Category Archives: walk

A walking blessing

Alongside the conversations about the weather and dogs, the usual stuff of walking encounters, may you also be blessed:

As the wind ruffles each counted hair,
Each bird’s graceful wing
And each tree’s leafy branch:
May the Creator bless you.

As the wind pushes you along
Or tugs you at each crossroads
Echoing the Call
May the Son bless you

As the wind roars or whispers,
Rocks or caresses,
Carrying back the sound of wild geese,
May the Spirit bless you.

May the Holy Three,
Create, call and sustain you
Today and everyday.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

God is our refuge

Today’s prayers begin with a bit of a remembered psalm:

God is our refuge and strength, a present help in trouble

At the first refuge box

As the tide rises
God is our refuge.
As the tide falls
God is our strength.
As the posts mark the way
God is present, our companion.

See the small pools and the mud:
God’s own for the world.
See the posts and the pilgrims:
God’s own for the world.
See the way and the footsteps :
It is God’s way and we will try to follow it.

In the boiler house chapel of St Cuthbert

It’s still OK to take stuff with me
From the tradition in which I grew,
It’s still OK to travel onwards,
Explore, be challenged, encounter new.
It’s still OK to leave stuff here now
In this warming tiny cell.
It’s still OK, someone may want it:
Hear the echo: All is well.

Back at the refuge box

Across the sands the seals sing
By the bridge the Heron stands
Keeping pace with the tide times
The pilgrims cross the sands.

Be still And know that I am God

Now in this small refuge,
God is close to me,
Encouraging my resting,
Still as the flat calm sea.

On Holy Island,  21.05.2018

Sheep whispering

‘I know you won’t be able to do anything, but can I just talk to you’, were the words of a student who came to see me this week.
She’s right in so many ways. So often doing something is not an option.
It was a bit like that when we came across the Ewe yesterday on our walk in Derbyshire. We weren’t the first on the scene. Another walker called us over. The Ewe was on the ground and a dead lamb was protruding from her rear end, its eyes pecked out by crows. How long she had been labouring we didn’t know. The other woman went to the nearest farm for help and I sat down on the grass by the ewe’s head to keep her company while we waited. I dripped some water from a bottle into her mouth and her grey tongue emerged to lap it up. She opened her eye, a milky yellow and gave a quiet bleat. For the next half an hour I sat like that, giving her the water, patting her neck and talking to her gently. From time to time she’d flex her front legs or bleat as another contraction passed along her flank. There was nothing else I could do. For all those times I’d seen lambs delivered on TV programmes I’d had no direct instruction and wouldn’t risk a wrong move.
Another couple came by with some relevant direct experience. He examined the Ewe and with the help of his companion pulled the lamb out. Holding it at arms length he bought it round to the head of the Ewe so she could see for herself the outcome. She sniffed it and bleated. A small pile of placenta and poo steamed on the grass.
We waited a bit longer. The first walker came back from the farm with less than good news. The Ewe was owned by someone else. The other two walkers were more local and knew a farmer across the valley. They rang him and he promised to contact the owner. ‘A sheep will drop down dead anytime it likes’, said the walker who had delivered the dead lamb, as he wiped his hands on the grass.
The Ewe was trying to stand, and two people helped her to her feet. Her back leg was injured and she put it down carefully, tested it and the walked gingerly away. We also left leaving the local couple to wait in the field.
As we resumed our walk Bob asked me what I’d been thinking. Of Jesus saying ‘Feed my lambs’ and of being a good enough shepherd. Just being there, listening, lapping up the love of God.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

St Issui’s

On the day for Ashes,
Memories of last night’s firelight
Bright behind our eyes,
We tentatively pushed open the old door
At St Issui’s.
It was a welcome haven
After several miles of twisting, muddy lanes,
The path bordered by nodding snowdrops.
The simple chapel, its wooden beams pegged safely together for several centuries
Was shelter enough for these pilgrims.
Inside, signs of worship for many generations,
The oldest font in Wales by the church door.
Now twice a month the feast is celebrated here
And rural folk give thanks for renewed blessings.
Our visit over, rested,
We stepped back through the lych gate,
Passed the well
And back into real time,
Ready to reset our lives in the next forty days.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

The wilderness of Dungeness

You’ve heard of Burnham Beeches,
Or the plain of Salisbury Plain
With heaps of giant stones,
Of the rugged Cumbria lakeland
Complete with Wrynose Bottom
And fells covered in sheep;
But have you ever ever been
To the wild wilderness of Dungeness.

There more shingle here than ever
Arnold counted on Dover Beach,
There’s tiny clapped out houses
Who’s sides and doors are bleached,
There’s a chain link fence for miles
Not fencing but lying down
There’s bottle tops and bottoms,
And a lost boot no one found,
A tiny railway station for tiny railway trains,
And flowers bloom in miniature of course;
Scabious, pink, campion and gorse,
There are tracks that criss cross the shingle
And as we rattle past
We wondered at those folks lost
Who wandered from the path
Into the windswept wilderness of wild Dungeness.

There’s cabbage of the sea sort
And hidden artists sheds
Along decorated paths,
An horizon marked by ferries
Going somewhere else.
A flag that flutters bravely
A pair of lighthouse towers,
A hardy little garden with ragged little flowers.
The sky is domed and lovely,
The sun has its own pups:
And all the Ewes are waiting
For a visit from their Tups.

Do not miss it sticking off the end of Kent:
The Magnox now dismantled,
The road curves round a bend.
The wild Saxon Shore curves on,
By stones and shells it’s marked
And if you tread along it the scenery is stark.
Your way is found by guesswork
And so is the route back.
It is the wild wilderness by way of Dungeness.

