13March, Desert 16: Surviving the Waste Places of Homelessness

The sight above, taken in January, is troubling and it is repeated across Canterbury and indeed elsewhere in Britain: homeless people camping out in all weathers. It’s clear from the picture that people have tried to help them with bedding and the tent that they are using. But talking to someone who is involved with the churches’ work, it is also clear that some people, including these campers, do choose not to accept all the help available to them.

About the same time as I took this photo I was talking to a companion of Emmaus in Dover. I was in an Emmaus community while studying in France many years ago, and it seems many things continue from those days, and indeed from the 1940s, when Abbé Pierre started the organisation near Paris. Working for the community is an important part of regaining one’s self respect.

The man I  spoke to has become a spokesman for the community. He described how, once he was on the street, he too was unable to take the hand reached out to him. It was months later that he was persuaded to give the community life a try, and it was a life saver. Now he is something of an ambassador, better able than many to get alongside those who do – and those who don’t – use the services that the churches and charities, as well as the local council, can provide. ‘And perhaps in a year or two, I’ll move on; I’m not ready yet.’ Meanwhile, practical help to cope with supported or independent living is part of Emmaus’s service; this can include help to work for qualifications that employers will recognise.

30 May, Pilgrimage to Canterbury X: Verses for Pilgrims—I

As well as our Scripture readings I have chosen a verse for each day to help our prayer.

Day 1 began at Dover Beach, with this prayer for a blessing on our feet. It comes from our old friend Fr Andrew.

O dearest Lord, thy sacred feet
with nails were pierced for me;
O pour thy blessing on my feet
that they may follow thee.

Father Andrew SDC

Day 2 led us not through desert but through England’s green and pleasant Land, though we had our dark Satanic mills in the shape of the coal mines at Betteshanger, Tilmanstone and Snowdown, all close by, not to mention the unsuccessful ones we went by yesterday. This verse is from the war poet, Robert Graves.

May we speak words of grace today, as our late friend and miner George did. Today’s walk ends in his home village of Aylesham.

Christ of His gentleness
Thirsting and hungering,
Walked in the wilderness;
Soft words of grace He spoke
Unto lost desert-folk
That listened wondering.

28 May: Pilgrimage to Canterbury VIII: All Coming together

Those who are preparing the pilgrimage keep telling ourselves: it’s all coming together!

There was, when I wrote this,still a month before the pilgrims put foot to footpath which was just as well. Catering, comfort breaks, car rides for the weary, climbing up the Downs, covering the route step by step; all this preparation allows the real purpose of the pilgrimage to be fulfilled. And in real life, today is the day we make that first step! 

Just a closer walk with Thee,
Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,
Daily walking close to Thee,
Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

We are a community: part of the closer walk with Jesus is walking with each other. We know that Jesus and his disciples did a lot of walking around Palestine, and sometimes the disciples’ conversation was far from edifying. Jesus had to rebuke Mrs Zebedee when she wanted him to give James and John top posts in his new government, and to remind the disciples – who had been arguing on the road about who was the greatest – that the greatest of all must be the servant of all.

No wonder he was glad to play with the children at the end of the day!

There will be many opportunities for each of us to serve our fellow walkers during our four days on the road. This time of preparation has  been itself a time of service.

We hope to say more about the pilgrimage itself in the days to come.

The Crest of a Wave monument marks the start of the Pilgrims’ Way to Canterbury and the Channel Swim to France. Let’s hope for blue skies as we walk!

Pilgrimage Day 1.

 

Today these three pictures will be given to the pilgrims as stickers for their Pilgrim’s Passports. 

We start at Dover Beach, leaving by a subway, or underpass to non-British walkers. It is adorned with mosaics of the changing types of ship that used the harbour, including the Viking dragon boat. Pilgrims beware!

The fish stands for Saint Andrew, brother of Peter, fisherman and apostle. We will break for refreshment and prayer at his church in Dover.

The little church of Saint Pancras in Coldred we have seen already in a photograph; here is our artist, Antonela’s painting. We’ll take a pause here before making for the nearby L’Arche house at Cana in Eythorne.

