A Pilgrim's Cairn

2010-03-28T18:02:00.004+01:00

What follows is a transcript, so I hope you'll be patient with it. You'll be pleased to hear that I don't intend to make a habit of recording my own sermons.

Thanks for your company. Until next time, God bless: 'The path you walk, Christ walks it. May the land in which you are be without sorrow. May the Trinity protect you wherever you stay, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.'

St Mary's, Lindisfarne

Friday 26th February 2010.

My very wise friend Will has many memorable sayings, one of which is, ‘I’ve heard a few people who can preach without notes, I’ve heard a lot more who can’t.’ So I will be very brief.

Although this has been a marvellous adventure, a wonderful journey, there have been times when it has been painful.

My right foot does not like getting shoved back into a boot in the morning. I’ve got a very tender heel, and as you’ve already been seeing, for the first hour or two of each day I would be limping quite a lot. And there were a couple of times, on two of the longer legs, the leg to Balmaha and going to Bishopbriggs, where towards the end, in the last hour, it would be like it was bruised inside, and it would be incredibly tender – and you know the little chippings you get on tarmac roads, even just treading on one of those would send the pain shooting up through my heel –that only happened the twice, thankfully.

And there have been times when it has been emotionally or spiritually painful. There were times when I was walking on my own, although very very ably supported, when it did just feel lonely, it felt like a long time – you imagine being just in my company for seven hours, you would feel spiritually tired: there were times when it felt lonely. And again, there were times, particularly in the first few bits, and perhaps when I was physically pained as well, when I thought, ‘Three hundred miles is a long way to go, and there is a long road ahead of me, and I don’t know if I can do this – this seems like a very long journey to be on.’

In those times when I was struggling, not too many of them I’m glad to say, I would touch the stone in my pocket, my little stone from St Columba’s Bay, where this whole pilgrimage started in so many different ways. I touched that stone and reminded myself that I am on a pilgrimage – I’m going from Iona, I’m going to Lindisfarne, this is a journey with a purpose, and a journey made in the love of God.

Of course, we are all pilgrims. The main body of a church is called the nave, which is derived from the Latin word for ship or boat... and that idea that the main body of a church is a ship is there to remind us that we are a people of movement, a people on a journey – that we are all pilgrims in this world, pilgrims in life.

Our journeys have moments where they are physically painful, and our journeys have moments where they are spiritually or emotionally painful to us.

I have no conclusion, but just something to offer you for a few moments quiet: just to think, what’s the stone in your pocket? What’s the thing that you can turn to that reminds you that you are on a journey from the love of God, to the love of God, and always within the love of God? When you are struggling on your pilgrimage, what is the stone in your pocket?

Let’s take a moment to think in our hearts what that is, and to give thanks to God for that.

Muppet Music.

2010-03-27T18:39:00.001Z

My question... if you had soundtrack for pilgrimage, what songs/music would you include for specific moments along the journey?

Kiki.

Dear Kiki,

Susie says this is a cop out, but I don’t think so. On my first night in Scotland, Dad and I popped down to The Craignure Inn for a pint, and when we walked in there were four musicians, two customers and one barman, which strikes me as a pretty good arrangement. Among the musicians was a young woman who played the fiddle, and she played beautifully – so she could provide the soundtrack with just whatever she wanted. Actually, one of the pieces she played she said was called ‘The Glasgow Waltz (or Reel?)’, but I can’t find that anywhere – has anybody else heard of it?

Thanks for all your reflections over the past couple of months, and for your wonderful choices of poetry.

Love,

Stuart.

If Muppets were to star in the movie of this pilgrimage, which one would play you? the Archdeacon? Susie? your Dad?

I would want Elmo to play me.

Luke

Dear Luke,

This is a very difficult question for somebody who hasn’t seen The Muppets for a very long time, so you’ll have to forgive me if my answers are a bit second rate. Susie would be played by Big Bird (easy one that), Dad would be played by Waldorf and Statler (hope he forgives me), The Archdeacon would be played by Animal (short and hairy), and I’d have to be Kermit, running around in a state of constant stress due to my entirely misguided sense of my own importance in the whole scheme of things.

Love,

Stuart.

Au revoir Brooklyn.

Bad Beards, Bad Backs, and a Little Bit of Lou Reed.

2010-03-26T17:04:00.002Z

The ease with which we can miss the good things on our doorstep was brought home to me again today as I walked my way from Bishop’s Stortford to Saffron Walden. I lived in a little village right between those two towns for about thirteen years, and then came back home again and again throughout my twenties. For all those years living on top of them, today I walked along all sorts of paths and saw all sorts of marvellous views that I’d never known before. So much on my doorstep that I’d never really appreciated; that’s probably because I spent most of my teenage years skulking in my bedroom listening to Lou Reed and surfing wave after wave of teenage angst, and then for several years after that I was in the pub.

So, another piece in my planned parish walk from Edmonton to Saffron Walden is in place. I reckon it will be forty miles altogether (possibly forty-five), and I’ve been thinking, if we could get twenty-five walkers to walk it in a day for charity, then we could call it ‘The Thousand Mile Day’ – something like that, what do you think?

Tonight I’m taking Mum out for a slightly belated Mother’s Day meal – she’s only little, so it doesn’t cost much to take her out, food-wise.

The netbook battery is about to fail on me, so I’d better be quick. Two questions I have. Although my beard remains a sorry looking thing I think I’m going to keep it for a little longer, but I don’t know how you go about maintaining this sort of face hair – any suggestions? Also, even though I’ve been back at my desk for less than a week, my back is beginning to play up already; I’ve been looking at all these fancy desk-chairs you can get, but are they actually any good? Most of them are quite pricey and I don’t want to spend a load of money on something that isn’t going to solve the problem.

Cheers.

Musical Statues.

2010-03-25T22:07:00.003Z

This afternoon I visited the National Gallery. Once upon a time it was somewhere I would visit at least two or three times a year, but I can't tell you the last time I went. Seeing some of my favourite paintings was a bit like seeing friends you haven't seen for a long time; faces you recognise with a smile. I don't remember it being as busy as it was today, and I don't know whether it was the time of day I visited, or whether I've changed. My firm belief, on the basis of today's visit and my trip to the British Museum on Tuesday, is that all the secondary schools on the Continent are empty just now.

The highlight of the day was seeing Susie play netball. It's not a sport I'd ever watched until this evening, and it was a memorable event. It was a bit like a sporting version of musical statues, with everybody running around frantically in short bursts, and then standing very still in a range of agreed poses, like mime artists expressing things like, 'I'm going to try to score', 'I'm going to try to get in your way', 'If you get in the way I'm going to leap out from the edge and I'm going to score', 'Cripes it's a cold night in Kennington'... but all very still and quiet, much more still and quiet than the National Gallery. And then something happens and they all start running around again.

Tomorrow I'm going to take a walk from Bishop's Stortford to Saffron Walden. It's all part of my planning for some sort of parish pilgrimage form Edmonton to Saffron Walden next year; it will be around forty miles altogether, so it may not be a hugely over-subscribed parish event. I'll be glad to be back in my boots.

Absolutely Nothing To Say.

2010-03-24T18:42:00.005Z

Absolutely nothing to say today.

Finished writing up the walk. Wrote a second Holy Week homily. Went for a deep fried lunch. Tidied up my study. Went through pictures from the pilgrimage. Wrote some letters. Went through the pictures just the one more time. And now I'm going to a friend's house to see the Spurs game.

Absolutely nothing to say today.

A Passionate Affair.

2010-03-23T18:03:00.004Z

Today I began my campaign to re-kindle my once passionate affair with London. I've woken up to the fact that I'm not going to look up from my desk and see snow-capped mountains on the horizon; the horizon is back to being yards away rather than miles; and I'm not going to throw open the bedroom curtains one morning and see the River Tweed flowing past - not unless the effects of climate change turn out to be even worse than the worst of predictions.

The countryside I've been loving being in is full of people who live there and never see what's in front of them, and I've become one of those Londoners who lives in a city full of things to see and do and rarely gets to see or do any of them, apart from visits to Lord's and White Hart Lane (the really important things).

This afternoon I visited the British Museum for a couple of hours and jolly interesting it was too. In that time I made it all the way from 4th century BC Egypt right the way through to Medieval Europe, but by then I was too cultured out to deal with 19th century pottery so I decided to call it a day. It did also cross my mind that if I didn't head home fairly sharpish, then whatever good had been achieved with a tour of one of London's cultural highlights would be thoroughly trampled by the realities of a London rush hour on the tube.

It was a good start. On Thursday afternoon I might have a bash at the National Gallery, which is somewhere I always used to love visiting.

The blog plans for this final week are for me to rabbit on as usual for the next couple of days. If anybody has any burning questions they want to ask about my Sabbatical (assuming there is still anybody out there) and they post them before midnight Thursday, I'll have a go at answering them on Friday and/or Saturday. We'll wind things up on Sunday with a transcript of the homily I preached at St Mary's, Lindisfarne at the end of the pilgrimage.

I did get one of my Holy Week sermons written this morning, so all in all Tuesday has been a much better day than Monday, but isn't that often the way?

A Time of Growth.

2010-03-22T17:42:00.004Z

Today I was going to make a start on the four sets of sermons I've got to have ready for Holy Week, finish the last two sections of my write up of the pilgrimage, type up my notes on 'Warlords and Holy Men' and 'The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England', do the shopping for our supper, and have a really good clear out of my cupboards and bookshelves (one of the conclusions I've reached about my life is that I do just have far too much stuff - the jumble sale I've got planned could sort out the parish's finances for a couple of years to come).

I did manage to get the shopping done for supper. And I did type up some of my notes.

A lot of time was lost just looking at photos from the past eight weeks, watching webcams of Islay, and listening to Runrig. I'm missing Scotland.

I meant to get some gardening done too.

Tomorrow.

On Sunday I met a member of the All Saints' congregation who remarked that I looked like I'd put on some weight. 'How unkind,' I thought. It turns out that she might have had a point. On my way to the supermarket this afternoon the waist button popped off my trousers; I had to keep fiddling with my fly all the way to Asda and back to make sure that in the absence of that crucial button I wasn't coming further undone: it was a good time not to be wearing a dog collar.

Hat Fans.

2010-03-18T19:25:00.002Z

It was all I could do to avoid choking half-digested mouthfuls of breakfast cereal all over the kitchen table. If I’d realized that I’d switched the radio on in the middle of Thought for the Day I would have acted sooner, but by the time the penny had dropped the damage had already been done. A man called Oliver was using the Feast of St Patrick as an excuse to trot out all the tired old hippy nonsense about ‘Celtic Christianity’; it was hogwash, balderdash and piffle and I can only give thanks that he refrained from depicting the Celtic Saints as enthusiastic advocates of free love and marijuana for all.

It is not my intention that anything that follows should be taken to imply that my life has been anything but desolate and dark since Susie returned to London at the weekend... however one of the real pleasures of the past few days has been to go on some cracking walks whose distance and duration is not constrained by You Know Whose conviction that no day is complete without a distillery tour.

On Monday I trained with the SAS. In truth, that last sentence is a trifle misleading. Towards the east of Islay there are some good big hills, and I've been yearning to get up amongst them from the moment I arrived here. So on Monday I went for a nineteen mile walk to Ardbeg which took me up towards Beinn Bheigier (which at a little under 1500ft is the highest peak on the island), down through Gleann Leòra and then round to Loch Uigeadail which supplies the water used at the distillery at my destination. The very nice bus driver who picked me up at Ardbeg (all the bus drivers on Islay are nice) told me that the SAS used to train up among the hills I’d been walking through, and that’s good enough for me. They could well have been up there as I slipped and slopped my way through the marshes, and of course I’d have been none the wiser - that’s why they’re the SAS.

Yesterday I walked out to the Mull of Oa, at the south-west tip of Islay. Right at the beginning of our stay here Susie and I thought we saw a golden eagle, and so when I’m walking along I spend a lot of time looking up to the skies, hoping for another glimpse of their majesty. Perhaps our journeys of faith are the same. At some point in our life we saw something which filled us with awe, and although much of the time the heavens might appear empty, the memory of that vision we once had keeps us walking forwards and looking upwards. And there will be more glimpses.

Today’s picture is intended as a special treat for all those of you whose sole interest in this blog has been with my unfortunate choices of headwear. However, before you start posting any comments, be warned that my newest and loveliest hat was a gift from The Long Suffering One, and she will be watching what you say, ever so closely.

Where Susie Leads, I Must Follow.

2010-03-13T14:31:00.004Z

Susie has become somewhat obsessed with distilleries. As she was only going to be here for a week I thought it would be fair to allow her to set our itinerary day by day. This is the sort of thing I had to put up with at our daily strategy meeting over breakfast:

“I was thinking we could get the five past ten bus to Ballygrant, and then there’s a nice walk we could do past some lochs out to Port Askaig.”

“That sounds ideal, love.”

“It’s not a long walk, just three miles I think, but there’s a hotel at Port Askaig so we could have lunch there.”

“Right. I’ll go and put some stuff in the rucksack.”

“Before you do that, can you just check the distillery timetable to see what time they do tours at Caol Ila, it’s just a half mile from the port, so we could pop up there after lunch.”

“Em, it says here that they only do one tour a day during the winter, and that’s in the morning.”

“Oh. Perhaps we should go to Port Charlotte today then. Where’s the nearest distillery to there?”

Thursday was a great day. We went to the RSPB Reserve at Loch Gruinart in the morning for a guided bird-watching walk. There were two proper bird-watchers, the proper RSPB guide, and us two. From one end of the hide there were whispered conversations along the lines of: “Is that a Greenshank?”

“Where?”

“You see the Lapwings on that near bank, just look beyond them towards the Godwit and the Teal – is it a Greenshank?”

From our end of the hide, the conversations were rather more like this:

“What’s that brown thing?”

“Is it a duck?”

“That’s it, you’re right, it’s a duck.”

Thankfully our companions were marvellously patient guides to these two ‘interested idiots’.

