Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Taylor Swift and Jesus

A couple of days ago a friend got in touch to ask me what the experience of having my head shaved had been like. (A Pilgrim's Cairn: Bruce Springsteen and Barbershops)

The jumping out of my skin bit is no exaggeration. I remember walking into the loos at Heathrow Airport before my flight to Derry, and of course the place was full of mirrors. Looking up I found a stranger standing in the place where I should have been and there really was a palpable jump in my heart to discover myself replaced. That feeling of estrangement remained for several days. The other thing I discovered was that I clearly run my fingers through my hair (which has never exactly been long and lustrous) a lot more than I was aware of; in the absence of hair I'd find myself wincing as I repeatedly scratched my poor bare scalp.

Anyway, my friend was right to call it a ritual. I was shaving my head as a symbol of penitence for mistakes I've made, and it was very much the right thing to do at the start of the pilgrimage; it had an important role in making the journey into something other than just a long walk. I did become strange to myself and week by week as my hair has been growing back I've been returning to the person I was.

Except, that's not actually what's happening, because it can't. 

Almost as soon as I'd written about 'returning' I knew that I was mischaracterising what is happening. There's no question of returning to the person who once I was, because it's simply not possible. What's more, to 'return' would require a massively unhelpful attempt at amnesia; an erasure of the things I've done wrong would also be an erasure of the ways in which I've grown and the ways in which growth lies before me. The person I was might not have the failures I have, but the person I was hasn't learnt the things I've learnt either.

As I've been thinking about the mysterious Celts I've been reminded of how compelling a good story can be; how much we can be drawn to believing something not because it's factually true, but because it resonates, inspires and moves us (A Pilgrim's Cairn: Fighting and drinking their way across Europe. Or not.). One such story that resonates with many of us is the story of the Return to Eden/Return to Innocence; the idea that we can 'go back' to a time when life was better, when we were better. It's such a pervasive vision, from the Enlightenment story of 'the noble savage' through to Taylor Swift singing, 'Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it. I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it'.

There's another well-known story which provides a counterpoint to the dream of returning to a perfect past. I'm always struck by the stories of the Resurrected Jesus still carrying the wounds which He suffered at the Crucifixion. Surely if God could raise Jesus from the dead, then God could have healed His wounds too? But that's not the story. The story is that the Risen Jesus was still the wounded Jesus, still the scarred Jesus.

There were no wounds in Eden, but then there wasn't much wisdom in Eden either.

Pork scratchings, Deep Heat and tattoos

I'm rooting for you

Day 6: Derry to Limavady

Distance: 19.8 miles (125.1 total)

Total ascent: 777 ft (9072 total)

Time: 7 hrs 30 mins

Tomorrow: Limavady to Portrush (est 22.2 miles)

A couple of nights before I flew out to Ireland, I was enjoying pork scratchings and a glass or two of red wine with my friend Tim, and we were discussing the role our mental state plays whenever we're taking on any kind of challenge. My experience of the past two days' walking offers a perfect illustration of the place of that relationship between mind and matter. Both days were fairly similar in terms of distance and terrain; actually, today was a little longer and the weather a little worse. However, yesterday as I trudged into Derry I just couldn't wait to get to the hotel and get showered and changed. Today, I could have strolled on through Limavady and easily done another five miles without complaint.

Today, like yesterday, my shoulder started playing up around late-morning. Today, unlike yesterday, instead of trying to 'push on through' and ending up making things worse, I stopped in a bus shelter next to a dual carriageway on the fringes of a light industrial estate; I took a couple of ibuprofen, smeared on some Deep Heat and treated myself to a biscuit. As a result I didn't go through a miserable hour or so of really tough going, which was to endure for the rest of the day in a bit of a hangover of despondency.

Yesterday, I sang to keep my spirits up. Today, often in torrential rain, I sang because I was really bloody happy.

Anyway, just a really good day's walking. Although a lot of it was along or near busy roads, it was not the hair-raising (probably not the right expression for me to use right at this moment of time) traffic-dodging saga of yesterday. The landscape was nice enough but the real drama was provided by the weather. I posted a video of the start of my Afternoon Prayer on Instagram. Standing on the edge of a field in some pretty heavy rain, I confidently predicted that it wouldn't be letting up any time soon, only to be walking along in bright sunshine no more than fifteen minutes later.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DFqXSqHOHDI/

Arriving in Limavady I found myself opposite a pub called Owens. It would be rude not to. Walking into a cramped main bar, every stool but one was occupied and everybody was chatting to, with and over one another. I ordered my Guinness and prepared to slope off to the back room which I'd dumped my rucksack in. As the pint was pushed across the bar to me, the old guy sitting next to where I was standing pointed to the vacant stool and said, "You. Sit there!" I just had the loveliest hour.

I'm liking Ireland. I'm loving the Irish.

PS My 'penitential' shaven head is really growing on me (no pun intended), and I quite fancy staying shaven-headed. So, is it still a penance if I like it?