26 May: Pilgrimage to Canterbury VI: a memory unlocked.

I was talking to Rupert, one of our contributors during Lent, at the L’Arche garden this morning. He reassured me that the walk uphill from Dover on the revised route is ‘doable’ if taken steadily, and he knows most of the potential walkers. It will be somewhat steeper than this section of the Pilgrims’ Way on the other side of Canterbury: use your imagination to see the Cathedral, tucked between the distant hills near the centre of the photo!

I have not walked that steep path since Easter some 40 years ago, when a few of the community were living in north Dover. On Maundy Thursday I was helping Sue, a Jewish assistant from Toronto, prepare for a community Passover meal, when we looked out and saw a thrush hopping around a snow covered lawn. (What’s that bird, Maurice? It looks like our Canadian robin but has no red feathers.)

By Easter Monday all was serene and sunny, so Sue and I decided to walk the footpaths to Barfrestone. We were not expecting to negotiate the construction site for the A2 road, but we got over that and arrived in time for our next shift.

At least this time we will be prepared for the busy A2, which carries traffic aiming for the ferries to the continent. The footpath is safely in a tunnel underneath. And it’s ‘doable’!

For Rupert’s posts, enter ‘Before the Cross’ in the Agnellusmirror search box and you’ll find his reflections and a few other people’s.

 

May 25: Pilgrimage to Canterbury MMXIX. V: a canine perspective.

I wonder what Tyndale the Terrier will make of it all. He’s named after a great Christian communicator, the translator of the Bible into English, but our Tyndale has rather less intellectual enthusiasms. He’s the one who greets Anne by wagging his tail, but also sniffing around for the dog biscuit she sometimes has about her person. Dogs never miss a chance of a snack: it’s as if they don’t believe they will ever be fed again.

There are, of course, many chances of a morsel falling a dog’s way when a group of people pause to eat together (Matthew 15:26). Tyndale will be busy clearing up crumbs until his master calls a halt.

Each of us has our own gluttony, but I hope and trust that we will find food for all the senses on this walk; food that will build up our souls and our friendships. Even aches and pains, weariness and blisters tell us that we are alive!

Our prayers on the march will include a ‘dog lead’ – reflections on Tobit and Matthew 15. A good dog is not one spelt backwards, but  can lead or shepherd us to where we ought to be.

Follow the link to the story of the disciples’ dog on Easter Sunday.

 

May 21. Pilgrims walking to Canterbury MMXIX, 1.

Pilgrims to Canterbury MMXIX

I

Every year the L’Arche Kent community walks a pilgrimage back towards Canterbury from somewhere not too nearby. Last year the walk was largely along the North Kent coast from Margate due west; the year before that was across country, using ancient footpaths through fields and woods. This year, I discovered that Michael proposed to walk from Dover to Canterbury.

No doubt you’ve heard of the White Cliffs of Dover? They are real, tall, and almost solid. Lumps of chalk large and small tend to drop off into the sea. On the beach is a monument to the Channel Swimmers which is counted as the start or finish of the North Downs Way, a long distance path that goes west towards Guildford. Across the water, it becomes one of those roads that lead to Rome.

A little way inland the Way is a footpath that climbs up the side of the valley, very steeply, even in the town. As part of planning this year’s hike, I followed this through the town, across the railway towards Thanet and then met a notice that said the path was closed. There was some hefty civil engineering going on, with mud and ruts and men in yellow suits. No way for us.

The map showed a sensible detour (sensible if the hill-climb itself was sensible!) which brought me to a supermarket with a café and respite from the cold wet weather. From there, I crossed the main roads safely, with traffic lights and a subway, and out of suburbia into the countryside on my bike. No need for pushing and pathfinding for a bit.

+ + + + +

But this pathway will not do! There was a meeting a few days later which suggested a different way. Let’s see how this looks. We would leave Dover more gently, along the banks of the little River Dour. But we’ll still have to get up the valley side; paradoxically, we must climb up the Downs. And not all of us are very fit.