After lunch in Port Charlotte we made our way to the Bruichladdich Distillery. It was a very interesting visit. Distillery tours involve a walk around a lot of ancient machinery with each distillery vying to have the oldest mills and stills. The tour concludes in the visitor centre where you get a nip of whisky which is as wee as something can be and still legally be referred to as a ‘nip’, and you try to avoid getting so caught up in the excitement of the occasion that you buy a t-shirt and cap you’ll never wear and a bottle of hideously expensive whisky that you’ve not actually tried and may well discover that you don’t much like when you get it home.

That’s not how the tour at Bruichladdich goes. Susie and I were the only punters on the last tour of the day, which was great because it meant we could ask the guide, David, all the really stupid questions that we’d been too embarrassed to ask on other tours in front of hard-core grizzled whisky buffs. Then we went to the visitor centre. David had established that I like peaty whiskies and Susie doesn’t, so we were both given a healthy dram (most definitely a dram and not a nip) to match our preferences. We were nosing away at the glasses, and examining the colour, and sipping the whisky by the microgram (as you do when you know you've got a long wait before you're going to be offered anything else), when a second sample appeared. It is with a decidedly modest sense of regret that I have to confess that the glasses started lining up and my complexion grew distinctly ruddy. With each new whisky, David explained what sort of barrel it had been casked in, and how old it was, and what the peat content was, and we tasted a gloriously heady array of Hebridean spirits. Unfortunately our recollections of exactly which whiskies we tasted and which ones we liked best became slightly fuddled; I may have to pop back next week to see if I can re-discover which ones we would most like to have in the Vicarage drinks cabinet.

If you're that way inclined, Bruichladdich whiskies come very highly recommended by the Pilgrim and the Long Suffering One (except for their quadruple distilled concoction which is just plain wrong).

My Hebridean Ointment.

2010-03-08T20:33:00.004Z

Within minutes of arriving at the roadside cafe that doubles as Islay airport, I’d fallen in love with the island. The cafe is dominated by a series of glass cabinets displaying the intoxicating wares of the local distilleries, but you must ignore these. Instead turn your attention to the two large aerial pictures of the island tucked away next to the ‘Arrivals’ door. These black and white photographs are quite fascinating in themselves, but it was the notice next to them that seduced me: it explains that the pictures were taken by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War, and then goes on to proclaim that nobody really knows why the German military kept them because Islay was not a place of any great importance. As someone with a tendency to self-deprecation, this trumpeting of the island's lack of significance in terms of global affairs told me at once that I was going to enjoy my time here. And I am doing.

The only fly in my Hebridean ointment is Susie, who seems determined to psychologically destabilize me. Her campaign commenced on the afternoon of our arrival when she declared that she was going to go for a jog. In the nine years that we’ve been together, I don’t think I’ve ever known her to go running, unless to answer one of those calls of nature which must be answered. I was baffled.

On Sunday we went for our first long walk. We hadn’t stepped more than a couple of hundred yards from home when she announced that she’d like to visit a distillery. This made me very nervous. Was she trying to catch me out in some way? Had she spotted a dress that she wanted me to buy her? In Islay? I was bewildered.

What’s up, I don’t know, but something is and that’s for sure.

As anticipated we’ve been spotting a lot of birdlife on our walks. Yesterday Susie spotted an Egyptian Vulture and I saw a Bonellis’ Eagle. Either our RSPB Book of Birds is defectively illustrated, or our talent for spotting birds considerably surpasses our talent for identifying them.

Anyway, the weather remains perfect. I’m getting a couple of hours writing done each morning. Susie is engrossed in ‘Jane Eyre’.

Fact of the Day: Most of the inhabitants of Islay are geese.

PS Today's photo is the view from our kitchen window. Sorry, but it's true. x

Blockbusted

2010-03-05T10:15:00.004Z

If you, like me, thought that writing an internationally acclaimed bestseller was a pretty straightforward business (and let's be honest, when you see some of the toot that flies off the shelves it's not an entirely unreasonable assumption) then I'd have to advise you to think again. I've been hard at it since about Tuesday and frankly I think I've entirely exhausted my creative resources. Yesterday I got so frustrated that I gave up around mid-afternoon, started reading a book about Vikings, and then got fed up with that and watched the entire first series of The Thick of It instead.

This afternoon I'm off to Scotland to go walking - a change is as good as a rest.

I'll be seeking to relight my fire on Islay, the island they call the 'Queen of the Hebrides'.

Here are some interesting things you might not know about Islay (ripped from wikipedia, of course):

1 Islay is the fifth largest Scottish island.

2 Islay is full of nature.

3 I'm looking forward to seeing sea eagles, golden eagles, puffins, hen harriers and oystercatchers.

4 I'm also looking forward to seeing seals and sea otters, but hoping I don't see any adders or wildcats because some kinds of nature I don't respond well to.

5 Scotland's first wave power station is based on Islay. It is pioneering.

6 Glenn Campbell grew up on Islay - but not the Glenn Campbell you and I were thinking of.

7 There are, so I'm told, eight distilleries on the island; that's roughly one distillery for every 375 inhabitants.

8 Apparently one of the distilleries produces a whisky by the name of Laphroaig.

More tomorrow, probably.

In Strange Lands.

2010-03-02T15:16:00.004Z

Given that there were probably more people in the train carriage I travelled back to London in than I had seen on most days of the pilgrimage, arriving at King's Cross itself was always likely to be something of a shock to the system. London seemed overwhelming and I did not feel happy.

Trying to find the links between the Celtic Saints I've been seeking to walk behind and the urban context I'm called to serve in, I've been thinking increasingly about the experience of exile, of being removed from that which is known and understood.

It was visiting St Aidan's, Bamburgh on Saturday morning which started me thinking about exile. It was there that St Aidan is supposed to have died, able to see his island home of Lindisfarne but cut off from it. Separate.

The experience of exile runs through the stories of the Saints I've been studying. St Columba was exiled from Ireland for his part in the Battle of Cúl Dreimhe. St Aidan undertook a life of exile in Northumbria for the sake of the Gospel. St Cuthbert sought out the exile of the solitary life in his hermitage.

Cities are full of exiles. They are the places where those who are fleeing persecution or fierce poverty seek to make new beginnings. For those who seek the exile of the solitary life, cities perhaps offer greater opportunities to live apart from your neighbour than many smaller communities do. The speed and frequency with which urban communities change and change again, can make those who stay put feel like exiles from their own pasts as the world around them is perpetually transformed. Although I've lived in London for most of the past twenty years, it was a village I grew up in, and for all the great joys of round the clock shopping and late night pizza delivery, there are still times when I could happily trade those in for a night sky with more stars and fewer sirens.

A story of exile and return is central to the Biblical narrative, it was something the Celtic Saints sought out, and it is an experience shared by many people in urban communities, communities like Edmonton. There is a thread to be followed, but I'm not sure where it goes.

Hard Core.

2010-02-28T08:49:00.006Z

Four pints of milk, five litres of tonic water, and The Observer, and for the first time in four weeks I've ended a walk with wet feet. I don't know what it's like where you are, but it's chucking it down in Edmonton.

After saying farewell to Dad and Anji in Berwick, we got back into King's Cross yesterday evening, and went our separate ways - The Archdeacon back to Dorset, me back to All Saints Vicarage, and Susie - Susie went off to a party in Islington... some things never change.

On Friday morning The Archdeacon and I were privileged to be allowed to celebrate the Eucharist at the parish church of St Mary's, Lindisfarne. We offered the Eucharist with thanksgiving for a journey safely completed, for the great saints who had inspired us, and for the life of Jean Wilson, one of the organists at All Saints, who had died while I was in Scotland - I will miss her cheerfulness, her music, and the music of her laughter.

I preached a short homily about the stone I had carried from Iona.

Sitting in that historic church at the end of my pilgrimage, I experienced once again that great and inspiring sense of 'smallness' that I described on my walk from Inveraray to Inverarnan (7DHP) - what a brief moment I am in the great story that we are called to be part of.

Plans to spend a large part of the afternoon exploring the island were scuppered by torrential rain, so after a couple of pints of Blessed Beer in The Ship (we highly recommend The Crown and Anchor) we wandered out to the beach beyond Lindisfarne Castle, howled our afternoon prayers out at the wind that was howling at us, and then got back indoors.

On Saturday we packed up and made our last trip of the pilgrimage, to the parish church of St Aidan's, Bamburgh. As I knelt at the small cross marking the place where St Aidan is reputed to have died I felt that the pilgrimage was now properly ended and it was time to head back to London.

PS I'll be keeping this blog going until my Sabbatical is finished, on Palm Sunday. So, the hard core of you can continue to follow my efforts to relate what I've experienced in the lonely mountains to my life in the crowded city (although I'm off to Islay on Saturday...), and we'll discover whether or not Danny DeVito agrees to play The Archdeacon in the film version of Pilgrim's Cairn.

From An Ocean To A Sea.

2010-02-25T18:09:00.002Z

Day 21: Fenwick to Lindisfarne.

Distance: 11.3 miles (351.7 total).

Duration: 5 hrs 31 mins.

Lowest Temp: 5ºc.

Weather: Dry grey.

Highest Alt: I really don’t know, couple of hundred feet maybe?

Archdeacon Watch: Growing anxious about the pub situation on Lindisfarne – none found open thus far.

Its been a funny old day, as the saying goes. The Archdeacon and I started out, to his great disgust, headed in the wrong direction, all because I was keen to add a little detour to our journey. I’d like to tell you that those extra miles were to kill the time we had to wait until the tide went out, allowing us to cross the causeway to Lindisfarne, at around two o’clock. I’d really like to tell you that. Unfortunately there was nothing that sensible about my desire to add a few miles. Like the overgrown adolescent that every man basically is, when I realised that with the addition of an extra mile or two today I could reach 350 miles... well, I couldn’t resist. I know. It’s sad.

Although he was huffing and puffing with resentment every step of the way, I got The Archdeacon to the pub around midday, and then made him sit in the beer garden for midday prayer before he was allowed his pint of Black Sheep. Susie and my Dad joined us around half an hour later, and then a little after one we made our way down to the coast and then out to Lindisfarne. From leaving the mainland until we reached the Parish Church of St Mary’s we walked in silence, and then after saying afternoon prayer in the church we looked for a pub to enjoy a celebratory pint in. All shut. Not to be. Thankfully Susie had brought a hip flask with some Laphroaig, so we enjoyed a nip of that instead.

Three weeks ago and over three hundred miles away, I stood on the Mahair on the west coast of Iona and looked out across the Atlantic Ocean. Today I completed this pilgrimage, walking out onto Lindisfarne, a slender strip of land lying low in the North Sea.

As we made our way along the causeway to this holy island, with the sea drawn back on either side of us, I had a strong sense of the way in which the sea had surrounded my journey, as it surrounds the islands which the Celtic Saints so often made their pilgrimages to. For three weeks I have been walking from the ocean, walking to the sea – and although we give them different names, they are of course part of just one great body of water.

This journey is over. My pilgrimage continues, as does yours. And wherever we are walking, whatever direction we are headed, around us on every side there is always that great ocean, that great sea, which we can give a hundred different names to, but which I would call the love of God.

Thank you to those who have walked with me on this pilgrimage, the Pilgrim Driver, my Elderly Uncle, The Long Suffering One, The Archdeacon, and Young Tom; thank you to all those of you who have accompanied me through this blog; thank you to those of you who have prayed for me; and thank you to Mum for snowdrops.

Where shall we go next?

Aidan & Edmonton.

2010-02-24T17:33:00.005Z

Day 20: Wooler to Fenwick.

Distance: 12.3 miles (340.4 total).

Duration: 5 hrs 9 mins.

Lowest Temp: 0ºc.

Weather: A green and pleasant land? I think Mr Blake must have been holidaying in Scotland.

Highest Alt: 580 ft.

Archdeacon Watch: After complaining of a near-death experience during the morning session he rallied after Midday Prayer and a Mars bar.

Young Tom’s departure was much like his arrival, and he slipped away from us in the dead of night. Actually it was about seven in the morning when he got a cab to Berwick, but as far as The Archdeacon and I are concerned that’s the dead of night.

Today’s was one of the more challenging legs weather-wise, and the meteorological conditions took a significant turn for the worse about halfway through the day, some five minutes or so after The Archdeacon had breezily asserted, 'It’s definitely clearing up now.’

Apologies for yesterday’s fairly downbeat post. The good people of All Saints, Edmonton must be beginning to wonder if they need to start advertising for a new Vicar, I’ve been sounding so morose about this pilgrimage ending. Today I’ve been feeling considerably brighter, and I’ve got St Aidan to thank for the change in my mood.

Walking today’s miles, which have brought us virtually within sight of Lindisfarne, I began to wonder how St Aidan felt as he grew ever nearer to Bamburgh Castle, and ever further from Iona and the people he knew. I guess that we’ve firmly established by now that I’m not particularly qualified to peer into the minds of Saints, nevertheless I’d like to imagine that at this point in his journey St Aidan was feeling those often twinned emotions of anticipation and apprehension: he had travelled across the country at the request of Oswald, King of Northumbria, and it was to be his mission to found a community on the pattern of Iona on this far shore, there was a lot for him to look forward to; but at the same time he was leaving behind so much that was familiar to him.

Some people have questioned what I can possibly hope to find in the lives of the Celtic Saints that might be of use where I serve in North London: at first glance there would appear to be a great deal more than miles which separate Iona and N9. However, the world those Saints worked and worshipped in was very similar to the context I serve in. Theirs was a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-faith society, and they often had to profess their faith in the face of opposition. When Aidan went to Northumbria he was going to a people whose language he did not even speak. He went to them and he walked with them.

I don’t suppose I’ve even begun to figure out what Iona, and Columba, and Aidan, and Lindisfarne, and Cuthbert, and that whole era of Christianity has to offer to the community I serve, but I do believe that those two worlds are much close than they might at first appear.

Those Last Few Miles of the Day.

2010-02-23T22:26:00.004Z

Day 19: Town Yetholm to Wooler.

