(Re)Introducing A Pilgrim's Cairn

Dad climbing Conic Hill

Where to begin? There are several beginnings.

The beginning that's at the forefront of my mind this morning is that only three weeks from today I'll step out of The Station House Hotel in Letterkenny and make a nineteen mile round trip to Gartan Lough in County Donegal, the birthplace of Saint Columba. Those nineteen miles will, hopefully, be followed by around four hundred and sixty more miles as over the course of twenty-four days I make my way around the Irish coast to Belfast, then up the Scottish coast to Glasgow, along part of the West Highland Way to the tip of Loch Lomond and west to Oban, before crossing Mull to Iona where Saint Columba founded his famous monastery. I need to get a lot fitter. I've lost about a stone since Christmas, which is a start, but there's plenty of work to do. How fit can you get in three weeks?

This journey has many beginnings. In 2010 I made a pilgrimage from Iona to Lindisfarne, inspired by Saint Aidan who was sent from that Scottish monastery to try to educate the English. My dad drove 'back up' for the first half of the walk, and joined me on foot from Balmaha to Drymen. In Glasgow I was joined by my friend The Venerable Paul and my wife Susie. Paul was to walk with me, intermittently, for the rest of the journey, but only once we'd convinced him that he didn't need to carry the tent that he'd brought with him and which was really weighing him down too much. Susie spent a cold and wet Valentine's Day walking along the River Clyde from Glasgow to Bothwell. Along the way I was also joined by her brother Tom and by my Uncle Jimmy. When I was offered the opportunity to make a second such pilgrimage in 2020 I revealed the poverty of my imagination by planning to walk... from Lindisfarne to Iona. Dad was all set to drive back up again. No doubt Susie would have come and joined me at some point along the way. And then Covid happened and the walk didn't.

Arrival. Lindisfarne 2010.

Which brings us to 2025 and another beginning. Offered the chance to make a pilgrimage again, my first thought was to resurrect my plan to walk from Lindisfarne to Iona; I literally had every mile of the walk mapped out, everything was ready to go. However, a lot has changed since 2020. My marriage has failed, my dad has died, so much that was precious has faded or gone; there's been a lot of loss in a short space of time. To revisit so much of the walk that I made in 2010 would be to walk too many miles with ghosts of the past, unhappy ghosts. However, I'd long wanted to spend some time in Ireland, so I decided to map out a walk inspired by St Columba's journey from there to Iona, beginning with that visit to Gartan Lough. It's a bit further than I intended. Actually, it's a lot further than I intended. Have I mentioned that I really need to get fitter, quickly?

Not everything has been about loss since that 2010 pilgrimage! In 2011 my son James was born, and two years later he was joined by Barnaby. The privilege of being their father has been one of the greatest pilgrimages of all; a journey of discovery, of challenge, of delight. More often than not, the significant changes that happen in our lives happen over time, gradually. However, when I became a parent, everything changed all at once and it was awesome and beautiful. So, I'm delighted to say that The Venerable Paul is going to bring my two boys up to Scotland for the February half-term, and together we'll continue our journey.

And lastly, this blog. I felt a lot of guilt about taking a three month Sabbatical when I left my North London parish in 2010. It was an area with a lot of deprivation, plenty of people couldn't afford to take a holiday at all, and here was the Vicar sloping off for three months. I decided that if I at least shared my experience through some words and pictures, that would be something. Also, I knew that I wanted to write up my journey, and a blog seemed like a good way of producing a first draft. So A Pilgrim's Cairn was begun.

In truth, I can't wait to begin this latest beginning. It will be a journey of miles. It will be a journey of many kinds. I know I will arrive in Iona. I hope there will be other senses of arrival too.