May 29: Relics XII: To everything a season, turn turn.

When L’Arche Kent were looking for a home for this machine, I remembered:

Back in November 1979, there were a few hand-powered machines on a shelf at L’Arche. Four years before, I had scrounged the shuttle for one of them from a reluctant salesman at the Singer shop in Canterbury. He could not sell me one, as fittings had changed since 1914, but we got that machine working again after he rather exasperatedly let me take the shuttle from a broken machine outside the shop door. Back then Singer’s offered £10 part-exchange on old machines for new, but destroyed the old one. Obviously there was no commission coming my transaction!

 So, in November 1979 Janet and I were visiting Little Ewell together, and she asked Sue Dolan if she could buy a machine for her own use. Sue told her to help herself to whichever she liked; the community did not need a treadle machine and three hand-powered.

Over to the workshop in the dark, and which machine did we choose?

No prize for guessing! But there was another reason for choosing it, though it was not the best of the three. This was a German machine, made around the time of the Great War, which belonged to a Mrs Day of Dover. In 1940 her daughter was a pupil at Miss Kennet’s private school out at Temple Ewell where she was when the German bomb fell on the house, killing her mother. All that was salvaged was the sewing machine; its case was beyond repair, the base badly damaged.

Miss Kennet was an early supporter of L’Arche Kent. We knew her as ‘Ken’. She had taken in the shell-shocked ‘Daisy’ – as we called Miss Day, and had looked after her ever since. In her turn Daisy cared for Ken up in Canon’s Cottage in Barfrestone Village, after they retired from the school. It was a privilege to be invited for afternoon tea.

The school house served as a base for a changing  group of Assistants until it was sold and 20 The Glen Shepherdswell, at walking distance from Barfrestone, was bought. But that’s another story or two: this one is about a relic from the earliest friends of the community. A story about The Glen was told last June, see :

small miracle

MMB

8 July: The Scandal of Disunity

There are signs of hope. Here is Francis, Bishop of Rome, receiving a blessing from Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury. No charade, surely? The Pope would not bring about scandal by seeking a blessing from a heretic schismatic. When Bishop Nicholas Hudson joined Bishop Trevor Willmott in blessing the congregation at Canterbury Cathedral, what were we to make of the implied recognition of value in Anglican orders?

The scandal is not that these isolated events happen, but that we lack the courage of our convictions, so they remain isolated. Forty years ago I was assured that, juridically, Anglican orders were all valid since Old Catholic bishops had taken part in enough ordinations to ensure recognition of Anglican Apostolic Succession.

In another church, a good distance from Canterbury, a Catholic bishop was ordained recently, with his friend, co-worker and Anglican bishop, robed on the sanctuary. It was good to see him there, but he was not invited to join the Catholic bishops by laying hands on the ordinand.

And the announcement that day deterring non-Catholics from receiving the Eucharist? If a bishop being ordained is not one of those special occasions when Eucharistic hospitality is to be encouraged, I’m not clear when it may be grudgingly permitted. Put out into the deep!

WT.

A Kindly Leader

 

 

 

Chichester Cathedral is close enough to the sea to have been a landmark for sailors, they say.

Here they remember with great affection Bishop Saint Richard, whom we once met at the Catholic Church in Droitwich, the town where he was born.  They tell the story of his life in mosaics, from ploughboy to teacher to bishop.

Richard is barely remembered at Canterbury, though he was chancellor of the Cathedral and a local parish priest. But a school is named after him at Dover where he died.

Over at Chichester Cathedral his statue makes Richard  look like a real human being. People said that his name was appropriate because he was RI-DENS – laughing, CAR-US – dear, and D-ULCIS, gentle. He was strong enough to stand up to King Henry III who did not want him as bishop.

All his strength and humility come out in his famous prayer:

Thanks be to Thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which Thou has given me; for all the pains and insults which thou hast borne for me.

 

http://www.chichestercathedral.org.uk/

http://www.sacredheartdroitwich.org.uk/mosaics_rightnave.htm