Distance: 14.5 miles (328.1 total).

Duration: 6 hrs 27 mins.

Lowest Temp: -1ºc.

Scottish Weather: Majestic.

English Weather: Minging.

Highest Alt: 1180 ft.

Archdeacon Watch: Indefatigable – and goodness only knows I’ve tried to fatig him.

Today I had my second tearful moment – it was when I crossed the border into England. The Archdeacon and Young Tom were far from sympathetic. They wanted to mark the occasion with a verse of ‘I Vow To Thee My Country’, but thankfully they were unable to summon either the words or the tune between them, so for that small mercy I am thankful.

Towards the end of today’s leg we walked out of English hills where a lot of English snow had fallen upon us, into a car park which can’t have been more than a mile from our destination. At this point the designers of St Cuthbert’s Way (which is not the best signposted Way I’ve walked, and I reckon I’ve walked at least three in the last two weeks alone) stuck what I call, ‘an annoying little jiggly bit’ on at the end, so that instead of cracking down the road straight to the pub, we were taken up across Wooler Common and all around the houses – by my reckoning it delayed our first pint by a good half hour or so. It’s not uncommon for the various long-distance ‘Ways’ to include these ‘annoying little jiggly bits’ – sometimes they’re there for some laudable purpose like keeping you away from traffic, other times I think they’re just there to add to the mileage. Whatever their purpose, they’re always particularly annoying when they come at the end of a leg.

At the end of a leg I really don’t want a ‘jiggly bit’ stuck on. It doesn’t matter how far I’ve walked in a day, when I hit the ‘three miles from home’ stretch, then I just want those miles to pass and to get to the end of the leg. Whether its been a thirteen mile day or twenty-three, at three miles from home a certain kind of tiredness kicks in.

As I walk the final miles of this pilgrimage I’m beginning to feel something of that ‘nearly home’ tiredness. Actually, I’m experiencing all sorts of contradictory feelings. Part of me feels the full distance of each mile I’ve put behind me, and I’m just getting tired – it was slow walking today. That part of me can’t wait to see Susie on Thursday and then get the train back home. But there is another part of me which simply doesn’t want this pilgrimage to end, and I feel like turning back and heading once more for Iona. I don’t want to stop walking.

I think the next couple of days are going to be quite strange.

I just don’t want to stop walking.

I know in my heart that the pilgrimage will continue, but I don’t want the walking to end.

Blogging Can Be Bad For You.

2010-02-23T16:14:00.002Z

Day 18: Jedburgh to Town Yetholm.

Distance: 15.5 miles (313.6 total).

Duration: 6 hrs 2 mins.

Lowest Temp: 0ºc.

Weather: Foggy start, sunny conclusion, with the fleetest of snow flurries in between.

Highest Alt: 1207 ft.

Archdeacon Watch: With his walking sticks tapping incessantly behind me, it’s like being hunted by a psychopathic metronome.

(Sorry about the delay with this post. The Plough in Town Yetholm didn't have wi-fi access. However, that's about the only thing it doesn't have - it's a cracking pub and comes highly recommended.)

The morning began with a big hug from my brother-in-law, Young Tom, who had come up from London last night. His train had been somewhat delayed, and so he hadn’t actually arrived in Jedburgh until long after The Archdeacon and I were tucked up in bed (separately). Once the two of them had sorted out their packed lunch for the day (I just stick to two or three mini Mars bars and nothing else) we were off.

We walked to Morebattle through a persistent light fog which broke as we headed up into the hills. Either The Archdeacon is getting faster or I’m getting slower, but either way the distance between us is narrowing on the uphill sections; often he remains visible to the naked eye.

Young Tom is a keen photographer, and intrigued by our pattern of praying a couple of times during each leg, he asked if I’d mind him taking photos of us at prayer. I didn’t see any good reason to refuse at the time, but I’m now slightly worried that if students of religion in centuries to come think that the photos he took were indicative of any wider practices, then textbooks about Christianity in Britain in the twenty-first century might be slightly inaccurate; it wasn’t all about bearded blokes standing in fields, giggling hard because a couple of RAF Tornadoes were belting through the sky above as they were trying to recite a Psalm.

Around the ten mile mark I found myself getting slightly agitated because I hadn’t had any ‘great spiritual insight’ to post this evening. Instead of enjoying the beautiful scenery and the peace, I was scrabbling about the landscape and our walking together, looking for something, anything, to make ‘a point’ about. Then I remembered Loch Feochan: on the fourth day of my pilgrimage, as I headed south from Oban, I’d found myself busy doing exactly the same thing – instead of simply receiving with joy all that I was seeing, I was constantly trying to frame it for this blog, either in words or through the lens of my camera. Thankfully, as soon as I realised what I was doing I was able quite quickly to turn off my mental commentary and start simply taking the beauty around me for the beauty that it was, and not for what I could make of it.

Blogging can be bad for you. It can lead you to think that you always have to have something to say. Sometimes we don’t have to say anything.

Apparently tonight is my last night in Scotland. I’d thought the funny black line on my map was a train line, but Young Tom assures me that it’s the English border. So, seeing as it’s my last night in my heart’s home, I might just round off the night with a little whisky – it’s a special occasion.

Borders.

2010-02-21T19:29:00.003Z

Day 17: St Boswells to Jedburgh.

Distance: 12.9 miles (298.1 total).

Duration: 5 hrs 10 mins.

Lowest Temp: -1ºc.

Weather: Hazy shade of Winter.

Highest Alt: 567 ft.

Archdeacon Watch: ‘It’s me age,’ he keeps telling me.

(Sorry for another late post – we actually finished around 2.30 today... but then found a pub showing the Wigan-Spurs game. Get in there Super Pav!).

We are walking among Borderers.

Today we finally turned our back on the River Tweed, which has been our companion for much of our way since we left Biggar, and headed south towards the River Teviot and Jedburgh. These final miles of our pilgrimage take us along St Cuthbert’s Way, much of which follows the old Roman Road of Dere Street.

We are in border country, nearer to England than to Edinburgh, and for many centuries this has been contested country. We’re walking through land that marked a long fought border of the Roman Empire. Its been a line of conflict between England and Scotland, and this morning we passed Ancrum Moor where a Scottish army was victorious in 1545.

Border land.

The Celtic Saints we have been following were border people. Columba’s monastery on Iona was more or less on the border between the kingdoms of the Picts and Dál Riata. They often chose to put their monasteries on islands, border places between land, sea and sky. There are many stories of Celtic monks setting sail for ‘desert places’ beyond the known borders of their world.

When we think of borders, our first thought is of lines of separation, of that which keeps different peoples or places apart. But of course borders can also be thought of as places where different worlds touch. St Columba and his successors sought to live in the border places where our world touches and is touched by that which we call the heavenly. They sought to see that which is beyond our world, in the things that are within it.

And they knew that borders are places of struggle and sometimes conflict. To try to live a life of faith is to live as a borderer. To live as a borderer is to live with struggle.

And lastly, I’ve had a question come in which, although too late for our formal Question Time on Friday, I’m willing to answer because I think it’s an important one. A certain Garrett asks, ‘If your pilgrimage was a film, which film would best describe it? AND, who would you chose to play the starring role?’ The answer is, (not quite answering his question but my own), ‘If they made a film of this pilgrimage, I think I would best be played by Rob Lowe, and The Archdeacon by Ken Davitian’.

PS I ought to say that if you’re ever staying in St Boswells, check yourself in to The Old Manse. We were wonderfully looked after there, in spite of the fact that they weren’t actually expecting us until March 20^th. And not only did Claire take our horrible muddy gaiters in to dry, but she washed them too! We felt slightly guilty each time we sloshed through another puddle on today’s leg.

Old Melrose.

2010-02-20T20:10:00.003Z

Day 16: Selkirk to St Boswell’s.

Distance: 17.8 miles (285.2 total).

Duration: 7 hrs 18 mins.

Lowest Temp: 1ºc.

Weather: Crystal white beneath our feet and clear blue above us.

Highest Alt: 957 ft.

Situated a couple of miles from Melrose, on a bend in the River Tweed, there is not a great deal to see now at Old Melrose. It’s a beautiful, tranquil corner, hidden away and at peace. If Iona is most decidedly ‘Columba’s Island’, and if most people think of St Cuthbert when they think of Lindisfarne, then perhaps Old Melrose is St Aidan’s place – an overlooked corner for an all too often overlooked Saint.

The story goes that on the night St Aidan died in Bamburgh, a young shepherd called Cuthbert saw in the sky the lights of angels taking Aidan’s soul to heaven, and went at once to begin a new life as a monk at the monastery at Old Melrose which Aidan had founded.

There are many places in the chronology of the Celtic Saints where events coincide. St Ninian is said to have founded his abbey at Whithorn in the same year that his great inspiration, St Martin of Tours, died. As St Columba died, so the missionary St Augustine of Canterbury, is supposed to have landed in Kent.

Perhaps these are just coincidences, or perhaps they reflect an understanding by the historians of many centuries ago, that each new beginning marks some kind of ending, and in all our endings there is the potential for something new to begin.

The days and hours and miles are all passing too quickly for me at the moment. Obviously part of me is looking forward so much to walking on to Lindisfarne, to completing my pilgrimage from Iona, but there is also a growing part of me that doesn’t want this journey to end. Whereas in the first days of this pilgrimage I spent my time looking ahead, now I tend to be looking backwards to all the wonderful experiences that are falling ever further into my past. I needed to visit Old Melrose today, to be reminded that whenever something passes from our lives there is often also something new which is beginning to stir, even if we might not be able to recognise it at the time for what it will be.

Lastly for today, thanks ever so much to my Dad and to Anji for their wonderful hospitality over the past three nights. The Archdeacon and I enjoyed a very pleasant visit to Selkirk Cricket Club last night, where Malcolm bought us a pint, Scone tried to persuade us of the delights of the Cape Wrath Way, and a gentleman by the name of Banksy enlivened the evening’s sport of ‘carpet bowls’ with a wide and varied range of what we assumed were Gaelic battle cries.

41

2010-02-19T17:26:00.002Z

Pete asks: What is going on?

Dear Confused of Brooklyn, I assume that this refers to your earlier comment regarding my clothing arrangements. Most morning’s, what’s going on is this (in order of appearance): boxer trunks (is that what they’re called? You all know the sort of things I mean), Compeed blister plaster, thermal liner socks, thermal top, thermal leggings, thick socks, waterproof leggings, thin top, walking boots, waterproof jacket, gaiters. Most days this has been entirely unnecessary, and what should have been going on was, flip flops, Bermuda shorts, t-shirt, sun-hat.

Cath asks: If you could have one day of your pilgrimage (so far) again, which would it be and why?

Gosh. Visiting St Columba’s Bay on Iona was incredibly moving, as that is where so many great journeys began, in so many different ways, including my small pilgrimage. In terms of pure walking, yesterday was probably one of the finest days so far. However, I’d have to say the seventh day, walking between Inveraray and Inverarnan. It was the day I was most looking forward to, walking up away from Loch Fyne into the mountains, before dropping back down to the top of Loch Lomond. It was a wonderful experience, and what’s more to go back to day seven would mean I still had fourteen days of walking still ahead of me, instead of only seven.

Elaine asks: Why is it you are looking suspiciously like a Russian partisan?

Dear Elaine, you have four weeks to find yourself a new church to worship in!

Michael asks: Is the Holy Spirit nudging you to have as part of our future a book about your experience?

Dear Michael, I certainly intend to spend part of March writing something about this experience. I think I’ll take the days of the pilgrimage as the framework, and expand on some of the reflections that have come out of them. Whether or not I have it in me to produce a book, I don’t know. It would be good, at the very least, maybe to produce some Quiet Day material or something like that. Thank you for all your words of encouragement.

Susie asks: How come you have had endless days of beautiful weather and stunning scenery, and when I joined you I got rain, Glasgow and a litter strewn Clyde?

Dear Susie, God knows that frail sinners need a lot of encouragement if they are to make good pilgrims; so, for most of my journey He’s surrounded me with warmth and beauty, but when we were together, He left that up to you.

Do I Look Like I Might Know The Answer?

2010-02-18T22:31:00.003Z

As promised earlier in the week, today's the day you can post any questions you like about the pilgrimage.

At 5pm I'll settle down with a large glass of wisdom, and do my best to answer.

But pilgrimage questions only - no, I don't know how the General Election will turn out, whether or not we're in a 'double dip' recession, or where Spurs will finish in the Premiership.

Look forward to hearing from you.

The Archdeacon Addresses An Anxious Nation.

2010-02-18T19:07:00.004Z

Day 15: Peebles to Selkirk.

Distance: 18.7 miles (267.4 total).

Duration: 7 hrs 35 mins.

Lowest Temp: 0ºc.

Weather: Have given up trying to find new ways of saying ‘perfect for walking’.

Highest Alt: 1748 ft.

‘I now know that one of the most significant things in being priested is that you get to give the notices at the end of mass’ said The Pilgrim after his ordination. This was said in that distinctive period in the church’s history when Pilgrim was a Curate and I was his Vicar. You need to know that the notices were not used primarily to convey information about the events of the coming week but more specifically for Vicar and Curate to abuse one another. Given this history you will not be surprised at the appalling treatment that I have received so far in this Blog however you might be a touch surprised that The Pilgrim has allowed me loose on it!

Another couple I know also walked to Lindisfarne however not from Iona but from Bristol where they happened to be priests. They realised that along the way they met people who they later they realised were angels – i.e. people who almost miraculously brought help at time of extreme need. I would like to say that I have also met an angel in the form of the blessed Roy who, as you will know from the Blog, has the very distinctive experience of being The Pilgrim’s father. Never mind what he has done for The Pilgrim he has enabled me to get this far. When the range of necessary and important equipment that I had wisely brought proved to be too heavy a burden and frankly too much a source of merriment for The Pilgrim, he travelled 70 odd miles to relieve me of: my tent; sleeping bag; sleeping bag liner; cooker; pots and pans; kitchen sink; and dog basket. I feel privileged to have my walking style compared to his, which has if nothing else panache and I am now being given wonderful hospitality by Roy and his wife Anji.

