Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: eamon duffy, pilgrimage, st thomas a becket, the guardian, the pilgrims' way
There is an excellent short introduction to St Thomas Becket by Eamon Duffy in The Guardian today here. Why I’m making my very slow progress along the Pilgrims Way rather than any other long distance footpath.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: camino, north downs way, pilgrimage, pilgrims, st swithuns way, st thomas a becket, the pilgrims' way, therese of lis, therese of lisieux, walking
Last year I wrote about pilgrim traces on the eastern section of the Pilgrims Way here. I was not disappointed in what we encountered in this month’s section. Indeed, for me, the journey took on more and more of the characteristics of a pilgrimage with every step I took towards Canterbury.
There were ancient traces, the most evocative being in Detling. On this street
is a Tudor Gateway
behind which was a domus hospitur or refuge for pilgrims. This information plaque tells all about it (click on the image to enlarge the text):
I was reminded of the ruinous medieval albergue Meenakshi and I rested outside of at Sigras on the Camino Ingles:
At tea time on our second day (and we’d been up since dawn, so it felt later) we arrived at the Vigo Inn. This place is excellent and deserves support. Andy and Val welcomed us with open arms and invited us to camp in their field. They knew about the pilgrimage and valued pilgrims.
view from the tent as I went to sleep – in the morning mist meant there was no view
The route was reminiscent of the Caminos in Spain in that it goes through towns and villages on the way to Canterbury, mixed in with some beautiful walking. On this walk through the world, there are some spectacular constructions including the Medway Bridge which has a dedicated footpath (there was a man with a big rucksack on the other side who we couldn’t catch).
For myself, there was a significant interior journey reflecting the outer one. Much of this was to do with the continuing realisation that if I am to thrive in the ministry I live, I have to trust in and rely on God – again a deepening of hard won insights from the Camino. On returning home, I found this quote from St Therese of Lisieux which sums so much of this up for me:
Teach us to let go of what is unnecessary.
As on the Camino I found a deepening devotion to St James, so on the Pilgrims Way I am finding a devotion to St Thomas Becket. I am looking forward so much to the arrival promised arrival in Canterbury Cathedral in the summer.
As readers of this blog will know, I believe that contemporary pilgrimage informs us how to live in the world we find ourselves in. More reflections on this to follow.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: hiking, north downs way, pilgrimage, the pilgrims' way, walking
Roland and I met up at Oxted to continue the Pilgrims Way. Last year we started in Winchester and got just under half way in 4 or 5 very enjoyable days. Our plan was to walk to Canterbury in 17 or 18 mile stages and then to spend the rest of the week following the North Downs Way to the sea at Dover and Folkestone.
This post is a report on the walk – I’ll post something else with reflections on it as pilgrimage soon.
The weather meant our plans changed. After two very dry years, it had been the wettest April on record and this carried on into May. While not much drought fell on us as we walked, it rained hard at night and the ground was saturated. There were several stages where liquid clay was deeper than walking boots and progress was under one mile an hour. As on the Camino Ingles last October, I was extremely glad to have invested in a heavy pair of Meindl boots which meant my feet stayed dry. I have a strong memory of one steep muddy hill where my feet were moving at great speed while I made precisely no progress up the hill. Walking in these conditions with 20lb packs (we were camping) meant falling over a few times. I contributed blood to the Pilgrims Way; Roland hurt his ankle badly.
We slowed down and accepted our plans would change. We began by deciding we would be exhausted enough when we eventually reached Canterbury that the walk would end then. However, Roland’s feet became very wet resulting in bad blisters and nails. This combined with a bad fall meant he decided to call it a day at Charing. I enjoyed the walk very much but returned home too. I have received enough to live out of for a while and I have the opportunity to finish off the last stage with Meenakshi in the summer.
I think we walked around 50 to 55 miles. It was tough but good walking through beautiful scenery. There is not a huge amount of infrastructure, particularly in terms of campsites, but there are reasonably frequent pubs and the trail descends into towns and villages when the chalk ridge is cut by rivers. There is wonderful wildlife. It is the time for spring wild flowers; we heard owls, foxes and wild boar. It was quiet. We passed a few day walkers and were passed by one or two people walking distance but with much lighter, non-camping packs.
We mainly camped at night. A lack of people around to ask meant wild camping a couple of times – although going to bed and getting up with the light at this time of year meant we were ready for bed by mid afternoon! We camped one night at the excellent Vigo Inn (named by a landlord who bought it with his prize from the Battle of Vigo) and a need to get dry meant walking into Chatham to stay at Medway Youth Hostel for a night.
medway youth hostel
After drying out and getting some sleep, I’m really anticipating finishing off the pilgrimage to Canterbury. But there’s the important task first of mining the experience.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: hiking, kent, north downs way, pilgrimage, surrey, the pilgrims' way, walking
Just back, earlier than planned, from the Pilgrim’s Way. An exhilarating, joyful, profound, difficult, exhausting few days walking with Roland from where we left off last year (posts from last year here). Reports and reflection to come once I’ve rested, but here are some photographs:
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: canals, pilgrimage, re-creation, stratford upon avon canal, walking
The time immediately after Easter and Christmas are difficult for me. I’m supposed to be on holiday but am absolutely exhausted. They are really recovery time rather than anything more life enhancing. But part way through Thursday I suddenly found some energy (see the poem in the last post). I went for a walk on Friday, and on a whim, inspired by Richard Mabey’s The Unofficial Countryside decided to push myself by catching the train to Stratford and then walking home along the entire length of the Stratford upon Avon Canal. This was a stretch of 26 or 27 miles which I had to walk quickly as waking up late and missing a train meant a mid morning start.
