High Wide Heavens.

I’ve been privileged to visit our North Middlesex Hospital twice today, to pray with staff and for patients. The picture above is of the votive candles burning in the hospital chapel. I imagine the hands that lit them, and the hopes that they flutteringly briefly bear.

Steps walked:16876.

Furthest point travelled: 1 mile. North Middlesex Hospital Chapel to support the Chaplaincy Team.

Face to face conversations: 13 (including a member of the congregation I met in the park. We stood two meters apart and talked, and then prayed, all in the glorious sun).

Track of the day: Anything by Lemon Jelly (is that cheating?).

            Sudden changes followed by slow adaptation.

The week before we went into ‘lockdown’ I visited the local supermarket twice; I’m not an efficient shopper. On the Wednesday everything seemed entirely ordinary; there was still no hand santizer, but that had been missing for weeks. Two days later, with only the shortest of lists of very basic requirements, I found shelf after shelf was bare, and I was only able to get one of the things I’d needed; I made a spur of the moment decision to purchase a bottle of malt whisky.

            On the Sunday of that week we went to our local restaurant, Kervan Sofrasi, for a late lunch; we knew that restaurants were already suffering badly and wanted to help out our neighbour. The normally raucous restaurant was quiet and felt quite deserted. Susie and I wondered how much longer it would be before the doors were closed altogether. The following evening millions of us watched as the Prime Minister announced that non-essential businesses were to shut.

            Face masks feel like the latest sudden change. Up until this week, the people I’d seen with face masks on, or scarves tied around their nose and mouth, were few and remarkable; they felt slightly eccentric. Now I feel increasingly like the eccentric one, unmasked and brazen. I read the newspaper to try to figure out if I’m being foolish, but can’t seem to find a clear answer. Not that it matters, I doubt if I’d be able to find face masks now even if I decided that they were a necessary investment.

            I could reflect on the dizzying changes in guidance/advice/instruction that I’ve received from the Church of England over the past few weeks, but this blog is an attempt at a ‘happy place’ in my life, so it’s probably best if I don’t dwell on that.

            Sudden changes and then the long dull periods when the changes become normal and we carry on.

            Long-distance walks can be similar. You climb over a hillside crest, or walk round a bend in a forest path, and suddenly the view is transformed, and often breath-takingly so. Those moments energise you, encourage you to keep going with the prospect of what might be discovered around the next bend, over the next blinding crest. It feels to me in some strange way, that the big dramatic changes we’ve experienced have been similarly energizing; a bizarre new world, even when it can seem like a fearful world, draws out all sorts of creative and courageous responses from people.

            There are other sorts of paths too. I can think of long hours walking through forestry land, where all you can see for mile after mile is the same green darkness of tall firs on either side; claustrophobic in the ‘great outdoors’. You can start feeling as if the path will never end, that you’re not making any progress at all. That can be enervating, as much mentally as physically. I wonder if this is the stage of the journey we’ve reached now with the coronavirus. It’s hard to imagine many more dramatic changes, there’s not much left to shut and shutter.

On those days in the deep forests, I’d try not to think about the whole journey, the total miles and hours that still yawned ahead of me; instead, I’d try simply to focus on the next step, and remember to look up from time to time, at the high wide heavens above me.