Today’s walk, which even The Pilgrim admitted was the best walking day so far, was from Peebles to Selkirk. The thermometer read –3 and the car journey from Selkirk back to Peebles (we stayed with Roy and Angie last night) was initially through thick fog, however as has been proven several time the weather forecast was largely inaccurate and the sky cleared and temperature rose (a bit). An easy walk for 7 miles down the Tweed led to the impressive Traquair House – a sign proclaimed it the oldest inhabited house in Scotland in which 27 Kings have stayed. The Pilgrim also told me that the gates have remained shut since the last Stuart was on the throne and will only open when the next one ascends – he said this with a wistful look in his eye, which I think might be something to do with personal ambition!

We then launched out on a stunning section of the Southern Upland Way, which took us up to the highest point on the whole pilgrimage – some 1,760 feet. It is The Pilgrim’s tradition to sing Praise to the Holiest in the Height every time he reaches a high point over 1,000ft. We actually did this twice (only the first verse as neither of us can remember any more) as there was some dispute about the which point was the highest, however we did sing it to two different tunes. When going up hills (which I love) I am prone to focusing totally on getting to the summit and therefore so often miss what is around me on the way. I loved every moment of today and realised that getting to the summit was of little significance compared with the scenery that I was walking through and actually also the very special and cherished conversation I was having with my friend. We hardly abused one another all day!

While I am writing this he is in the bath with a G and T, which frankly is not in the spirit of Aiden as far as I can see.

Tomorrow is a rest day. He’s off with the help of the blessed Roy to stand up to his waist in the North Sea at Coldingham, with some vain hope that an otter or two might come to his aid. I’m doing a far more sensible thing and going to play 18 holes at Peebles with my old friend David Sceats, the Episcopal priest in Selkirk.

Finding Lost Paths.

2010-02-17T19:06:00.003Z

Day 14: Biggar to Peebles.

Distance: 17.9 miles (248.7 total).

Duration: 6 hrs 40 mins.

Lowest Temp: 0ºc.

Weather: Perfect.

Highest Alt: 700 ft or thereabouts.

Archdeacon Watch: He took a little rest today, but is now full of beans and raring to go – and tomorrow he’s writing the post.

Dr Beeching is not what you would call a popular man in this part of the world. The Borders were particularly hard hit by the rail line cuts of the 1960s, and the loss of local lines is still keenly felt.

Most of my walk today was along one of those old rail lines. It was beautiful walking, on a clear cool day, with the Tweed as my companion for most of the way.

Walking the lost line stirred in my imagination thoughts of all those many people who would have passed this way by train: those for whom it was just the regular commute and those who took particularly special and memorable trips across this way. I’m not sure that Pilgrim’s Cairn has many readers this side of the border, but if there’s anybody out there with particular memories of travelling by rail the line that today I walked, I’d love to hear them.

In a sense, this pilgrimage is itself a kind of walking ‘a lost line’. Once there would have been significant traffic between Iona and Lindisfarne, as monks, bishops and princes made their way back and forth between the two, carrying news of battles lost and hearts won, news of great events and domestic gossip.

The walk from Biggar to Peebles evoked in me so many different senses of ‘paths lost’.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, that time when Christians seek to follow Christ into the wilderness places to struggle with temptation. Lots of us will be giving up chocolate, booze, fags or whatever else. Perhaps Lent is also about rediscovering ‘lost paths’, about finding again a true path which once upon a time we were walking, but which somehow has been lost to us; a time for finding our way again.

On Friday I have my second rest day. On my last rest day I encouraged all of you to go for a bit of a walk, this time I thought I’d let you rest, and instead give myself a job to do. Quite a few questions have been posted on this site over the past few weeks and I’m really sorry that I haven’t had the time to answer them – at the end of each day there’s only just time to re-hydrate, clean up, eat, go over the next day’s walk, (perhaps re-hydrate a little more), and then bed. So, as with the walking last weekend, I’ll put up a sort of ‘blank’ post on Friday morning, and if you want to post a question you can do it then, and I’ll try to answer as best I can around 5-ish.

See you tomorrow my friends, sleep well - I know I will.

Luggage.

2010-02-16T18:44:00.005Z

Day 13: Lanark to Biggar.

Distance: 17.4 miles (230.8 total).

Duration: 7 hrs 37 mins.

Lowest Temp: 2ºc.

Weather: All around us but never on top of us.

Highest Alt: 825 ft

Archdeacon Watch: Glad not to be on the bus, mostly.

Last night we were wonderfully looked after by the Revd Dan Gafvert, who taught us a lot about Lanark and about Lanarkshire. It was great to be able to stop, for the second and last time on this pilgrimage, in someone’s home.

This morning The Archdeacon declared himself fit for service once more, so off we set. Now, in my defence, I’d like to put it on the record that over the first few miles of each leg I really need to keep going just to work out the various aches and pains I have in my right foot (everything else, I’m delighted to say, continues to work well – well, as well as ever). Stopping and starting makes me sore. Here ends the case for the defence.

By the time we’d made the two miles to New Lanark, The Archdeacon had introduced a series of pauses to our progress, as he’d mucked around with his clothing, faffed about with his rucksack, and had the inevitable long minutes of fiddling with his walking sticks. I prayed the Rosary, and tried to think good thoughts.

Then we reached New Lanark itself, a wonderful heritage site which is well worth a visit. The Archdeacon disappeared into the Gift Shop and Visitor Centre. This is a walk, a long walk, popping in to Gift Shops and Visitor Centres is something we just don't do. However, I rustled up as much Christian charity as I could muster and waited. He didn’t reappear. I continued to wait. Still no sign.

I began to have a tantrum in my head: ‘What’s he up to? He’s just making this walk harder. It’s like having another pack to carry.’

And then I stopped. Comparing this person, parson and friend to my pack made me realize just how stupid I was being. I remembered that my pack contained only the essentials for the journey, and that all the people I’ve been privileged to share this pilgrimage with are essential to it.

What’s more, all the people I’m privileged to share life’s pilgrimage with, are never extra weight – they are essentials, without which no pilgrimage is worthy of the name. It's only my poverty of love which makes others feel like extra weight, and the more I can learn to love, the more I will understand that the people I encounter are never weights but gifts.

And lastly, I wish to defend The Archdeacon from expressions of sympathy which he has received in recent days. He is a proud man who would be deeply distressed to think that anyone is feeling sorry for him. In the ten years of our friendship that’s a distress I’ve never caused him, and nor do I intend to in the ten or so days ahead, as I drive him over Glen and Ben (Scottish terms for landscape, not people we’ve met).

PS The Archdeacon has managed to organise for us to celebrate the Eucharist on Lindisfarne at 10am on Friday 26^th February. As I always put when advertising forthcoming events in the service sheet, ‘all are welcome’.

Never Stop Again.

2010-02-15T17:29:00.001Z

Day 12: Bothwell to Lanark.

Distance: 19.8 miles (213.4 total).

Duration: 7 hrs 22 mins.

Lowest Temp: 2ºc.

Weather: Just like that song by Crowded House.

Highest Alt: 651 ft

The Archdeacon smells better than I do. That’s largely because whilst my journey to Lanark involved nearly twenty miles of walking along the occasionally elusive Clyde Walkway, his involved two bus trips, costing £1.69 and £3. Perhaps I should explain.

When The Archdeacon arrived in Bishopbriggs on Friday evening, I was rather dismayed to discover that he’d brought a tent and a sleeping bag with him. Given that our journey was going to be taking in a series of hostelries and bed and breakfasts these seemed rather superfluous, and I tried to persuade him so, but he was not to be persuaded; The Long Suffering One tried to persuade him that they were unnecessary encumbrances, but he was not to be persuaded; my Uncle and Aunty tried to persuade him that they were unhelpful burdens, but he was not to be persuaded.

So, off we set on Sunday morning, me with my spare pants and a change of socks, and The Archdeacon with his tent and sleeping bag, and who knows what all else.

Curiously enough, The Archdeacon and my Dad walk in very much the same way. They both tear off as fast as they can for as far as they can, before coming to a sudden breath-shuddering halt; at this point The Archdeacon tinkers obsessively with his walking sticks and rucksack straps, in the belief that if he gets them perfectly set he will Never Have To Stop Again.

We first realised something was wrong at lunchtime. He’d been keeping up a good pace, but when he removed his waterproof jacket there was actual steam rising from his clothing – owing to the space taken up by the tent (and sleeping bag), he was having to wear virtually every item of clothing he possessed. “I’m feeling a bit hot”, he observed.

It was at the thirteen mile mark that he really began to flag. The Long Suffering One was deeply sympathetic and helpful. I just wanted to hit him with one of his tent poles and then smother him with the sleeping bag.

Anyway, he soldiered on to Bothwell. This afternoon he met up with my Dad, who took away several kilos of utterly pointless baggage, and so he’s going to have another go at being a pilgrim tomorrow. Keep him in your prayers, and perhaps see if you can’t get a Mass offered up for me.

My Funny Valentine.

2010-02-14T19:10:00.003Z

Day 11: Bishopbriggs to Bothwell.

Distance: 18.5 miles (193.6 total).

Duration: 7 hrs 43 mins.

Lowest Temp: 4ºc.

Weather: Like my socks, mostly damp with wet patches.

Highest Alt: 260 ft

Yesterday's rest day with my Lovely Aunt and Elderly Uncle was very welcome indeed. Going to bed on Friday night, knowing that I could sleep in and there were no long miles ahead of me the next day was great. Susie and I had a quiet lazy day together, marred only by events at The Millennium Stadium.

The Archdeacon went off with my Elderly Uncle to see Motherwell play Hamilton. They were accompanied by my friend the Hooligan Pensioner, who brightened up everybody's day by trying to smuggle some whisky into the stadium and being collared by the polis (a Gaelic word for 'member of the constabulary').

Today we walked straight into Glasgow, picking up the Clyde at Glasgow Green and then more or less following it all the way out to Bothwell. Around Glasgow Green the Clyde is beautiful, and enjoyed by lots of walkers, cyclists, rowers, and joggers. As we walked along though, I found myself feeling quite shocked at the amount of litter everywhere. This isn't to suggest that Glasgow is more litter-strewn than any other major city, just that I've been in such gorgeous unspoiled countryside up to now, that the sight of so much debris was quite depressing. It feels hard to believe that the bare black trees lining the river, shrouded in the shreds of a million corner shop carrier bags, could ever bear anything as fresh and lovely as a leaf.

I wanted to go back to Iona, to Mull, to Loch Melfort or to Conic Hill. I wanted to get out of the city and the great wake of filth we trail behind us wherever we congregate together in great masses. But as a London priest, it's a city that I’m privileged to serve in, and it’s in cities that most people have to live, which for all their joys and glories, also have their noise, and their dirt, and their anonymity, and their loneliness, and moments of violence and acres of poverty. If the best I can come up with at the end of this sabbatical is 'it's nice in the countryside', then this will have been three utterly wasted months. As my friend, The Provost, put it: 'The question you have to be working out is, how do you take Iona back to Edmonton.'

It's a question which the wonderful Donald Meek also poses in his excellent book 'The Quest for Celtic Christianity': 'Modern 'Celtic Christianity', in fact, appears to be directed towards the religiously inclined and 'concerned' middle classes who have money to buy books and participate in 'retreats', and the time and the resources to go on pilgrimages and 'drop out' of the contemporary rat-race. It does not seem to have much to say to the practical challenges of planting churches in present-day housing estates, or to confronting contemporary drug culture and larger moral issues.'

Anyway, Susie's still with me, it's Valentine's Day, and there are probably other things I should be doing.

PS Thank you so much to all of you who joined in my pilgrimage this weekend. I’ve loved reading your posts, and am truly grateful for your company, your wisdom and your humour. Together we make this pilgrim’s cairn.

Spot the Difference.

2010-02-14T18:16:00.002Z

One of these characters is a pink faced gnome, and one is a senior cleric from the Diocese of Salisbury.

How Was Your Walk?

2010-02-13T10:10:00.002Z

Home to Bishopbriggs.

2010-02-12T18:10:00.003Z

Day 10: Drymen to Bishopbriggs.
Distance: 18.7 miles (175.1 total).
Duration: 7 hrs 1 mins.
Lowest Temp: 2ºc.
Weather: Take it from someone who learned the hard way – you really don’t need thermals on a day like today.
Highest Alt: 574 ft
Tonight I’m at home in Bishopbriggs.
I was born in the Midlands. Brought up in the South East. Have lived most of my adult life in various parts of London. But Bishopbriggs is a home to me.
My Mum grew up here. My parents were married here. I was baptised here. Grandparents lived here and Grandparents are buried here. More of my family live here than any other place in the country. So, although I’ve never spent more than two weeks here at any one time, this is a home to me.
Arriving here with my Elderly Uncle makes me think of all the different places I belong, or have belonged. It’s difficult for me to find a single place I can point to and say, ‘This is where I’ve come from’. Part of pilgrimage involves, I suppose, a sense of not truly belonging to any one place. All of which contributes to Susie’s quandary about where to put my memorial bench, many many years from now! As long as some of my ashes end up at White Hart Lane, I’ll be happy – except, they’re going to be moving that soon too.
At the end of this first leg I’d like to thank you all for walking this far with me, and a special thank you to all those of you who have posted comments. Whether they were words of encouragement or reflection, bits of local research or verses of poetry, humorous observations, even the Spurs-baiting – I’ve valued them all, and been helped along by your companionship.
Cairns are made when lots of different people bring stones from different places, and lay them together in one spot. All your comments are part of this pilgrim’s cairn and part of this pilgrimage.
And if you haven’t posted yet, please join us – my Mum will be happy to explain how you go about it. When this walk is over, I'll have the time to respond to your comments properly.
So this weekend – go walking, and then maybe tell me where you’ve been. I’d love to hear from you.

Tomorrow I rest. I'm tired.