PPS Maybe I'm spending too much time on my own, but... I really fancy getting a tattoo. Any suggestions?

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Thanksgiving: The friends who've been checking in on me and making sure that I'm never walking alone. You know who you are, and I'm so grateful.

The Pilgrimage Begins: of Celts and their jewellery

From this bank of Gartan Lough

Day 1: Letterkenny to Gartan Lough and back.

Distance: 19.2 miles (19.2 total)

Total ascent: 1952 ft

Time: 7 hrs 4 minutes

The pilgrimage began this morning at Gartan Lough when I threw my wedding ring into the winter-dark water. It was a very hard thing to do. If it had been an easy thing to do, then I probably wouldn't have needed to do it at all.

It has been painful enough trying to come to terms with us having no shared future. In recent months that pain has been compounded by the increasing awareness that we no longer seem to have much of a shared past either. That ring was no longer a token of future hope nor a memento of past happiness, it had been emptied.

I had known for some time that this action (this ritual?) needed to be a part of this pilgrimage, or it would be a journey that took me nowhere. There's a tradition that pilgrims to Iona go to the beach where Columba first landed and throw a stone into the sea to symbolise things that they want to leave behind, but I knew that by the time I reached Iona I absolutely needed to be looking forwards not looking back. Stroove Beach was the next candidate; only four days into the walk, it was the place where Columba left the people and land he loved and went into exile. Last night however, I just knew with sudden and absolute clarity that it had to be done today or it would always be something for tomorrow.

I'd like to think that my Celtic ancestors are proud of me; they were forever chucking their precious metal possessions into seas and lochs and rivers.

The plan when I'd set out this morning had been to spend a little time at Gartan Lough, birthplace of St Columba. Just as I'm hoping to spend at least a few hours on Iona, it seemed right to linger in that place; I'd made good time on the way there so there was no need to hurry away. However, I found myself itching to return to the road. I footered about for a bit, said some prayers, took some photos, but I just wanted to be walking again.

Climbing away from Gartan Lough in bright sunshine it felt like the journey had finally, properly begun. Each step now was a step forwards, a step towards Iona and all that it represents; a step towards Iona and all that I hope to find on the way. There was a wholly unexpected sense of elation and renewed purpose.

That sense of elation did dissipate considerably when I got lost in a housing estate on the outskirts of Letterkenny. Bad words were muttered.

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Thanksgiving:

So thankful for enjoying the most perfect walking weather in a very beautiful landscape. 

But above all I give thanks for the joy I experienced when I came across this shop front...

Bruce Springsteen and Barbershops

Sometimes words alone aren't enough.

Exploring this theme of penitence, I wanted to find some way of giving outward expression to what I've been feeling. 

The Bible has three main forms of expressing penitence. The first is wearing sackcloth and ashes. Maybe if I'd been walking in May or June that could have been an option, but in February I'm sticking to Gore-tex and lots of layers. The second is fasting. Again, on a pilgrimage which should see me averaging around twenty miles a day for nearly a month, foregoing a cooked breakfast and a hearty dinner would seem to be setting myself up for failure. And then there's shaving your head.

I'm going to the barber's in an hour or so.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been reflecting on the connection between penitence and shaving your head. What follows is not a scholarly treatise on the practice but simply how I feel about it at this moment in time.

Firstly, there is some sense of humiliation, of self-humbling. In truth, I'm not feeling all that worried about my hair going; that's been happening for years! In fact, I'm curious to see how I'll look. What I'm not looking forward to is it gradually re-growing; how odd I'll look as I go through various stages of skinheadedness. I'm worried about what strangers will think of me when they see me for the first time. There's an anticipatory sense of embarrassment about how people will look at me at the end of a day's walking, when I walk into a bar or hotel and take my hat off. I don't think I'm going to enjoy that at all; certainly not to begin with.

Stuart, 18 - by Rosemary Holmes

Secondly, there's something about becoming strange to ourselves. I've got no idea how I'm going to be looking by lunchtime. There's a great line in Bruce Springsteen's 'Streets of Philadelphia', where he sings, 'I was bruised and battered, I didn't know how I felt, I was unrecognizable to myself. Saw my reflection in a window and didn't know my own face...' That resonates with part of how I feel about doing this. Have you ever done something you shouldn't have done, something you're ashamed of, and found yourself saying something like, "I don't know what came over me. I've never done anything like that before. That's just not me." Sometimes our failures make us unrecognizable to ourselves. Having my head shaved is a making manifest of that feeling. But it's also about going through that experience of self-estrangement so that you might come to know yourself again, know yourself more truly.

Yesterday, I was having coffee with a friend who suggested a third dimension to this ritual. In some traditions having your head shaved is about stepping away from the past and making a new beginning. There's something very beautiful in that idea. When my friend shared that with me, I found myself thinking again of that same Springsteen song, which combines that sense of new beginning with the idea of pilgrimage, of journey.

'I walked a thousand miles just to slip this skin.' 

