Reflecting on life of pilgrimage

Yesterday was a day to do the weekly grocery shopping, and enjoy sitting out in our sun-trap of a garden, in the afternoon, as more flowers blossom in the spring warmth. How fortunate we are! I've made the effort to follow tweets from clergy I know at the Diocesan Clergy School in Santiago de Compostela to know what they are doing. Best of all, retired Dean of Durham Michael Sadgrove is there giving a series Bible Studies on Pilgrimage themes and posting them on his blog. I'm so glad that these are not just available to clergy but to anyone interested, wanting to share indirectly in this experience. You can find these addresses and more of his sermons here at his blog site. They are long, but well worth the effort of reading.

This set me thinking about the pilgrimages I have made at different stages of my life. When I was a student, the Russian Orthodox classic 'Way of a Pilgrim' was a seminal book for me. I visited Llandaff, as a teenager, then Glastonbury, Canterbury and Taize as a Uni student, then Walsingham, St David's and Rome in my early ministry years, then Damascus and Aleppo (in search of Ephraim the Syrian). plus Jerusalem and Bethlehem in mid-life. All the earlier ones were made with groups of people. Those in the MIddle East I made alone, but went to stay with Christians living there. 

In retirement I've spent time travelling to places and passing time in locum ministry with Christians wherever I am sent. Early on this meant travelling to parishes within the Diocese, thirty of them in total. Then living in Spain, pastoring during interregnums. This has been a kind of pilgrimage, engaging not so much with sacred stories and places, but with 'living stones'. I look at sacred edifices wherever I go, with pleasure, but rejoice not just in great ancient architecture, but in the ministry of welcome they offer to visitors. Last year in Malaga for Semana Santa was one of the strongest experiences of my life, journeying through the story of Christ's passion on the city streets, juxtaposing the story with everyday life. What would I make of the Camino de Santiago, I wonder, now that I am so familiar with Spanish Catholicism, its history and culture? What would my journey be like? Where would it start, or end?

This morning I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's, and revisited the story of St Matthias with a congregation of seven. In the afternoon I walked over to Tesco's on Western Avenue in search of some file folders as I strive to get my domestic admin tidier. Earlier I spent an hour shredding bank statements up to the time I retired. All the utility bills are there, but jumbled together, and this adds to the effort of referring to them when needed even if it is only once in a few years.

We had a six monthly water rate bill this morning. It's increased by twenty pounds, not because of an increase in prices, but due to an increase in consumption, caused by all the extra linen washing that managing my ailment has generated. And when I think of all the medical waste produced from daily domestic dressing changes, these days thanks to sterile disposable everything, it makes me realise how many aspects of illness are resource hungry in this day and age. As was ever thus I suppose.

Michael Sadgrove's third talk was about Pilgrimage and Pain. It resonated with me because of what I have been through this past nine months. I recognise with gratitude that everyday coping, trying to live a normal life and exercise a ministry with pain, discomfort, vulnerability inconvenience, relying heavily on others, has taught me things I would never have understood before, or just taken for granted. I'm so much more grateful to be alive and occasionally useful than I might ever have been before. When I'm really better, it would do me good to take time out and re-count my blessings properly, but where and how?

   

The art of interpretation

I had a funeral at St John's this morning with about eighty people present, unusual for a ninety year old, except that this was a woman with a large extended family. They didn't seem to know much of her early life and it was only just before the funeral that someone doing the funeral paperwork let it be known that she had been born in the large corner house opposite the north porch entrance to the church. It's been divided into apartments for a long time but may have once been a maternity home. That was a surprise to everyone, when I mentioned it in paying tribute to her.

The funeral ended with burial in Western Cemetery in bright sunshine, accompanied by birdsong, As I was waiting for the hearse to arrive, I noticed in the burial plot close to where we were parked an unusual headstone. It was about a third taller than usual, and the top section was carved and painted into the form of outspread wings, not angel wings, but rather the form of Dumbo, Disney's baby elephant in the 1941 animated movie, whose ears were so big he finds he can use them to fly. 

It's the grave of a child I thought, but it was the tombstone of a 22 year old woman - sure someone's child - I imagine there's a story behind this choice. It wouldn't happen in a churchyard, where forms and images on monumental stones are closely controlled, but this is a municipal cemetery and its occupants reflect a far wider range of beliefs and tastes, some of which make me stop and think. The Dumbo story is a sideways take on the American Dream - you can make it you try - this unfortunate creature finds he can transform what others consider a liability (oversize ears) into an asset (wings). Is this a non-theologian's way of finding meaning in a premature death? You'd need to talk to the bereaved family to find out. 

Funerary monuments, in church and in churchyards until relatively recently used symbolism from the Classical world associated with grief and mourning. Sometimes the sculpted head or even full recumbent figure of the deceased as well as images of saints or angels praying were above a tomb. Instead these days, photographic images of the deceased can be etched into stone or rendered in an enamelled vignette and added to the memorial. Churchyards, at least in Britain, and maybe also in other protestant countries, tend to be more limited in what is displayed, not nearly as diverse and exotic as secular graveyards, or for that matter, mainstream Catholic cemeteries in Western Europe. It's all an aspect of how we identify ourselves and where we ultimately belong in the human story.

I had a clinic visit after lunch, and much to our relief was finally able to re-stock medical supplies. My clinic visits are reducing to three days in seven now that healing is progressing well, and often I can get by with a dressing change once a day, which Clare can do at home. We're back now to where we were before the second op five weeks ago. We're still waiting to hear when I'll be called for the next round of surgery, which may or may not be the last. We'll see.

I went into town late afternoon and mooched around the shops for an hour before heading out to say Mass at St Dyfrig and St Samson's Grangetown. I was standing in for Dr David who, like the rest of Llandaff diocesan licensed clergy are visiting Santiago de Compostella for a five day clergy school. Already festive tweets and pictures are being posted from #LlandaffinSantiago. Despite misgivings I have about them all going to Spain to think together about the meaning of pilgrimage, I can only pray this will be a blessed experience for them all.

It was the Parish Mother's Union Corporate Communion occasion this evening, Afterwards a group of half a dozen of them were going out for what they called 'a belated Christmas meal together'. I liked that. We were ten of us altogether, and I used the next day's liturgy of St Matthias the Apostle to mark the occasion. Any excuse to talk about a missionary saint and martyr, that's me!