You Are Not Alone.

2010-02-11T15:42:00.004Z

Day 9: Balmaha to Drymen.

Distance: 7.6 miles (156.4 total).

Duration: 4 hrs 28 mins.

Lowest Temp: 0ºc.

Weather: A Hosepipe Ban Is Only A Matter of Time.

Highest Alt: 1093 ft

The day began with Dad announcing that he’d had a good idea. Instead of starting walking at 9am, we could start at 10.45am (I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s all to do with buses). I thought that was a bad idea. “No, that’s a bad idea,” I said, “we’re starting at nine”. Breakfast was a quiet affair and slightly tense.

The walk began with a thousand foot climb out of Balmaha, up Conic Hill. We walk hills differently. Dad likes to stoat along for thirty or forty yards, before stopping to blow his nose, fiddle with his hat, adjust his gloves, and get his breath back. I prefer to go more slowly, but just to keep going with fewer breaks. So we weren’t together for much of the first part of our walk together.

Since this pilgrimage began, I’ve spent a little under 51 hours walking on my own. Having to cope with the reality of another person, a person who might want to do things differently from me, came as a bit of a shock to the system. It was also a shock that my system probably needed.

The long-suffering Susie has been following my growing interest in the Celtic Saints, and their forebears in the deserts of Egypt with growing suspicion and concern. I think that she has rightly divined that the idea of going off into the back of beyond to be entirely on your own has a great appeal to me; I’m one of the few people who finds my own company perfectly congenial. Being on my own isn’t hard for me. What’s more, when I’m on my own I can be quite a nice person; I rarely argue or fall out with myself. Left on my own I reckon I could have a fair crack at being a Saint.

If the first part of my pilgrimage has been about learning more about myself, and hopefully growing a little, this second part of the pilgrimage is going to be about learning to be a better self in relation to others, and growing a lot. (A hundred and fifty or so miles with The Archdeacon – I’m going to have to grow a lot!).

Lastly, although previous attempts to get ‘interactive’ with this blog have received a lukewarm response, we’re going to have one last go. On Saturday I get my first rest day, I’m going to be spending it with The Long Suffering, and I’m going to have better things to do with my time than post my nonsense on here. So this weekend, instead of me telling you about my walk, I’d like you to tell me about your walk. Make time to go for a walk. It doesn’t matter if it’s ten miles or ten minutes, the only rule is, you have to go walking just for the sake of walking – a trip to the paper shop doesn’t count. On Saturday morning I’ll simply post, ‘Tell Me About Your Journey’, and I’d like you to comment on a walk you’ve made just for the sake of walking – let’s see if we can’t top our current best of five comments.

Go for a walk.

Go on.

And then tell me about it.

Calf.

2010-02-11T15:28:00.002Z

Day 8: Inverarnan to Balmaha.

Distance: 22.1 miles (148.8 total).

Duration: 8 hrs 43 mins.

Lowest Temp: 0ºc.

Weather: I wanted to skip through the meadows with my long golden tresses flowing in the breeze.

Highest Alt: 680ft

According to my waterproof West Highland Way map, the first part of my route today is ‘generally recognised as one of the toughest of the Way.’ According to the receptionist at The Drover’s, the total ascent on this leg is 3,000ft, irritatingly packaged up in steep 30ft bundles. From my own experience of having walked this way twice before, I knew it wasn’t going to be much fun.

Although it was another long leg (and never again will I plot a route with three successive twenty-milers), the real tough bit was in the first seven miles or so between Inverarnan and Inversnaid. It’s a tortuous tight-cornered tangle of rocks and roots, burns and boulders, with a million and one places where the careless walker can stub his toe or twist his ankle. However, whereas on previous occasions I’ve been walking north from Balmaha, and so these misery miles strike when you’ve already got almost fifteen miles under your belt, today they were more or less at the beginning of the leg, when I was still fresh and glad to put them behind me.

One of the biggest problems I had today was with my sunglasses. (Yes, I can hear you sniggering at the back – sunglasses? in Scotland? in February? It just so happens that the sun’s very low at this time of year, and I’m walking right at it). I only bought them at the last minute in Oban, and I’m sure they’re just normal sunglasses, but when I put them on, suddenly I was staggering all over the place like a new-born calf. It felt like I’d grown twelve inches, and so my brain was sending seven foot messages to boots that were only actually six feet away. If anybody had come around the corner as I struggled to find my feet, I’m sure they would have assumed that I’d laid into the sauce at an uncommonly early hour.

The last three or four miles today were tough ones. Doing over 65 miles in three days is more than I’m fit for, I regret to say. I hobbled in feeling very sorry for myself.

Today was my also last day as a solo pilgrim. Tomorrow, I walk with my Dad. On Friday, I walk with my Uncle Jimmy. From Sunday onwards I’ll be walking with The Archdeacon.

Ora pro nobis.

7DHP

2010-02-10T19:09:00.002Z

Day 7: Inveraray to Inverarnan.

Distance: 20.6 miles (126.7 total).

Duration: 8 hrs 1 mins.

Lowest Temp: 1ºc.

Weather: Phone in sick and get yourself up here.

Highest Alt: 1299ft

(Sorry for the delay with this post. There was no wi-fi at The Drover’s. There may or may not be wi-fi at The Oak Tree, but nobody’s entirely sure, so we’ve had to pop in to Drymen to post this - thankfully the very helpful staff at the The Buchanan Arms have been able to help us out. I’ll post today’s update tomorrow afternoon (basically just very tired and sore - three twenty-milers in a row is at least one too many), and tomorrow’s tomorrow evening – is that making sense?).

The SatNav in your car has the country’s roads programmed into it. You tell it where you want to go, and it works out the quickest route. With a walker’s gps it’s a bit different. From the ‘A’ you’re starting from, through to the ‘Z’ you’re hoping to finish at, you have to programme in all the Bs, Cs, Ds of your journey for yourself. As you can imagine, I’ve had to programme in a lot of these waypoints for this pilgrimage. In my little system each waypoint begins with the code 1D, or 9D or 17D depending on which day of the journey they’re in, and then they end with a three figure number – 6D081 for instance. There is, however, one waypoint on each route which ends not with a three figure number, but with the letters HP – it marks the highest point on that route. Today I reached 7DHP, and it was the walking highpoint of the pilgrimage so far.

The track from the head of Loch Fyne reaches up to a reservoir, and then after that there is no path, just two and a half miles of glen, with a web of burns, some deep bogs, and glorious views. It was the leg I was most looking forward to, and it did not let me down.

(Those of you who know me well will have been wondering when this next sentence would appear.) As I reached the high point of the leg, my eyes filled with tears at the beauty and the barrenness of my location. There was such an awesome sense of stillness, and an awareness of that silence which is not the absence of sound, but the absence of words.

I stopped still.

I stopped still and was reminded what a small thing I am in on the face of this earth, and I gave thanks for that sense of smallness. So much of the time we are encouraged to imagine our selves and our lives to be so much bigger and more significant than really they are, and those imaginings can weigh heavily on us and become burdensome as we try to live up to them. There can be a lightness in knowing how small our lives truly are...

...then I turned to the mountains in the east, and raising my hands in prayer, as our Celtic forebears did, I launched into ‘Praise to the Holiest in the Height’; it was a real disappointment to me to discover that I could only remember the first verse. If this ever gets out in the Edmonton Episcopal Area, I’m finished.

This Morning.

2010-02-09T07:37:00.004Z

For about the past twelve months I've been dreaming of this morning. Ten road miles to the end of Loch Fyne and then up 1300 feet in among the mountains. To the north of my path Meall an Fhudair (2292 ft) and Troisgeach (2199 ft), to the south Beinn Damhain (2052 ft).

At least I'm not in London struggling through the snow.

Long Roads and Weary Hearts.

2010-02-08T19:28:00.002Z

Day 6: Kilmichael Glassery to Inveraray.

Distance: 23.2 miles (106.1 total).

Duration: 8 hrs 16 mins.

Lowest Temp: 4ºc.

Weather: Jolly nice.

Highest Alt: 701 ft.

By this point in the pilgrimage I’d been hoping to be able to regale you with all sorts of exciting stories about battling through the snow, fighting my way through the fog, wrestling bears, and lots of other manly stuff. No such luck. The biggest struggle of the walk so far was resisting the temptation to sit up past my bed time last night with the rather marvellous regulars at The Horseshoe Inn in Bridgend. They tried (and failed) to persuade me of the merits of Lagavulin, over my preferred dram of Laphroaig; they also tried (and succeeded) to persuade me that I must visit Barra one day.

This morning, as I was checking out, the landlord said he’d knocked something off my bill in support of ‘my cause’; feeling that this wasn’t the moment to confess that I’m entirely without a cause, I slipped my Dad twenty quid with instructions to find a cause for us to support by the end of the day. So, Ian, if you’re out there, thank you so much for your kindness and generosity, which has gone towards the Oban Mountain Rescue Team (Dad will explain how that came about in the post below). The rest of you – if you’re ever in or around Kilmartin Glen, make sure you visit the Horseshoe Inn.

Today’s walk took me up through Kilmichael Forest, and only six miles or so into the day I began to feel weary. I don’t mean physically tired (although I feel that now, and my feet are sore), but weary. It’s what you feel when it seems like the path is just going on and on but the landscape isn’t changing, you’re not really getting anywhere. Do you know those days at work when you keep checking your watch and only five minutes have passed, and you could swear it was half an hour?

I was feeling that weariness this morning, but then the moment I felt it, I remembered that I’m on a pilgrimage from Iona to Lindisfarne, that I’ve got a pilgrim’s shell on my rucksack and a stone from St Columba’s Bay in my pocket, and St Aidan is walking with me. Then I didn’t feel so weary. I remembered the journey I was on.

And I guess that’s one of the consolations of faith, it puts our weary days into the context of a bigger picture: when we’re struggling, we remember that our journey started in the heart of a loving God, and will end... well, the book says we end in a city of gold, but I’d like to believe it’ll be in a forest, by a loch, with holy islands spread out before us, waiting to be explored.

PS And a big thank you to the Parish of Cumlodden. I’ve tried the door of every church I’ve passed on the road from Iona, and you were the first one to let a pilgrim in to pray.

Thoughts of a Pilgrim Driver.

2010-02-08T19:26:00.002Z

Today, I finally got a job to do. Thus far all my ideas of leading the rescuers to drag Stuart down from some snow covered peak have flown away on sunny skies and surprisingly mild weather. So, like the Falklands reporter I count him out in the morning, and count him back in the afternoon, and it always adds up to one.

Today, I finally got a job to do. We had only stepped through the doors of The Horshoe Inn when Stuart told me of Ian’s generosity. Stuart planted Twenty pounds in my hand and told me to go and find a charity that could use it. As with my dreams of rescuing Stu I immediately started to ponder the best way to discharge my duty of the day.

I jumped in the car and drove 100 yards (91.4 metres for technos) when I spied a young lady digging into a huge rucksack in her car boot. Now Stuart and I had just talked about how unlikely it was that we would see another walker – given the crazy time of year etc – and here she was. I jumped out of the car and told her of our breakfast conversation but it turned out that she was with Oban Mountain Rescue, had been out on exercise on Sunday, and was just trying to find her purse in the depths of her rucksack. She did however suggest that if Stuart was ever doing this again he could invite sponsorship for Oban Mountain Rescue. You can see it coming, I know. I gave her the Twenty pounds and within 5 minutes of having an important task I was back in the old routine. Nothing to do. But I have to confess it is a glorious trip and I am so glad to be sharing part of the experience with Stu even as a petrol pilgrim.

Princes, Priests and Posh Hotels.

2010-02-07T19:00:00.002Z

Day 5: Arduaine to Kilmichael Glassery.

Distance: 16.2 miles (82.9 total).

Duration: 6 hrs 11 mins.

Lowest Temp: 5ºc again.

Weather: Unseasonal.

Highest Alt: 569 ft.

Last night we stayed at the Loch Melfort Hotel. The views down the Loch are stunning. The staff are wonderful. The food was great. And my sabbatical grant is just about done. Our stay there nearly went moderately pear-shaped when I was given a piece of paper on arrival which contained a footnote to the effect that the dress code for the restaurant was ‘smart-casual’ and denim jeans were not acceptable. The range of evening wear I’ve got in my rucksack is slender, and I feared I’d have to go to dinner in my thermal long johns – thankfully the jeans rule was lifted last night, so I was spared a great deal of embarrassment and the other residents were spared a great deal of distress.

You may be of the view that spending nights in posh hotels is hardly in the spirit of the Celtic Saints, but how wrong you’d be. Today’s picture is of Dunadd Fort, which came at the end of today’s walk. It was the capital of the kingdom of Dál Riata, and would have been one of the first places St Columba visited when he began his exile in Scotland. So, Columba would have been used to spending time in palaces. St Aidan and St Cuthbert were both close to Northumbrian royalty, indeed King Oswald acted as interpreter for Aidan when he first arrived in his kingdom, so no doubt they both spent some time in palaces. Which means you need to remember that my visits to ‘posh hotels’ have been entirely in the interests of historical authenticity (and due to the fact that everywhere cheaper was closed...).

For the first time ever, the weather in Scotland is annoying me for being too good. I’ve spent way too much money in recent months on kit that was either waterproof or thermal, and it was all a waste of money. I should have been splashing out on sun cream and sunglasses.

Tomorrow I have my first decent ‘off road’ stretch, and it’s a long leg. Looking forward to it.

Your homework for tomorrow - interesting facts about Inveraray - the response so far has been hopeless.

And lastly - 0-0 against Villa, AT HOME. How did that happen - explanations please.

Son Flower.

2010-02-07T18:47:00.003Z

First I saw the 'Long Walk' sign, so I had to have my picture taken there. Less than a hundred yards further on I saw all the snowdrops. After that I called my Mum to ask if she'd mind me posting an e-mail she sent me at the beginning of this walk:

'Do you remember in Henham we had a lot of snowdrops and I used to keep telling you that if something as delicate as that could struggle through despite the weather then we could cope with whatever came our way?