I walked in and out of sun, over frost, through rising mist.
It was a beautiful walk, through the city, the edgelands, and varied countryside. I realise the need to improve my skills at botanising, of recognising birds and plants (can anyone recommend any books for this?) but I did see cowslips, the may in full blossom, rabbits, ducklings running on the top of the water, a yellow wagtail, buzzards, something (surely too early) that flew like a swallow catching insects over the water, swarms of flies, and a very angry swan.
The names of the places I walked through are a poem in themselves:
Stratford upon Avon, Wilmcote, Wootton Wawen, Lowsonford, Preston Bagot, Lapworth, Hockley Heath, Warings Green, Earlswood, Dickens Heath, Solihull Lodge, Yardley Wood, Brandwood, Kings Norton.
Looking back on the day, it was one of intensity of experience and enjoyment, but it was challenging. My comfort zone is 15-18 miles; this was considerably longer. There were some mental battles in the first couple of hours; some physical battles in the last. I fell asleep once, but woke up before I walked over the edge. I had to pass far too many good pubs if I was to finish, but I was able to wet my whistle in the Fleur de Lys.
A great walk. Tired. Refreshed. What’s the next challenge?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: david hopes, into the heart of the fire, pilgrimage, poetry, prayer
Lord, how long sunset and moonset
against the bare hill at my window?
How long springset, winterset against this heart
before it finds the opening and flies?
If I were a fisher I would cast my net.
If I were a prophet I would know.
If I were a pilgrim I would start
wayfaring now before the longing dies.
I have thought and I have thought
and I gnarl to rest at last
where flesh and soul were poorly bought
with all the world high-stepping past.
Lord, You bring my certain soul to doubt,
spoil heart’s home, that they must set out.
- David Hopes
This poem is from the excellent collection of mystical poems ‘Into the Heart of the Fire’ edited by Mary E Giles and Kathryn Hohlwein
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Easter, ee cummings, Holy Week, lenten journey, pilgrimage, poetry
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
- ee cummings
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: helen waddell, Holy Week, journey, lenten journey, passion, peter abelard, pilgrimage, prayer, suffering
The rabbit stopped shrieking when the stooped over it, either from exhaustion, or in some last extremity of fear. Thibault held the teeth of the trap apart, and Abelard gathered up the little creature in his hands. It lay for a moment breathing quickly, then in some blind recognition of the kindness that had met it at the last, the small head thrust and nestled against his arm, and it died.
It was that last confiding thrust that broke Abelard’s heart. He looked down at the little draggled body, his mouth shaking. ‘Thibault,’ he said, ‘do you think there is a God at all? Whatever has come to me, I earned it. But what did this one do?’
Thibault nodded.
‘I know,’ he said, “Only, I think God is in it too.’
Abelard look sharply.
‘In it? Do you mean that it makes him suffer, the way it does us?’
Thibault nodded.
‘Then why doesn’t he stop it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Thibault. ‘Unless it’s like the prodigal son. I suppose the father could have kept him at home against his will. But what would have been the use? All this,’ he stroked the limp body, ‘is because of us. But all the time God suffers. More than we do.’
Abelard looked at him, perplexed. ‘Thibault, do you mean Calvary?’
Thibault shook his head. ‘That was only a piece of it – the piece that we say- in time. Like that.’ He pointed to a fallen tree beside them, sawn through the middle. ‘That dark ring there, it foes hp and down the whole length of the tree. But you only see it where it is cut across. That is what Christ’s life was; the bit of God that we saw. And we think God is like that, because was like that, kind and forgiving sins and healing people. We think God is like that for ever, because it happened once, with Christ. But not the pain. Not the agony at the last. We think that stopped.’
Abelard looked at him, the blunt nose and the wide mouth, the honest troubled eyes. He could have knelt before him.
‘Then, Thibault,’ he said slowly, ‘you think that all of this,’ he looked down at the little quiet body in his arms, ‘all the pain of the world, was Christ’s cross?’
‘God’s cross,’ said Thibault, ‘And it goes one.
- From Peter Abelard by Helen Waddell
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Good Friday, Holy Week, Lent, lenten journey, pilgrimage, poetry, prayer, wh vanstone
Drained is love in making full;
Bound in setting others free;
Poor in making many rich;
Weak in giving power to be.
- WH Vanstone
Good Friday:
torture, suffering, execution, death, sacrifice, love
and a reminder that the spiritual is the political.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Holy Week, Lent, lenten journey, passion, pilgrimage, poetry
Suddenly
that moment of unsought grace
exhausted stress departing
moving into depth
experience of
Passion.
