A Walk Around Holy Island

 

Lindisfarne Castle and Harbour

Holy Island is one of those 'thin' places. In the words of Josiah Conder's famous hymn, 'Alike pervaded by His eye, all parts of God's dominion lie, this world of ours and worlds unseen and thin the boundary in between.' On Holy Island I am always so aware of the Communion of Saints. I recently led a retreat on Lindisfarne for Ripon Cathedral and several of us commented that, as we worshipped in St Mary's Church, we found ourselves praying about the living and the departed as though there were no difference - there was a deep sense that we were surrounded, joined and led by all who have in the past and do now follow the journey of faith.  

St Cuthbert's Island



St Mary's Church

Services take place each morning and evening at St Mary's Church, led by local Christians who make visitors very welcome. There are also Celtic Prayers at Open Gate Retreat House (run by the Community of Aidan and  Hilda) at midday and in the late evening. One of the pleasures of going to the island for a retreat or holiday is that you can dip into the daily worship of these two communities and you are unobtrusively but warmly welcomed - perhaps not so much welcomed as surrounded by those who draw alongside you, for a time, in prayer. On Tuesdays and Thursdays there are commemorations of St Aidan and St Cuthbert - in the summer months this involves a procession from the church to sites overlooking Cuthbert's cell and Aidan's statue. Lindisfarne is a very holy place and it is obvious not only that prayer has been continuously offered there in the past, but that there is still a constant stream of prayer being offered daily by God's diverse people - pilgrims and tourists, natives of the island, of the mainland and people from all parts of the world, Christians and people of other faiths and none. 

St Aidan

Holy Island is a wonderful place to go for a day's pilgrimage, a retreat or a holiday. I have benefitted enormously from going on my own or with family for holidays or with church and student groups for retreats. The history of the island both sacred and secular is varied and interesting, there is space to walk and explore quietly to your heart's content, expecially when the tide is in and most of the visitors depart. Last week we stayed for a few days and saw and heard seals and a great variety of birds. The Lindisfarne Scriptorium and the Christian Centre run by St Mary's Retreat House offer the visitor sources of inspirational artwork and Celtic texts. http://www.lindisfarne-scriptorium.co.uk   and www.marygatehouse.org.uk  

 

Cross and Monastery

 
From Adnabod (Knowing) by Waldo Williams, transl. Noel Davies

 

You are our breath. You are the flight

Of our longing to the depths of Heaven.

You are the water which flees from

 The wilderness of our anxiety and fear.

You are the salt which purifies.

You are the piercing wind of our pomposity.

You are the traveller who knocks.

You are the prince who dwells within us.

 

I always enjoy this poem which, like so many Celtic prayers, surrounds us with the mystery God, without and within. This is the God who is infinitely great and beyond us, to whom our soul reaches out and the same God whose Spirit dwells within us, as close to us as our own breath and more understanding of us than our own minds.
 

 

Beyond the Harbour and out to the Farne Islands

60 Years of Faithful Service

Today and tomorrow, we mark the 60th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne. Like the majority of her subjects, I cannot remember a time when she was not our Queen. Her reign began five years before I was born; I recall stories my parents told about how they heard of her unexpected accession on the BBC while living and working in Koforidua in Ghana and then followed the preparations for her coronation through BBC radio broadcasts and magazines sent to them by relatives and friends in the UK. It felt like the dawn of a new era with so much promise. Today, we give thanks for Her Majesty's example of faithfulness in carrying out the role to which she is called both as monarch and as Governor of the Church of England. In a speech during the millennium year, she said,

'To many of us, our beliefs are of fundamental importance. For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn great comfort in difficult times from Christ's words and example.'

God of time and eternity,

whose Son reigns as servant, not master;

we give you thanks and praise

 that you have blessed this nation, the realms and territories

with Elizabeth our beloved and glorious Queen.

In this year of Jubilee,

grant her your gifts of love and peace

as she continues in faithful obedience to you, her Lord and God,

and in devoted service to her lands and peoples and those of the Commonwealth

 now and all the days of her life,

through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

 Amen.

This prayer was written at The Queen's Direction by the Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral for Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee. It will be used in the Jubilee Thanksgiving Service in St Paul's Cathedral on Tuesday, June 5th. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have commended it for use throughout the Church of England and other Churches are also welcome to use it.

Published alongside other new prayers for adults and children, and liturgical resources for use in the Church of England during Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee year, the new prayer is available online on the Church of England's Diamond Jubilee web pages where you can find more information about how the Church of England is encouraging parishes and communities to join in with the celebrations through the Big Lunch and Big Thank You initiatives.

Earthquake in Japan

Sitting watching the news this evening, we are awestruck at the power of the natural disaster unfolding in Japan. It's obvious the earthquake around Sendai will have far reaching consequences that are unpredictable at this point in time. What an extraordinary day, as earthquake has been followed by tsunami and after shock - many of which are of the magnitude of sizeable earthquakes, themselves. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan and Indonesia and all who live around the Pacific basin. It is impossible to begin to imagine what they are experiencing tonight. 

It's early to know how best to respond, but advice tonight from the various relief agencies seems to be, give through a reputable charity you know and you are sure is working in the area.

Lord, we cry out to you for the people of Japan.
As earth trembles and waves roar,
We look on and pray silently.
For the drowned, the lost, the bewildered,
For those alone and terrified, buried and hopeless,
For all who search the rubble or offer shelter,
For those tonight sharing what they have with strangers,
For all desperately seeking loved ones,
We ask your presence through the mystery of Christ
Who stilled the waves and harrowed hell,
Who suffered death and brought peace
Only through the path of suffering.
Amen.