I hope you find this pilgrimage all you expect it to be ~and more.

Take care and God Bless. Lots of love Mum.'

She might not have figured out how to post a comment, but she's not bad as a Mum.

Road Rage

2010-02-06T17:53:00.002Z

Day 4: Oban to Arduaine..

Distance: 21 miles (66.7 total).

Duration: 7 hrs 26 mins.

Lowest Temp: 5ºc

Weather: Blue, white and dry like a Wedgewood plate.

Highest Alt: 523 ft.

Pilgrimages are about the people you meet as well as the miles you put behind you, and so in preparation for this journey I contacted about a dozen clergy along the route to ask if they or anyone in their congregation would be willing to give us a bed for a night. It was a real disappointment to me that I only got two replies. However, I will long be thankful that one of those replies was from Norman MacCullum, Provost of Oban Cathedral.

Last night at The Rectory, Norman and Barbara showed us the most wonderful hospitality: warm conversation, great food, and a dram to cap the night (which thankfully did not conform to the tasting notes on the bottle, which rather bizarrely claimed that it had a hint of creosote about it). Norman grew up in the Western Isles, and he was telling me that when the reflection of the moon lights a strand of water that’s called ‘the path of the soul’.

Today the name of the game changed from ‘trying not to get blisters’ to ‘trying not to get run over’. My entire route from Oban to Arduaine was supposed to be along the A816 – now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘But you’ve spent the last two days walking across an A road on Mull’. The thing is, the A roads on Mull aren’t like the A roads you’re thinking of; in large parts of the country they’d be delighted to be labelled as B roads, and in most places they’d be marked up as ‘Single Track with Passing Places.’ The A816 is like the A roads you’re thinking of, so walking along it wasn’t so much fun. In fact, the traffic was such a shock to the system that I added a couple of ‘long cuts’, just to get away from it.

Cars dominated the day, and they began to make me miserable. The thing I was so missing from Mull was the way that the drivers there always waved at you: and their waves could mean anything from the normal, ‘Thank you for stepping aside’, through to, ‘That’s a sorry looking beard you’re producing, but good on you for having a go’, or, ‘February? Why walk in February?’ Today the drivers tended not to wave.

I started to miss those friendly waves so much. A wave is a little thing, but it involves people acknowledging each other’s existence, and that’s a bigger thing, because it’s also a way of saying that other people matter. In smaller communities, in places like Mull, that acknowledgement perhaps comes naturally, but in larger communities, in places like London, somehow it’s more than we can manage, and what we lose is much more than just a wave.

In the final hour of the day I finally figured out a solution to this conundrum. Instead of raising my left hand to wave, as I’d naturally do, I raised my right hand to the speeding cars, and as they approached I’d say in my heart, ‘The Lord bless you and keep you’, and then I began to look forward to cars coming down the road; it did get quite complicated though when lots of cars sped past together, and I think I probably only got the first and last ones sometimes.

You're proving pretty hopeless as researchers so far - tomorrow I head down through Kilmartin, so I want to hear all you can find out about that stretch; but no more than two comments containing the words 'chambered cairns' or 'standing stones'.

PS Some people are finding it hard to post a comment. Could somebody please post a comment to explain how you post comments? I don't want to embarrass anybody, but it would be great to hear from my Mum...

Not Exactly Wordsworth.

2010-02-05T16:20:00.002Z

Day 3: East Mull.

Distance: 17.5 miles (45.7 total).

Duration: 6 hrs 3 mins.

Lowest Temp: 3ºc

Weather: Wet-grey followed by blue-grey.

Highest Alt: 732 ft.

Traditions begin when we do something at least twice, and on the third day of this pilgrimage some traditions are developing: when I reach the halfway point of a leg I give a rousing rendition of ‘Praise God from Whom all blessings flow’, and I set off on each leg praying the rosary. This morning as I left Loch na Keal and headed east into Glen More with mountains towering through the rain all around me, the words ‘I believe in God’ burst from me as the joyful acclamation they always should be rather than the limp recitation they so often can be.

Given that this blog is about a walk I feel deeply sorry that I just can’t describe the landscapes I’m walking through. It’s not that I don’t have the words to describe the heights and shapes and textures and colours, all ever-shifting with the ever-shifting skies, it’s that I have too many words; and even after I’d spent every word I could summon, the sentence I would have to offer you would be such a pale shallow thing compared to the truth that is the land.

Quite a few people have been asking me whether or not this is a sponsored walk. It isn’t. Perhaps it should be, but I just wanted the pilgrimage to be an end in itself; it’s hard to explain, and I hope you’ll forgive me if you think I’m being self-indulgent. However, if you want to, there’s nothing to stop you making this a sponsored walk. So, if when I get to Lindisfarne you want to make a donation to a charity of your choice, why not do that?

Those of you who’ve been following this for a while may recall that I’d planned to do all sorts of research before I headed off, so that I could entertain and educate you with wonderfully interesting facts about the places I was passing through. That didn’t happen, so perhaps you could do a bit of research leg by leg and post some useful comments. Tomorrow we’re heading south from Oban to Arduaine – what can you tell me about that.

Just Following the Sun.

2010-02-04T18:29:00.003Z

Day 2: West Mull.

Distance: 18.5 miles

Duration: 6 hrs 5 mins.

Lowest Temp: 4ºc

Weather: Warm but not bikini warm, followed by wet but not snorkelling wet.

Highest Alt: 200 ft.

Our Lord commanded his disciples, ‘Don’t take anything with you on the trip except a walking-stick – no bread, no beggar’s bag, no money in your pockets. Wear sandals, but don’t carry a spare shirt.’ From thatch to toe, I set off this morning with a hat, thermal top, fleece mid-layer, waterproof jacket, boxer shorts, thermal leggings, waterproof over-trousers, thermal socks, thick socks, and walking boots. In my left pocket I had a gps, in my right pocket I had a waterproof camera, and we’re not even going to start on the contents of my rucksack. In addition to all this, my Dad is taking his ‘driver support’ duties very seriously, and the boot of his car looks like the set of ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’. Not for the first time, I rather feel like I’m letting the side down.

You’ll think I’ve made this next bit up, but believe me. Just as I walked out of Fionnphort this morning, the clouds edged across and the sun came pouring out from the south eastern sky, and I thought to myself, ‘That’s handy, south and east is just exactly where I’m headed on this pilgrimage. As long as it stays fine I might not need my maps at all, I can just follow the sun.’ Three hours later there was no sun to follow.

Rain or no rain, I’m having such a wonderful time. About half way through the day I felt this great surge of thankfulness for all the people who are letting me have this experience: for Meymans, Dave, Delores, and all the other people in N9 whose days are much busier right now, all because I wanted to go for a walk; for Susie and The Bishop for allowing me to go off on this Sabbatical at all; I even felt a spasm of thankfulness for The Archdeacon, without whose encouragement I’d probably still be boring people with my great plans to walk from Iona to Lindisfarne. I felt such happiness that I started to smile – it was at precisely that moment that I discovered quite how chapped my lips were becoming, and what began as a big smile ended as a little swear.

Without doubt the highlight of the day came a mile into the walk when a car pulled up alongside me and the driver leaned across to ask, ‘Would you like a lift or are you happy walking?’. As you can imagine, this was exactly the moment I’d been waiting for, and I couldn’t resist replying: ‘Oh, I’m very happy walking, you see I’m on my way to Lindisfarne.’

Tomorrow I get up among the mountains. If there’s weather about, it’ll be sitting up there.

PS Delighted to see that as I make my journey across the north of Britain, Spurs are preparing to make their way across the north of London to Wembley. Cracking.

On Not Throwing Stones.

2010-02-03T18:33:00.003Z

Day 1: Iona.

Miles: 9.7

Lowest Temp: 1ºc

Highest Alt: Not very high.

It was a clear blue morning as we drove across Mull to Fionnphort for the ferry to Iona. Having spent so long now reading about that little island and it’s great legacy, it was wonderful to look across the Sound to it, and more wonderful still to arrive on it.

We began by walking the three miles down to Port na Curaich, where St Columba and his twelve companions are supposed first to have set foot on the island they were to make their home. This was the most moving moment of the day for me as I felt so many different kinds of beginning there; it is the place where Columba began a story that was to reach across Britain to another little island off the coast of Northumbria, and therefore the place too where my small story of a pilgrimage was truly beginning.

After saying midday prayer there on the beach we headed back north to the Abbey, and then on to ‘the White Strand of the Monks’, the beach at the north east of the island where on Christmas Eve 986, the Abbott and fifteen of the monks were killed in the last viking raid on the island.

A tradition has grown for pilgrims to Iona to gather two stones from the beach, one of which they keep as a remembrance of their pilgrimage, and the other which they throw into the sea to symbolise a casting away of bad memories or parts of their character which they’d like to renounce. I knew on the beach that I didn’t want to throw any stones into the sea, because there is no part of myself which I want to be rid of, just many many parts of myself which I would like to see transformed.

The great journeys the Celtic Saints made were about their faith, their growth in faith, their transformation, and that’s what I want my pilgrimage to be about too. What I need to be careful about is creating unrealistic expectations of myself though. I know there is a part of me which hopes to walk onto Lindisfarne in three weeks time a so much better person than I am today, but I also know that with very rare exceptions that’s not how we change and grow. I hope God doesn’t get as impatient with me as I do!

Each day as I walk I will stop to say prayers at midday, three and six (although I hope I’m never still walking at six). Each set of prayers will end with the words below which were composed by one of the monks of Iona; if you want to say them with me some days that would be a great gift to me:

The path we walk,

Christ walks it.

May the land in which we are

Be without sorrow.

May the Trinity protect us

Wherever we stay,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Wrong Island.

2010-02-02T18:13:00.003Z

“Hi, this is Stuart Owen, just calling to let you know we’ll be on the four o’clock ferry to Iona.”

“Sorry?”

“Stuart Owen, my Dad and I are booked in to stay with you tonight and tomorrow.”

“Oh no, that’s next week.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s next week I’m expecting you Mr Owen, the 9^th.”

“But it’s a walk, I’m going to be half way to Glasgow next week.”

All this on the pavement outside a tearoom in Oban, half an hour before we were due to get the ferry to Mull and then on to Iona.

They say that character is forged in adversity, and if anybody’s character could do with a bit of forging I guess it’s probably mine, so this is the sort of situation which I should be grateful for really.

If you’ve ever tried to book accommodation on Iona at this time of year, or indeed anywhere north of Loch Lomond at this time of year, you’ll know that it’s not easy. It had taken a lot of phoning round to find anyone who could give us bed and breakfast, and now I was a week too early for them, and there was no room in the inn – in fact, when it comes to Iona, I’m not even sure that there is an inn.

Thankfully, the rather nice hotel (and spa) on Mull that we were due to be staying at on Thursday evening has been able to take us in. We’ll go and pay a visit to Iona tomorrow.

The apprehension that I’d been feeling since Friday evaporated the minute I arrived in Glasgow, and now I just can’t wait to get started. Indeed, I’ve been having something of a battle to keep my vanity in check. All morning I wanted someone, anyone – the taxi driver, the guard on the Stansted Express, the man at the oversize baggage counter - to ask me why I was going to Scotland, just so I could reply, “To walk across it.” Before my ego ran completely out of control, I found myself reading a newspaper story about someone who’s preparing to swim across the Atlantic, which helped me to regain a sense of perspective about this pilgrimage.

Without wishing to appear ungrateful for his support, I ought to finish by putting on record the very foolish remark my Dad made as we were driving up to Oban. We were talking about things which it would be a real pain to discover we’d forgotten to bring with us, when Dad chirped up, “Actually, I don’t think I’ve remembered to bring any midge repellent.”

Naming No Names.

2010-02-01T17:59:00.002Z

This first day of February seems like a fine time to explain why my pilgrimage is taking place at this woefully inappropriate time of year – it’s The Archdeacon’s fault.

Back in 2007, when we started to plan this walk, one of the first things we had to do was find a suitable date. Archdeacon’s being very busy people (most of them, anyway), this involved a substantial amount of humming and hawing as my friend thumbed through his schedule trying to find a month in which the people of Dorset could release him from their cares. February 2010 was that month.

More recently The Archdeacon has quite rightly come to the view that this is in fact a very silly time of year to walk across Scotland, and so he won’t be joining me until I get to Bishopbriggs. Obviously I bear my dear friend and mentor absolutely no ill will whatsoever over all of this, and if at any point my tone should suggest otherwise, you must assume that my better nature has been effected by the bitter cold.

Tomorrow morning I fly to Glasgow, where my Dad will be collecting me; then it’s ninety miles to Oban, the ferry to Mull, thirty-six miles across Mull, and a ferry to Iona. And then dinner.

I’ve been feeling a bit apprehensive since Friday, when I went over my journey plan one last time – it is quite a long way to walk, and there are some fairly long legs. However, I’m sure when I start to cross Mull on Thursday morning it will be with a song in my heart – I just hope it’s a song I know the words to.

Here’s what we’re looking forward to:-

Thursday 4^th Across the western half of Mull, 18 miles.

Friday 5^th – Across the eastern half of Mull, 17 miles.

Saturday 6^th – Oban to Arduaine, 19 miles.

Sunday 7^th – Arduaine to Kilmichael Glassary, 15 miles.

Monday 8^th – Kilmichael Glassary to Inveraray, 22 miles.

Tuesday 9^th – Inveraray to The Drovers’ Inn, 20 miles (most looking forward to).

Wednesday 10^th – The Drovers’ to Balmaha, 21 miles (least looking forward to).

Thursday 11^th – Balmaha to Drymen, 7 miles, with my Dad.

Friday 12^th – Drymen to Bishopbriggs, 19 miles, with my Uncle Jimmy.

Saturday 13^th – Having a bath.

Sunday 14^th – Bishopbriggs to Bothwell, 19 miles, with The Archdeacon (from now on) and Susie (for the day – and I’ve bought her card already, as opportunities to do a bit of shopping are likely to be scarce once I cross the border).

