptist

He crunched into another locust, wiped the headless body around the last of the honey and popped the final morsel into his mouth. His thoughts were, however elsewhere. His cousin Jesus was on his way to the river. Although it was barely dawn, he stood up, adjusted his camel hair garment, and strode downhill, away from the small cave in which he sometimes rested, to the banks of the Jordan.
Pilgrims were already gathering. As he approached them they stopped chattering and looked to him to speak. A soldier came up to him and asked him “Master, should I stay in the army now I’ve been baptised? ‘ He recognised one of the men he’d baptised the day before. John answered him clearly and firmly so everyone could hear. ‘It’s fine to stay in the army. Work fairly for your pay and don’t abuse your position.’ Then a woman asked him ‘Sir, my sister has made a rich marriage but she will give me nothing. She says I may be a servant in her household but she treats all her servants poorly and I won’t go there. Make her share what she has more fairly with me.’
‘I can’t make anyone do anything’ he replied. ‘I can only remind you all that God requires justice, mercy and humility. Those who fail to show these things will be remembered for it.’
Someone else was approaching and the crowd fell back to let him pass. It was his cousin, Jesus. He came up to John and said ‘Baptize me, John, here in front of everyone, and then I can begin.’
John was not expecting the request. ‘Why me?’ He asked.
‘Its what you do’ Jesus replied. ‘You baptize with water’, his hand indicated the gathered crowd. ‘You give them a new start. I need it too please’, and he began to take off his garment.
‘I’m not worthy’, said John, ‘even to undo your shoes’, as Jesus stooped to do this himself.
‘Please John, do as I ask’, and they walked out into the river together.
The water was deep and dark and the current strong. When they were at the place, John raised his hand and called down God’s blessing on the water and on the one beside him:
‘God of the Red Sea covenant, may this water be a road of liberation, may all who come here find freedom and a new opportunity to be your people, made in your image, called to be faithful.
May this one who is baptised today, be your faithful servant all of his life, dealing justly, offering mercy, walking humbly in your way’.
And with that he plunged Jesus into the depths of the dark water.
As he rose up, water flowing from his body, a loud crack of thunder unexpectedly ripped across the sky. The crowd on the shore looked fearfully at the sky. John and Jesus held each other in an embrace as the earth shook. A dove flew up from the branch of a dead tree and the thunder rumbled again, like a voice, saying ‘My son, my beloved, listen to him’. The sun broke through the clouds and struck the faces of the two men in the river. ‘Live wet, John,’ He said and they made their way back to the shore.

Janet Lees, feast of John the Baptiser.

This Kingdom Called Home 

Madge Saunders (1913-2009) is one of my heroes. So it was an emotional moment to see the exhibit about her that I had lent to the Great Exhibition of the North at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle this evening.
Madge was a pioneer: minister, missionary, intercultural advisor, anti-racism activist. She came from Jamaica in 1965 to serve those she called her Sheffield people. She was based at St James Presbyterian Church in Burngreave where she is still affectionately remembered. It was good to see her placed alongside other great women of the North. She shares a space in the exhibition with
Emily Davison, suffragette;
Jessie Reid Crosbie, writer, teacher, educational reformer;
Barbara Castle, MP;
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst, suffragette;
Barbara Hepworth, artist.
Many others can be discovered in otherparts of the exhibition.
I look forward to bringing students from Silcoates school here later in the summer, to discover the rich tapestry of life, ideas and culture of the North and to dream dreams for their own future. It’s an amazing multi-layered exhibition and it’s wonderful to know that Madge is celebrated here as she so greatly deserves. She has indeed come home to the North.

Janet Lees, 21.06.2018
I was minister at St James Sheffield 20 years ago, and met Madge Saunders in Jamaica in 2002.

The leftovers

They left the Upper Room, going, I was told, to the Mount of Olives, singing as they went. I stood on the threshold, looking in, waiting. As their voices receded and the air became still it was as if I could rerun the scene in my mind: the talking and arguments, the chaos and then the still point with him in the centre. I stepped into the room and crossed to the table where the left overs were scattered around, abandoned without thought. The other women came panting up the stairs with trays and cloths to help me clear up. They saw me standing by the table and stopped, as I had. ‘What is it?’ one queried from the back of the group. ‘Come in’, I said ‘Come over here’.
They gathered around and I took the left overs and passed them round. Surely he hand’t meant to leave us out. ‘Here, take this. It is his body’ I said, just as I’d heard him say moments earlier. They looked surprised. ‘Eat it’ I urged. ‘Do it to remember him’. Then I took the cup with only the dregs left in it. I lifted it up and  said ‘Drink this all of you, it is his blood. Do this to remember him’. They passed the cup round taking a small sip of its bitterness.
‘Every time you eat and drink like this you remember the Lord Jesus, until he comes back again’ I said, and we began to clear the tables.