Women of Chile

As you may have realised if you read this blog regularly, I am not a great fan of single sex organizations or activities. Men and women doing things together usually makes for a more balanced approach to life. However, I must say that this year's Women's World Day of Prayer service was one of the best I've ever attended. The one I went to was at West Witton and was extremely well organised and beautifully presented by Gillian Vyner and some of the women from the Penhill benefice. It was a lovely early spring afternoon as I drove up Wensleydale and the small church in the heart of the village was pretty full. The service had been prepared by women from Chile which seemed particularly apt as we remembered the amazing rescue of the Chilean miners who were trapped underground earlier last year. Their plight had reminded me of my childhood in South Wales when mining disasters were relatively common and we were often glued to our radios and TVs praying and hoping for men to emerge from mines where some disaster had struck. One of my most vivid memories is coming home to find my mother sitting at the kitchen table in tears on the day of the Aberfan disaster.

According to Chilean folklore, when God craeted the world, He found, left over, a little of each element He had used; fire and cold, sun and snow, lakes, rivers and seas, burning deserts, massive mountain ranges, majestic volcanoes, leafy trees, metals, animals, birds, fish and fruits. Taking it all in His hand, He deposited it at the farthest corner of the earth and so Chile was born, a long, narrow strip of infinitely varied land, running for 2,640 miles between the sea and the mountains from Peru to Antarctica.

The service told the story of the women of Chile from the beginnings of the present nation in 1810. The theme was that, in a country of great contrasts of wealth, survival had been possible for the poorest because of the simple willingness of the women to share all they had with one another. 'How many loaves have you?' In a really imaginative liturgy, we heard the story of several Chilean communities and meditated on three readings.

Deutronomy 8.7-10 - gratitiude to the Lord who has given the people a wonderful land, full of natural resources.

1 Kings 17.8-16 - the story of the widow who shares her last meal with Elijah. God blesses the act of sharing and supplies her, her son and the prophet with enough oil and meal to see them through the famine.

Mark 6.30-44 Jesus feeds the five thousand because a few are willing to give up their fishes and loaves.

We meditated on the 'thin places' where the kingdom of God and the ways of this world come close together through the act of one person sharing what they have with another person. What can we share that we thought we could not? 

The picture above is an embroidery by a 78 year old Chilean woman, Norma Ulloa, who started embroidering by using the cloth of flour bags and home spun wool. Eventually her school of embroidery exhibited world wide in places such as Bonn and Nottingham. Norma and her embroiderers did not seek inspiration from commercial art but only from things they saw in their daily lives. She educated five children and a grandchild on the earnings from her embroidery. 

http://www.wwdp-natcomm.org/

Waiting

This Advent, I have been very conscious of those who wait. I have four friends who are expecting babies any day (one has arrived!) I have an elderly relative who can't see or hear very well and so spends much of her life waiting for others to try to communicate or for assitance with things most of us take for granted that we can do ourselves. I have heard the stories of several people who are in a period of unnerving waiting to hear whether their jobs will be cut or not. Then we have all been conscious of prisoners who await trial or release or execution. Many of us rejoiced when An Sang Su Chi's years of waiting ended with her release from house arrest. Many of us have been moved by the plight of Sakineh Mohammedi Ashtiani who, in five years in prison, has suffered torture, lashing, retrial for the same crime and still awaits probable execution. These are just the people we hear about.

I contrast this with my own life, at the moment. Much as I do not want it to be filled with small busyness, it is. I caught myself, yesterday, making up beds for visitors with the mobile clamped to one ear so that I could talk to the doctor about a relative's medication while also listening to a CD from which I was trying to select music for Christmas services as the soup was boiling over in the kitchen. We allow our days to be filled so full of the small. We feel we are forced to, but in truth, we are not. There is time in every day to stop. The people who do wait and their stories could, if we let them, teach us the value of 'waiting and watching' spaces and seasons in our lives. Moments when we are at rest and we become conscious of what the present moment holds - there may be anticipation and fear, there may be peace and serenity, there may be memories to look through, there may be a pregnant emptiness or a great longing. Whatever there is for us, it can rise; it will show us something about what God is drawing us towards. It will reveal our prioirities and expose them in God's light and love. It may spur us to more purposeful, less frenetic action.

In Arvo Part's piece for 'cello and piano, Spiegel im Spiegel, the slow piano part gives a sense of the pianist waiting to place each note at just the right moment. The waiting and the dying of each previous note is what allows the music to rise.

Time is too slow for those who wait,

too swift for those who fear,

too long for those who grieve,

too short for those who rejoice,

but for those who love, time is eternity.

                                                  Anon.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-t5Nk49yZs  

Light Up a Life

Every year, St. Michael's Hospice and Ripon cathedral host a special service in the cathedral to which people come to remember those they love who have died. In the words of Dean Eric Milner-White's wonderful bidding prayer, written in 1918 for the service of nine lessons and carols at King's College, Cambridge, we hold in our hearts at Christmas time all those who 'rejoice with us but upon another shore, and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number....'

Here are some images of today's service

Bring us, O Lord,

at our last awakening,

into the house and gate of Heaven

to enter into that gate and dwell in that house

where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light;

no noise nor silence, but one equal music;

no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;

no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity

in the habitations of thy glory and dominion, world without end. Amen.

                                                                                    John Donne 1572-1631

As Winter sets in....

Snow in the Village

Just a pretty picture to remind us of the importance of good neighbours to help us get through the cold spell. And to remind us to pray for all who have to venture out on the roads in adverse conditions, especially farmers, emergency services, nurses and carers, clergy and those who work in transport, mail and haulage.

O God, our Creator,

You are present in Your power in every place.

Preserve, we pray, all who travel in treacherous conditions;

Surround and warm them with your loving care,

Protect and separate them from every danger,

And bring them in safety to their journey's end,

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.