Monday 15^th – Bothwell to Lanark, 18 miles.

Tuesday 16^th – Lanark to Biggar, 17 miles.

Wednesday 17^th – Biggar to Peebles, 16 miles (still don’t have anywhere to stay).

Thursday 18^th – Peebles to Selkirk, 17 miles.

Friday 19^th – Having another bath.

Saturday 20^th – Selkirk to St Boswells, 15 miles.

Sunday 21^st – St Boswells to Jedburgh, 9 miles (still don’t have anywhere to stay here either).

Monday 22^nd – Jedburgh to Yetholm, 15 miles.

Tuesday 23^rd – Yetholm to Wooler, 13 miles.

Wednesday 24^th – Wooler to Fenwick, 11 miles.

Thursday 25^th – Fenwick to Lindisfarne, 6 miles, with Susie again.

This Little I Know About... St Cuthbert - Parts I & II.

2010-02-01T09:23:00.001Z

Part I.

I have St Cuthbert to thank for the happiest drop of whisky I’ve ever sipped.

One of the most famous stories about St Cuthbert tells how on a visit to Coldingham Priory he was spied walking down to the sea in the dead of night. He walked out into the sea (and remember, this is the North Sea we’re talking about here), literally up to his neck in it, and prayed. At daybreak he returned to the shore, and there two otters came up and dried the Saint’s feet with their fur, and warmed them with their breath.

About thirteen hundred years, I went to Lindisfarne on a retreat led by a decidedly butch priest. He thought it would be good for us all to strip down to our underwear and wade out into the water to recite a few psalms in honour of St Cuthbert; I think it was February. Obedient as ever I joined in with this lunacy: I was glad to discover that I didn’t feel the cold for very long, because it only took a few seconds to become numb. When we got back to our accommodation, a fine bottle of Talisker whisky appeared, a gift from one of the most marvellous nuns that Ireland has ever produced. No medicine has ever restored me to myself as rapidly as that dram of earthy gold.

St Cuthbert’s life encompasses a great historical turning point, because there were two Christian traditions alive in the British Isles in his time – the traditions of Ireland and the north and west of Britain, and the tradition brought to the south of England by St Augustine of Canterbury. These two traditions are usually described as ‘Celtic’ and ‘Roman’, and are portrayed as being quite distinct, but there was probably far more that united them than divided them, and generally speaking the ‘Celtic’ monasteries looked to and maintained strong links with the ‘Roman Church’.

On the night that St Aidan died, a young Cuthbert saw lights in the sky, and took this as a sign that he should enter the monastery Aidan had founded at Old Melrose. Thus, he grew up in the ‘Celtic’ tradition as a spiritual descendant of St Columba. However, thirteen years after he entered Old Melrose, the ‘Roman’ and ‘Celtic’ traditions were to collide and then separate.

One of the differences between the two traditions regarded the date of Easter. In 664, King Oswiu (who had been brought up in the ‘Celtic’ tradition) called a synod to resolve this difference, because he was fed up with celebrating Easter at a different time to his wife, Queen Eanfled (who had been brought up in the ‘Roman’ tradition). The Synod of Whitby witnessed a vigorous debate between the ‘Celtic’ Bishop Colman of Lindisfarne, and the rather odious Bishop Wilfrid, and once the arguments had been concluded King Oswiu ruled in favour of the ‘Roman’ date for Easter.

Bishop Colman and his monks moved out of Lindisfarne, and St Cuthbert moved in.

Part II.

There is much to love and admire in St Cuthbert’s life. Like St Aidan, he sought out the poorest and most needy. Like St Columba, he had a particular care for those who came to him as penitents.

There is also a complexity, a fragility perhaps, about St Cuthbert’s character – just as there was with Columba. On the remote island near Lindisfarne, where Cuthbert spent many years as a hermit, he built high walls for his cell so that all he could see was the sky, and he would not be ‘distracted’ by the view of the sea around him. Given the Celtic reputation for seeing so much of God in the ‘great book’ of Creation, this seems like an extreme kind of withdrawal.

Maybe his desire for complete solitude is not so strange though. It’s probable that the monastic community at Lindisfarne was a deeply divided one when Cuthbert became Prior, in the wake of the Synod of Whitby. Bede described how, ‘Some of the monks preferred their old way of life to the rule... At chapter meetings he was often worn down by bitter insults, but would put an end to the arguments simply by rising and walking out, calm and unruffled.’ I’ll keep that up my cassock sleeve for the next time a Church Council meeting gets a bit out of hand.

Just as my pilgrimage will end at St Cuthbert’s ‘home’ island of Lindisfarne, so some see Cuthbert himself as marking the end of a great journey of faith which began with the arrival of an exiled warrior-Saint on the island of Iona. To Ian Bradley of the University of St Andrews, St Cuthbert is ‘the last great representative of the heroic age of Celtic Saints.’

Blue Sky Thinking.

2010-01-30T11:46:00.002Z

This time next week (and that's a phrase I've been struggling to avoid since Thursday) I'll be on the third leg of my pilgrimage, heading south from Oban to Arduaine. Everything seems to be set fair, except for one or two tiny thin clouds out there on the horizon...

We still don't have accommodation sorted out for five nights of the pilgrimage.

Teletext tells me this morning that there is likely to be heavy snow in Glasgow on Tuesday, the day I'm due to arrive there.

Most alarming of all, I don't think I've got a hope of finding a pub on Iona which will be showing Tottenham's FA Cup replay against Leeds on Wednesday night. On the other hand, that might not be such a bad thing if I want to start my journey in a state of spiritual serenity.

This Little I Know About... St Aidan.

2010-01-29T08:41:00.002Z

Another Saint whose story begins with a battle.

In 616 King Æthelfrith of Bernicia (roughly south eastern Scotland and north eastern England – but you can look it up on wikipedia for yourself) was defeated by King Rædwald of the East Angles. The sons of King Æthelfrith (Eanfrith, Oswald and Oswiu) fled to Dál Riata and ended up being educated at the monastery on Iona.

Oswald returned from exile and regained the throne in 634, at the battle of Heavenfield. The night before the battle he is said to have had a vision of that redoubtable warrior-saint, Columba, urging him on to victory.

Oswald’s experiences on Iona had clearly made a deep impression on him, because one of the first things he did on regaining the throne, was to request that the Abbot send some brothers to found a monastery near his stronghold at Bamburgh. The first mission to Northumbria was not a rip-roaring success; the brother who had been sent, returned with the report that the people were ‘intractable, obstinate and uncivilized’.

As the monks of Iona absorbed this gloomy news of failure, St Aidan stepped out of history’s shadows. He responded to the unsuccessful evangelist, with the words: 'It seems to me, brother, that you have been unreasonably harsh upon your ignorant hearers: you did not first offer them the milk of simpler teaching, as the apostle recommends, until little by little, as they grew strong on the food of God's word, they were capable of receiving more elaborate instruction and of carrying out the more transcendent commandments of God.'

To speak up in a committee meeting when volunteers are being looked for is to commit a schoolboy error: naturally, the rest of the monks welcomed St Aidan’s insights, and packed him off to King Oswald. Although he didn’t even speak the language of the people he was going to, and the King often acted as his interpreter, Aidan’s mission was a great success, and he founded a monastery on Lindisfarne, another holy island on a far coast.

I find it sad that we know so little about Aidan, because the journey which I’ll be making from Iona to Lindisfarne was his journey. Both Columba and Cuthbert had their biographies written by near contemporaries, and a wealth of stories and traditions have grown up around them, but about St Aidan we know so very little.

Personally, I find him the most likeable of our triumvirate of Celtic Saints – the fierceness of Columba’s anger, and the stringency of Cuthbert’s asceticism, make them both the sort of characters that you would only want to emulate up to a point. In the glimpses we have of St Aidan I see something of that simple human warmth and unhurried kindness which we call ‘holiness’, and I think to myself, ‘That would be a good way to live’.

‘St Aidan used to travel everywhere, in town and country, not on horseback but on foot… in order that, as he walked along, whenever he saw people whether rich or poor, he might at once approach them and… invite them to accept the mystery of faith…’

Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

This Little I Know About... St Columba - Part II.

2010-01-28T08:10:00.001Z

‘…there came from Ireland to Britain a priest and abbot named Columba, a true monk in life not less than habit; he came to Britain to preach the word of God to the kingdoms of the northern Picts.’

Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

St Columba came to Britain as an exile, not as a missionary, and preaching the word of God to the northern Picts was almost certainly not one of his chief aims.

Following the departure of the Roman army from Scotland around the beginning of the fifth century, there had been a steady emigration from the north of Ireland to the west of Scotland. The kingdom these people created was called Dál Riata, and as their kingdom expanded so it encroached ever further on the territories of the northern Picts. Just a couple of years before Columba was exiled from Ireland, the Pictish King Bruide, fought and killed King Gabhran of Dál Riata, and reclaimed much of the territory that had been lost to the Irish colonists.

Iona, where Columba and his followers founded their monastery, was more or less on the border between the territories of Dál Riata and the Northern Picts. Furthermore, as a member of the Northern Uí Néill ‘royal family’, St Columba was related to the Kings of Dál Riata. These two facts are crucial in understanding a central part of Columba’s mission; in terms of his relationship to the Picts, and to the other powers in the region, it seems likely that Columba is best understood as a diplomat, an ambassador even, seeking to bring reconciliation where there were conflicts and at the same time trying to protect the interests of his kinsfolk. Given that he himself was exiled for his violent refusal to be reconciled with St Finnian and King Diarmait, it seems fitting that he was to give so much of his life striving to reconcile others and foster peace.

Reconciliation was also a significant part of the spiritual service that St Columba and the monks of Iona sought to offer. Many of those who came to the island came as penitents seeking absolution, and the path to absolution could be hard one on Iona. Some of the penitents were sent to the Columban monastery on the island of Tiree as a penance for their sins, and sometimes they were sent there for many years. Yet however ‘tough’ the remedy with which St Columba treated sick souls, there is also something of the ‘gentle Columba’ to be seen in many of his encounters with those who sought his counsel; we see someone with a real insight into the sufferings of the human heart, and with a deep compassion for those sufferings.

One of the monks of Iona told St Columba of a dream he had had, in which he saw three thrones, one of gold, one of silver, and one of glass. The Saint replied, ‘The throne of glass is mine, for though my devotion is fair, I am often frail…’

This Little I Know About... St Columba - Part I.

2010-01-27T13:09:00.001Z

In 561 a battle was fought between the army of King Diarmait, High King of Ireland, and the Northern Uí Néill clan; around 3,000 people were killed in the fighting. Two years later the man who was widely held to be responsible for the battle and its bloodshed sailed from Ireland into exile, and so began Columba’s journey to Iona.

In many old Hebridean blessings and prayers, St Columba is invoked as the ‘tender’, the ‘kindly’, the ‘gentle’; it’s probably fair to say that his true character was slightly more complex than that.

St Columba was born into an Irish royal family, and had he not entered into the monastic life, it’s likely that he would have become King of the Northern Uí Néill, and perhaps even High King of Ireland. What part Columba played in inciting the Battle of Cúl Dreimhe is uncertain, but one of the best known stories involves a Bible. It’s said that during a visit to Rome, Pope Pelagius had given one of Columba’s teachers, St Finnian of Moville, a copy of St Jerome’s translation of the Bible. On a visit to his teacher, Columba secretly set about making himself a copy of this rare and precious translation. When Finnian discovered what his former pupil was up to a huge dispute erupted, which they both agreed to take to King Diarmait to be resolved. The High King’s judgement went against Columba, and angrily determined that justice had not been done, he stirred his clan to battle. It’s possible that Columba himself took part in the conflict, as he was marked with a livid scar throughout his life.

Although St Columba’s people won the battle, the clans and clergy of Ireland clearly felt that they had transgressed and were responsible for the great suffering that had been caused. A synod was called at which Columba was excommunicated, but the judgement was overturned on the understanding that he would leave Ireland and go into exile.

An illuminating tradition regarding this great Saint, tells that although he went on to take the name Columba (‘Dove’), he was first known as Crimthann (‘The Fox’).

A Celtic Heart.

2010-01-27T09:28:00.004Z

Clearly, I have a Celtic heart:

'Yellow was the favourite colour of the Celts: a fine day would be described as a yellow day, and contentment was expressed in the same way, a man was yellow, that is, satisfied.'

Lucy Menzies, 'St Columba of Iona'.

... and I was feeling very 'yellow' when the final whistle blew last night.

N17

2010-01-26T15:05:00.002Z

I'm going on a very short pilgrimage this evening, but to a most holy place - White Hart Lane.

Whether or not I post at all tomorrow very much depends on how we do against Fulham tonight.

Why Walk in February?

2010-01-25T09:54:00.001Z

The orders of prayer I was putting together on Friday have been given a ‘run out’ over the weekend and seem alright to me. However, to avoid the excoriating criticisms of those who would recognise how far removed from the prayers of prime, terce, sext, nones and compline, my productions actually are, I’ve renamed them ‘Prayers with breakfast/lunch/afternoon tea/supper/cognac (cocoa during Lent)’.

Three Saints are at the heart of the pilgrimage that I’m beginning next week. St Columba founded a monastic community on Iona; St Aidan travelled from Iona to Lindisfarne to found a Columban community there; St Cuthbert was the great Bishop and hermit of Lindisfarne. So this week you can look forward to me sharing all the things I’ve learned about them. Clear your diaries.

And I must start getting my notes typed up and collated. I want to head North with a great set of crib cards, so that I can send you posts along the lines of, ‘Today I passed beneath the shadow of Ben Gunn, where tradition has it that the bloodthirsty Dugal of the Silver Finger was finally defeated in a battle which raged bloodily for three blood-sodden days and nights. Locals whisper that when the moon is full, the cries of phantom warriors still drift across the silvery heather’; instead of what you’re likely to get, ‘Walked past a big hill today. It’s still raining.’

Best of all, at some point this week you’ll get the answer to the question which all nine of you have been asking, ‘Why walk in February?’.

