This week began with my one preaching appointment while on sabbatical. I spent a recuperative year in the Fens Circuit in 2019 to 2020 and the pandemic meant my time in the Circuit working ended in March 2020 and we left in August 2020 without saying goodbye to some dear folk who helped us enormously while I recovered from major trauma being really unwell and bereaved at having to leave full time ministry for a while.
So it was good to be able to return to the Fens Circuit to lead worship at Upwell. Sunday was a happy occasion. We only spent a few months in the Circuit, but we both commented that we felt like we’d not been away and we felt like it was like coming back to a place of warmth and care. The sacred spaces on our journey are all part of us. All the churches I’ve been involved with in the last 25 years are part of me. I’m not sure the folk in the Fens realise how much I owe them. I was a mess when I arrived in their Circuit, l left them healed and restored. I was glad on Sunday to be able to say thank you to some of them.
While we were in the Fens for the day we took the opportunity to visit folk from the two little churches we tried to support by being amongst them. First of the two was Murrow. Murrow are struggling with numbers and a crumbling building but they keep going. They are the only Christian presence in what is a large village. They have an amazing monthly stall full of treasures donated to them to sell for church funds. We were glad to meet with Maureen and Sheila and Maureen and Eric on Sunday afternoon to give them encouragement to keep going. Three churches in the Circuit have closed since we were with them.
The church we most supported while in the Fens was the little chapel at Tydd St Giles. Sadly we discovered it was riddled with dry rot and the building closed in August 2019. We were given hospitality by the Parish Church for our service but sadly by March 2020 numbers had dwindled through health issues to three people plus us. The pandemic then came, and the society has never met again. Two of the folk, Mollie and George Rollins became very dear to us. They are both almost 92 and don’t go out very far now. We were so glad to visit them on Sunday. George was in the garden of their little small holding mending his greenhouse which he told me he put together 70 years ago!
A pastoral visit became sacred space as we shared conversation. It was a privilege to sit with them. They miss chapel a lot. Lis was glad to come away with a gift of a bag of sprouting broccoli!
I’ve been doing more thinking about Moses and his encounter with God this week. We need to be open to finding the comfort of God a lot more. We need to take more time to take in.
On Monday I had my annual check up with the practice nurse at the surgery. I got the 55 and over lecture (!) but she also told me to create more time just for me as I work with people all week and have in normal time so many things to think about that my head explodes! So this week I’ve just stood and stared a bit. We had a lovely drive out on Tuesday evening and the colours at sunset over the Ribbleshead Viaduct were amazing.
We also had another drive out on Thursday with little script just to be. We ended up on the road out of Hawes towards Sedbergh which has stunning views and we ended up in Morecambe. I’ve not been to Morecambe since we took children from inner city Manchester on holiday from college years ago and we stayed at Littledale Hall. It was fun to see the Eric Morecambe statue. His comedy is timeless. The Andrew Preview skit is as funny as ever.
Wednesday this week was the day of reflection two years after we all were put in a first lockdown because of Covid. I found Wednesday really hard. I can’t believe so many have died, how two years on we are still living with Covid and that cases are rising fast again. Nor can I understand why we are being told there are no concerns about this from the government… don’t get me started! The nurse told me my blood pressure is better at the moment :) It felt important to share in a minute’s silence held in Ripon Cathedral. There weren’t many of us there but it was good to remember sacred space is often used to at times of importance in the nation. I was also glad Wednesday was my chaplaincy time at Fountains Abbey. Wednesday afternoon was glorious weather wise. I did four miles of walking and thinking.
Our trip out on Thursday included a look inside the little church at Garsdale. I’m enjoying just pulling over by churches and seeing if they are open. Most are! This little church was lovely. It was built in 1861 to the east of the site of a ancient church and consecrated by the Bishop of Ripon on 23 November that year. In his sermon he commended the efforts made to replace “the miserable building which he had visited some years ago for one more suitable to the solemn worship of Almighty God.”