JAL 01.11.2017

Warning: this is an epic poem about the British landscape. Do not study it for your GCSE coursework. Just enjoy the anarchy and chaos it contains.

Psalm at Deal

I am in the heart of God
And God is in my heart.
There is no place, no organisation
No institution, that holds me
To this earth, rather I am connected
To every family under heaven
By the heart dwelling One.
As the tide rises and falls,
As the waves crash and the shingle rattles,
I am in awe of the order of creation,
The patterns of time and chaos,
Of light and colour, dark and shadow.
My breath goes out on the breeze
And returns to refresh me again.
My muscles move, my brain imagines:
The world rotates and the sun breaks through.
With each movement I know you
As Companion and side walking one.
When the stones scatter as we step together
Or you catch me as my feet stumble,
I know you have been this way before.
I hear the sounds of the shore,
Gulls and people start their morning shriek,
Yet they do not disturb my focus.
I am in the heart of God
And God is in my heart.

29.10. 2017 Deal

Lud’s mud

Lud’s mud is deep and sticky and brown.
It lines the floor of the aisles and the knave of Lud’s Church.
The stone walls are green and dripping.
The sky is a thin strip above my head.
It takes concentration to negotiate the logs, stepping stones and sunken walkways through the mud.
I think of the reaction in other churches I’ve visited to mud like this.
A tell-tale dampness suggests my boots are not as waterproof as I would like.
The next day, in the bath, I see the brown mud line, a meridian round my heel.
I have bought some of Lud’s mud home with me with the memories of the green ferns and mosses dripping a benediction on my head.

The Last Day

I started today’s final section of the Hadrian’s Wall Path early in some lovely weather. I met someone on his first day of the walk. It depends if your an East to West person like me or a West to East person, you see.
It was actually yesterday lunchtime when the realisation struck me that there were more miles behind me than ahead of me.
Today there were some beligerent cows, some puddles, a top toilet at St Michael’s Church Burgh on Sands, a lovely pub, the Highland Laddie at Glasson, a lot of butterflies in the sunny bits, and the juicy blackberries were back.
At Port Carlisle there were the ruins of the old structures associated with the former ship canal and many interesting wading birds, including several herons and some egrets. These observations just some of what have made the whole walk both ordinary and extraordinary.
The rain started just as I got to the Bowness on Solway sign but it wasn’t far from there to the final bed and breakfast of this adventure where I was greeted with free cake. It’s been quite an adventure. Tomorrow I begin the journey home.

May the road rise to meet you,
Whatever that means;
May the cattle part before you;
May the blackberries be juicy and plentiful in the hedges;
May the tide be in your favour;
And may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

In our life and our believing
The love of God

Water proof

I’ve always been fascinated by water, that marvellous molecule that make life on this planet possible. I’ve seen oceans, lakes, glaciers rivers and streams. I’ve seen rain fall on several continents and what happens when it doesn’t. I’ve drunk it every day of my life, or something made with it. I’ve used it in speech therapy and ministry and ‘Living Wet’ is my motto. However a drip running down the back of your neck on a damp morning’s walk is not the most exhilarating form of water.
Gilsland claims to be the wettest place in the Roman Empire. I’m not arguing. However, it does also win the award for ‘top toilet’.
It must be quite wet because the trail is on a temporary diversion here since a flood demolished a foot bridge. It means a stop for hot chocolate at the village cafe cum shop. I am now in Cumbria.
On the whole the weather dried up for the rest of the day, the wind coming and going. There was plenty of wall left until Hare Hill where I saw the last of it. Strangely it was also the highest remaining section, or so an excited family explained to me before they hurried on east to see some more.
There were puddles here and there and the odd little stream or brook taking its time amongst trees and stones. A few more drops fell from the sky just before the turning to Lanercost where the 12th century Priory was a welcome sight.

Trying to Live Wet,
I give thanks for these marvellous molecules,
Mindful that I do not dissolve before time.
As the rain waters the earth,
Gathers in streams and rivers,
and travels to the oceans,
There to rise once more in the clouds
May I also rise
On the Last Day.

The Roman Way

Ant-like walkers
Roman stalkers
History catchers
Shower watchers
Wide-eyed wakers
Early mist breakers

Just imagine, if the Romans hadn’t built this wall nearly two thousand years ago then I’d not be able to do this walk today. Just one of the things the Romans did for us.
Me, I like to look on the Brightside even when it’s raining. Milecastle 34 had a brighter inside, with sheltering trees, and some stinging nettles. It was clearly most often used as a sheep fold these days. Sensible sheep.
There were a number of small woods; one was Sewingshields Wood, which bordered a small farm. This was a very wild place with the rain lashing down, but the wood was gentle, green and welcoming. Most bizarre of all the abandoned privy, door hanging off its hinges next to the path. This not One of those things the Romans did for us.
In Houseteads Wood it was possible to walk on the actual Wall. Mostly you just walk beside it or sometimes in a ditch. But the most noticeable thing about today were the ups and downs of which there were quite a lot. Each one has its own gap at the bottom, the best known of which is Sycamore Gap, for featuring in quite a few films.
There were many more people walking today, thanks largely to a trek for the Alzheimer’s Society. This led to some queues on the downs and ups due to the stone steps being slippery from the rain.
Milecastle came and went. Number 39 gets a particular shout out. By now I’m past half way on the Wall and there’s only tiredness in the legs to stop me, which thankfully came true at Twice Brewed. I was revived by sausage and mash and half of ale, before Bob went back to Yorkshire. Coincidently there were some Romans from Eboracum in the pub who cheerfully agreed to a photo opportunity. Well, they’d not met the Rev before. It was just one more thing the Romans did for us today.

In our coming and our going
The Energy of God