Five a Day.

2010-01-22T09:51:00.002Z

I’m beginning to feel a bit fidgety about all the things I still have to do.

There is still accommodation to sort out for four or five of the places we’re staying in. There are still several books to read, and several more to type up my notes on. I need to go over the route with a fine toothcomb, one last time, just to make absolutely sure that all the coordinates going in to my GPS are spot on – you wouldn’t want to lose me now, would you?

Today’s job involves producing five brief orders of prayer. During the pilgrimage we’re going to ‘pray the hours’ as St Columba's monks would have done (prime, terce, sext, nones, vespers); wherever we are on our journey, we will stop at fixed times during the day to offer those prayers. Unfortunately we don’t have any copies of the prayer books that St Columba and his followers used, so I’m going to have to pillage the references to prayer that I’ve found in my reading thus far, and cobble something together out of those. This will be a bit of an ordeal for someone who was once described at theological college as being ‘liturgically sub-normal’.

The sets of prayer I produce will be rigorously vetted by my friend, The Archdeacon (himself not noted for his liturgical gifts and insights), to make sure that they conform to our chief requirements – no more than A5 in size and five minutes in length.

Once we’re both satisfied that my creations are broadly in the spirit of our Celtic forebears, I’ll print them off and laminate them; laminated prayers are not common, but you never know, there’s always the possibility that from time to time when we stop to say our prayers, it might just be raining.

This Little I Know About... Celtic Christianity.

2010-01-21T16:32:00.001Z

When I first became a Christian, about twenty years ago, I approached my fledgling faith like I approach most things in life that are new to me – I tried to get some books on the subject. Back then (and still now to some extent) the bookshelves were groaning with publications about Celtic Christianity. I learned that these people from the misty past were gentle, hospitable, simple but learned Christians, free spirits who had a strong love and care for Creation; they were hand-woven, eco-friendly, cuddly characters – they were probably low fat and kind to your skin too.

Or perhaps not.

For a start, there’s a whole debate about whether or not there ever was such a thing as ‘Celtic Christianity’, but we’re not going to get in to that here. For the purposes of simplicity, if not of absolute accuracy, we’re going to slap the label ‘Celtic Christianity’ on the faith of Christians in Ireland and Western Britain between around 400 and 700AD. This is slightly arbitrary, but I can be like that.

The Celtic Christians I’ve been learning about over the past few months were not exactly as I’d come to imagine them. The natural world was something they battled against as well as rejoiced in; they were involved in high politics as well as deep prayer; there was something of the warrior about them at times, and they also were some of the finest scholars of their age; their prayers of blessing are well remembered, but you wouldn’t have forgotten if you’d been on the receiving end of one of their curses; and they were, as we would have said in my schooldays, ‘well hard’.

If you’d like to know more about this era, and the many romantic veils its been shrouded in, the best book I’ve read by a long chalk is Donald Meek’s, ‘The Quest for Celtic Christianity’, and so for today, I’ll leave the last word to him:

‘Dissatisfaction or disillusionment with the present is a potent general factor in the contemporary quest, but perhaps the chief motivation in the remaking of the spiritual past - a motivation which transcends all the centuries from Columba's time to our own - is loss: loss of key saints, loss of spiritual ideals, loss of innocence, loss of language, loss of connection with the flow of history, loss of identity and perhaps ultimately the loss of faith itself. To compensate for that loss, and to escape the chill winds of harsh reality, we search for a refuge in the warm shelter of retrospective spiritual romanticism.’

Don't Try This at Home.

2010-01-20T08:45:00.004Z

Many moons ago, I promised some sort of explanation as to why I’m making a pilgrimage from Iona to Lindisfarne.

As many of you will know, the monastery at Lindisfarne was founded by monks sent from Iona in around 635AD. Not unreasonably, I assumed that there would have been a fair degree of traffic between those two great Christian centres. It was my intention to try to re-trace and then walk the pilgrim path between the two. So far, so stupid.

My advice to anybody trying to create a walk in the footsteps of historical figures, is don’t pick a group of people who were great seafarers. To ‘walk’ the route that those Celtic monks travelled between the ancient Kingdoms of Dál Riata and Northumbria, would require that singular gift which Our Lord demonstrated on the Sea of Galilee, and which St Peter so woefully failed to emulate.

The monks of the age of Columba, Aidan and Cuthbert were much attached to their coracles, and only walked for as far as they absolutely had to in order to haul their vessels from one body of water to the next.

Whatever else I’ll be doing in February, historical re-enactment it will not be.

What You're Thinking.

2010-01-19T09:17:00.002Z

I know what you're thinking. The fortnight of walking in Cornwall is over, the month of walking in Scotland is yet to begin, so for these two weeks he's going to be lying in bed until mid-morning, and then lolling about on the sofa in his pyjamas watching 'Cash in the Attic' and other treasures of daytime tv.

Oh ye of little faith.

I’m going to try to keep a bit of discipline to the shape of my days by following a moderately monastic pattern – prayer, labour and study. The prayer will be shaped by the Cuddesdon Office Book and the rosary, both of which sustained me in Cornwall. The labour? Well, you just have to look at the garden, and there’s a bedroom that needs redecorating. The study, consists of a pile of books on Scottish history in the first millennium, folk tales from the Highlands, and Alexander Carmichael’s ‘Carmina Gadelica’, more of which anon.

Having said all that, yesterday was taken up with an assault on the pile of dirty washing which had begun to crawl out of my rucksack, a trip in to town to make my Confession, and then 'Avatar' at the cinema with Susie in the evening; so here's hoping I'm more faithful to my 'monastic pattern' today.

The Bends.

2010-01-18T11:01:00.002Z

Cornwall came up trumps and gave me everything I was hoping for – a wide selection of weathers, a broad selection of terrains, and a fine selection of real ales. Unfortunately I did manage to pick up a nasty large blister on my right heel, but I guess if I keep you informed about every blister I pick up over the next couple of months, this blog could become extraordinarily repetitive, so we’ll just stick a Compeed on it and limp away from the subject.

Susie came to meet me at Paddington Station on Saturday afternoon, and brought me home to a gin and tonic and the most wonderful homemade lasagne; this greatly helped to ease my return to the busy city, and prevent a bad case of the spiritual ‘bends’.

Never mind seeking to emulate the Celtic Saints during this Sabbatical, I could do worse than just trying to become a little bit more like my wife (except when it comes to hats).

Weather Whoopee.

2010-01-14T13:09:00.003Z

Well, on Tuesday I got what I wanted. Weather.
The weatherman on the Today programme that morning forecast that a warm front was going to collide with a cold front, more or less on top of St Agnes. He was wrong. I was there. What happened was that a wet front hooked up with a windy front, and together they started making weather whoopee. With the rain coming at me more or less horizontally, I enjoyed an eighteen mile round trip to Porth-somewhere or other. Everywhere here is Porth-something, and the rain made it hard to read the 'Welcome to... Please drive carefully' sign outside the village.
Thanks to the rain, I also made a great discovery. If you put your gaiters (yes, them again) on the right way round, and hook them over your laces, then your feet will stay nice and dry, even in the foulest weather. If you're not bright enough to figure that out for yourself, and put them on back to front, then instead they channel the water more or less straight into your footware, and you will be unhappy. We won't talk about gaiters anymore.
Today and tomorrow I'm walking with my full pack, so it's slightly slower going than before, but not as slow as it was when Susie was here at the weekend. She has developed a deeply odd obsession with the memorial dedications on benches, and there are a lot of benches in Cornwall. Of course, before too long this led to her reflecting on her other favourite obsession - my mortality. She wanted to know where I'd like a bench placed in memory of me, as and when, of course... any suggestions?
And lastly, my big toenails are preparing to say farewell to my big toes, again. When I first walked the West Highland Way, I managed to bash my big toes up quite a bit on the leg from Balmaha to The Drovers Inn, and the toenails have never quite recovered from the shock of being so violently uprooted: every now and then they start to change a rather pleasant plum colour, before going on to toenail glory - it doesn't feel very pleasant though. There's a lot of 'up and downage' on the coastal path, and with each step down, as my foot moves forward marginally in my boot, my bruised toes complain.
Better let them start complaining again - fifteen miles today, twenty miles tomorrow, and back to London on Saturday, but I won't be walking that bit.

www.dec.org.uk

Clunking Lumps.

2010-01-11T13:08:00.003Z

January 11th - internet cafe, Perranporth:

Apologies to those of you who have been checking this blog on an hourly basis, eagerly expecting words of wisdom. My hope had been that I’d be able to post on this site every couple of days, but unfortunately it turns out that my laptop is unwilling to connect to the internet. As a result, I’m afraid these posts are going to come out in clunking great lumps, rather like my sentences.
On the bright side, it did take two visits to the Driftwood Spars, and several pints of their own brew, to establish that my efforts were futile.

PS How do you load CD software on to one of those little netbooks with no CD drive? If we can figure that out, then maybe I need to pop down to Comet when I get home.

St Agnes, Cornwall.

2010-01-11T13:06:00.000Z

5th January:
Everything works. Today I took a ten mile walk to Perranporth and back and everything worked. My waterproofs kept me dry in a couple of downpours, including a brief snow flurry. My thermal base layer was, if anything, a little too effective. My GPS knew where I was and where I had to go, and was reasonably good at guessing how long it would take me. My waterproof camera survived a modest soaking.
The only problem I had was with my gaiters. I’ve never worn gaiters before, nor been entirely clear about what they actually do. Although gaiters don’t look like complicated things, watching me trying to put mine on would have been like watching a monkey in boxing gloves trying to peel a banana - in fact make that a drunk monkey in boxing gloves trying to peel a banana that had been smothered in lard. At one point I nearly phoned the Archdeacon for advice, but decided that his hilarity was more than I could bear.
My pride took a further dent about a mile out of St Agnes, on the coastal path, when I slipped on some ice and fell flat on my back. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but there was a dog walker about fifty yards away, coming towards me; although I scrambled to my feet pretty niftily, and strode on purposively, he neglected to do the ‘British thing’ and instead felt moved to make mention of my misfortune. It was a cruel blow coming so close on the heels of the gaiter fiasco.
It grieves me to report that in St Agnes, if you want to get wi fi access you have to go to a pub. Not only that, but they expect you to make purchases while you’re there. So later this evening, with solemn step, I’ll drag myself down to the hostelry, just so that I can put these witterings on-line.
For now, it’s bath time with Athanasius’s ‘The Life of Antony’ – ironic really, as I don’t suppose Antony of Egypt, or any of the other Desert Fathers, were great fans of bath time.

Trying to get to Paddington.

2010-01-11T13:00:00.001Z

4th January:
Leaving took longer than it should have done. I managed to keep finding ‘one more thing’ I needed to do, one more e-mail to send, one more bit of paper to put in a folder, one more phone call to make. Over the past few months I’d tried to make sure that I was ‘preparing the parish’ for my sabbatical, and kind of assumed that planning for my pilgrimage was all the preparation I needed; so, it surprised me to catch myself delaying my own departure. It felt odd on Sunday morning too, to realise that I probably wouldn’t be presiding at the Eucharist until Holy Week. I didn’t anticipate finding it difficult to go away, which is probably why it’s such a good idea to go away from time to time.
The rucksack is going to be an issue. I packed it pretty much as I plan to pack it for Scotland. It’s heavy. And bulky. Heavier and bulkier than I think I can manage for over 300 miles. Dad is driving back-up for the first half of the walk, and I know he would be happy to take my rucksack in the car, but for me that would mean demotion from the Championship to League One of the walking world.
It’s sad, it’s silly, but I do have a league structure for walkers. In the Premiership are those walkers who hike and camp – they walk long distances, carrying huge packs with sleeping bags, tents, food, stoves, everything. That’s not me – when it comes to camping, I’m more Alan Carr than Bear Grylls. In the Championship, my favoured league, are those walkers who are going from B&B to B&B, but at least they’re carrying all their stuff with them. League One – walking with your sandwiches, while a taxi takes your bags between overnight stops. It’s a stupid way of looking at the world, but I’m a man, so that’s only to be expected.

Resentment and Despair

2010-01-03T17:23:00.001Z

I was in the first year of my curacy at St Mary’s, Hendon. My training Vicar announced that after Easter we were going away for a long weekend with some of his friends. I felt a sharp sense of resentment at this unexpected piece of news; for parish clergy, Sundays ‘off’ are rare treasures to be spent with care, and here was the Vicar snatching one away from me. Thankfully my feeling of resentment was short-lived. Sadly its short life was swallowed up by a deep sense of despair.

Apparently our long weekend was to be spent somewhere in Yorkshire, doing something called the Lyke Wake Walk. The Vicar assured me that this would be fun, it would be something I would enjoy. I was fairly clear in my own mind that a forty mile walk across the North York Moors would be neither fun nor enjoyable, but the ease with which I capitulate to authority figures is pathetic.

As it turned out I did find completing the walk tremendously satisfying, so much so that I came to look forward to our post-Easter hikes. Walking was changing me. A couple of years ago the Vicar and I did the West Highland Way. The following year I walked it again, with my Uncle Jimmy. Then we walked the Kintyre Way.

Increasingly though I wanted to walk my ‘own’ walk, and that’s part of the reason for my pilgrimage from Iona to Lindisfarne - to find my own way.

The Vicar is an Archdeacon now. That’s the honour the Church of England bestows upon those of its clerics blessed with the ability to persuade the rest of us to do things we really don’t want to.

The First Post.

2009-12-30T16:34:00.000Z

On Monday I begin a three month long sabbatical. I’ve been trying to encourage the congregation to use the phrase well-deserved sabbatical, but some of them are hard to convince.

At the heart of my sabbatical is a 310 mile pilgrimage from Iona to Lindisfarne; I’ll begin the walk on February 4^th and finish on the 25^th, I hope.

There are many good reasons for making this particular pilgrimage, and no doubt we’ll get round to them in due course. However, if anyone can think of a good reason for walking across Scotland in February, I’d love to hear it.