On Friday, we had a day in York. York is only forty five minutes away but we’d not been to visit it apart from going to the park and ride for a PCR test several times and to Doner Summer, a vegan fast food place. So despite it being busy on a very warm day, it was good to have time exploring. I started with the shrine of St Margaret Clitherow on the Shambles.
My main reason for visiting York was to experience the Minster. It was, as expected, busy, but it was a dignified and respectful busy. I found it a powerful place and it felt very sacred to me. I enjoyed seeing some quirks as I went round such as the statues with no heads. During the 16th century Protestant reformers accused Catholics of praying to statues. In a bid to stop this they attacked statues, either getting rid of them completely or making them unrecognisable by removing the heads and haloes. I also enjoyed the semaphore saints over the west door. The sculptor made them headless to make the point that despite having no mouths to speak the saints can still portray one of the Minster’s core messages, “Christ is here.”
I was most fascinated by the bosses in the nave roof which were replaced by the Victorians after a fire. One is a nativity scene in which they decided Mary would feed baby Jesus with a bottle! We met a guide who oozed information. He showed me in his book one with the disciples in a circle with two feet in the middle of them. I assumed wrongly it was the washing of feet at the last supper. Wrong. It shows the ascension: Jesus’ feet disappearing upward! Brilliant! I look forward to returning to the Minster soon. There’s loads to see.
Part of the joy of sabbatical is that even though you have a programme, it doesn’t usually work out how you planned and you get divine surprises. Friday night and Saturday brought me four of them. I found peace and comfort in all of them. We went into the North York Moors leaving York on Friday through Dalby Forest and into the middle of nowhere. Suddenly Lis spotted some white figures in a dip to the right of the road we were on. I stopped to look. The white figures were the stations of the cross. We’d stumbled upon a Coptic orthodox monastery in a place called Langdale End! The monastery of St Athanasius is the first Coptic monastery in this country. It opened in 2004. I looked up what someone staying with them might experience… the monks rise at 4am for prayer!!!
Up the road I stopped at a little church. It was open. It was very peaceful. As I left it, two ladies were bringing flowers to put on a grave. The conversation went like this:
Me: “It’s lovely to see your church open.”
Them: “It shouldn’t be. It hasn’t been open for ages. We had glass stolen.
Me: “Well it is open. I’ve just been in it.”
Them: “Someone must have left it unlocked!”
On Saturday I went to perhaps my two favourite sacred spaces so far on this journey. Mount Grace Priory is the best example of a Carthusian monastery there is. It was enormous in its day. I had the place to myself. It oozed spirituality and peace. I am glad to have found so many places I can pop it in the days ahead for some peace, even for a short while.
Then finally this week, I found Ampleforth Abbey. What a vast building! It was founded in 1802, and is home to a community of more than fifty five monks. I arrived to find it open well after six in the evening. Vespers was being sung and the chanting was magical. Afterwards I sat in the worship space alone. It was brilliant! There are some Lent talks with compline so we plan to return. I wasn’t expecting to end this week with two incredible spaces.
So I will let the brothers of Ampleforth have the last word this week. In a homily for St Benedict’s Day, which was last Monday, one of the brothers talked about sacred priorities. The first was praying together as a community of faith. Not seeing this prayer as duty but as the gift of holding the world before the heart of the creator.
“This is the community’s first form of service, our commitment to the power of prayer, presence, silence, listening to and speaking his Word.”
“From that loving presence we consciously become a community who share the joys and sorrows, the successes and failures, the talents, and the weakness. Benedict asks us to find something beautiful, something to appreciate, encourage and affirm in each person we meet.”
Perhaps after nearly eight weeks of sabbatical I’m rediscovering what church has to be. How I convince others that God’s call to be sacred and serving has to come first will be my huge challenge in an institution we are trying to keep going. Have we lost our purpose and God’s comfort as church has become one big stress? Maybe.
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