Penitence

What could be more appropriate than to reflect on penitence the day after Donald Trump's inauguration as President? Trump's mentor, Roy Cohn, taught him, 'Attack, counter-attack, never apologize'. It's a mantra which Mr Trump has become the living embodiment of. On the campaign trail in 2015 he told an audience at a Christian conference, 'Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness if I am not making mistakes?' Why indeed.

Penitence, true sorrow for the things we do wrong, isn't easy; I know it isn't easy. Sir Elton John wrote: 'What do I say when it's all over? Sorry seems to be the hardest word.' Much as I hate to disagree with a fellow Watford FC fan, actually sorry isn't a very hard word to say at all. But being sorry, true penitence, that can be tough.

One of the things that can make it so tough is that just as exile presupposes a sense of home, so too penitence presupposes a sense of shame or regret. However, we've become people whose regrets are few, too few to mention. And shame? Well shame itself has become shameful, something to be rejected. I know that there are good reasons why we've reached this place. Shame has been horribly misused for generations, not least by the Church, but I'm not sure that tossing it out altogether is a very clever thing to attempt. We have no shame, but we're very into shaming and 'cancelling' others; ideally from the comfortable distance of our social media accounts. But if we don't feel a sense of regret, shame even, when we do things wrong and hurt others or ourselves, then we're unlikely to feel penitent. If we don't feel a sense of penitence, then we're unlikely to feel the need to repent. Without repentance we become trapped in our weaknesses and failings.

The other thing that makes penitence hard is anger. To truly face and acknowledge our failures can be at best uncomfortable and at worst deeply painful. None of us likes to feel pain, so it's all too easy for us to turn those feelings outwards; the step from shame to blame can be a small one. So many times I've heard people take five minutes to tell me about something they regret doing, and then twenty-five minutes telling me how it's someone else's fault. In case I appear to be staking a claim to the moral high ground, I'd have to acknowledge that that's something I've found myself doing. I start to explore my own sense of failure and so easily that exploration mutates into ugly blame and sometimes anger. Anger at the time I'm apart from my boys. Anger at the petty spitefulness of some people. Anger at the loss of friendship. Anger at being treated as worth very little; indifference. Anger at my need for forgiveness and anger at being unforgiven. Anger at myself, which brings me full circle to that sense of penitence. 

I hope this resonates with some of you: I hope it's not just me! I've got a lot of work to do on this pilgrimage.

It was two years before Columba was exiled from his homeland for inciting the Battle of Cúl Dreimhe. To me, that suggests that he continued to believe that he had been in the right in his dispute with St Finnian of Moville. He was angry when the High King of Ireland ruled against him and in favour of St Finnian, and his anger set conflict ablaze. He must surely have felt anger when he was excommunicated and sent into exile. However, he clearly came to feel penitence for what he'd done. The tradition that he made it his life's mission to 'win as many souls for Christ' as had been lost in the battle, speaks of someone who recognizes that he's done wrong and wants a new beginning.

St Columba: exile, penitence and pilgrimage

In 2009 I walked the Kintyre Way with my Uncle Jimmy. The walk ends near the village of Southend and nearby there's rock that appears to bear the imprint of a foot. By tradition this is St Columba’s footprint and marks the place where he first set foot in Scotland. 

St Columba, like most of the Celtic saints, is often viewed through a rose-tinted mist; devoted to prayer, the quintessence of kindness, and proto-environmentalists with a deep love of the natural world. In truth these were warrior-saints deeply rooted in and shaped by the Celtic warrior culture. They viewed themselves as being in a battle with the devil and his hordes of demons and that sense of being engaged in a very real conflict shaped everything about them. You can see some reflection of that in The Rule of St Columba: ‘Take not of food till thou are hungry. Sleep not till thou feelest desire… Thy measure of prayer shall be until thy tears come; or thy measure of work of labour till thy tears come…’ Clearly a world away from contemporary versions of ‘Celtic spirituality’.

According to the Venerable Bede, Columba ‘came to Britain to preach the word of God to the kingdoms of the northern Picts.’ However, 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.        

Around 560AD a battle was fought between the army of King Diarmait, High King of Ireland, and St Columba’s clan, the Northern Uí Néill; by birth St Columba was a prince of the Northern Uí Néill and could well have gone on to become king had he not entered the religious life. Exactly 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 clan won the battle, the clans and clergy of Ireland were outraged at the huge loss of life and felt that the Northern Uí Néill were responsible for the 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.

Some traditions have it that a penitent St Columba set out to save as many souls for Christ as had been killed in the battle. Perhaps that’s true, but it’s more likely that in the first instance his mission was a diplomatic one. Scotland at that time was divided between the kingdom of Dál Riata, which was an expanding Irish colony, and 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 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. It’s likely that St Columba’s relationship with the Picts was more akin to that of an ambassador 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 had been 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.

The pilgrimage I’ll be starting in just over a fortnight is shaped by the legacy of a man who was sent into exile as a penitent, and those will be three of the themes I want to try to explore on this journey: exile, penitence and pilgrimage.