A month from today I begin
a pilgrimage.
That’s not quite right.
A month from today I begin
three pilgrimages.
On Easter Monday I drive up
to Scotland with my wife, Susie, and our children, James and Barnaby. The next
day I begin a ‘little pilgrimage’, as I carry some of my Mum’s ashes from her
birthplace in Bishopbriggs, to Carrick Castle, where she used to enjoy childhood
holidays: just a few years ago we had enjoyed a big family celebration of her
seventieth birthday there. Last October, Mum died.
After a bit of travel
jiggery-pokery, on the Saturday of that week we’ll materialise on Lindisfarne and
then the four of us will walk six miles to Fenwick. This will be the start of my
‘big pilgrimage’; a walk between those two great holy islands of Lindisfarne
and Iona.
And the third pilgrimage is
perhaps the biggest of all. Later in the summer we’ll be leaving Edmonton and
the four of us will be travelling to Berkhamsted, where I’ll take up the
position of Rector of St Peter’s. That will be several journeys in one. I’ve
been living in North London for twenty years. Susie has lived here for almost
her whole life. The boys have never lived anywhere else. It will be an exciting
new beginning for us; but like most new beginnings, there will be some painful
farewells to navigate first.
I have no doubt that
somehow those three pilgrimages might be interwoven. Hopefully four weeks of
walking will help me to figure out how.
That’s not quite right.
Hopefully
four weeks of walking will help me to begin to see the weave.
At dinner last night Susie
started talking about the coronavirus. At first I thought that this was just a general chat, but then I realized that
in fact we were talking about my pilgrimage, and whether it would be possible
for me to go at all.
In an instant I felt slightly
aggrieved: I had to make this journey, there would be no other time, what risk
could there be in me walking across remote parts of Scotland?
A heartbeat later I felt
ashamed of my instinctive self-centredness.
I've missed this blog. So sorry I can't join you this time around.
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