CHAPTER 1

The Lord is Here

It was a typical August day. It was noon and I had already taken three services andspoken to over sixty American visitors. The church was heaving with people. At thismoment it felt more like a supermarket than a place of prayer. I just wanted to escape. Atthe back of the church sat a busload of Saga pilgrims, obviously a little tired. They weretrying to eat their packed lunches without being noticed. In the south aisle a very intelligentman was standing by the facsimile of the Lindisfarne Gospels and proclaiming his wisdom.He was speaking in a stage whisper so that all could hear and acknowledge it. In the northaisle a group of children were sitting on the carpet and making merry sounds. Theirchortling showed they were very happy to be where they were. There were at least 150people just wandering around, most looking rather lost. There were three mums withbuggies in the main aisle. (I am convinced that people with buggies – or supermarkettrolleys – tend to display their genetic descent from Boudicca! Anyone who stands in theroad is in danger of being mown down.) Someone stopped me and asked, 'Do you stillhave services in this church?' When I told him, 'At least three every day,' he refused tobelieve me, saying, 'No one goes to church that often.' I felt I had had enough for onemorning. What can be done with such a madding crowd? With the excuse of lunch, it wastime to escape this busy place.

Before I could get to the door, in strode a group of young people. They made straight forthe front pews on either side of the main aisle. As there were about twenty of them, theyalmost filled four pews. After a deep bow to the east, they all knelt except one. This was apretty young woman who stood with arms raised in prayer. Suddenly, the whole churchwas silent. The air began to tingle. There was some strange power at work. You couldactually feel it. No one in the church dared to move. The children were the first to sensethe change and became absolutely still and quiet. The loud speaker ceased from hislecture. The Saga pilgrims stopped eating their sandwiches and bowed their heads. Allwere being touched by something deep and mysterious. You could actually feel somethingwith your whole being. There was a sense of expectancy in the air. We were waiting forsomething to happen. After a while, the young woman lowered her arms. The whole groupthen arose, made a bow and went out. They left a hushed building and people that wereaware that something special had just taken place. How long the vibrant silence lasted Icould only guess. It must have been at least two or three minutes.

Who were these young folk? What had made them come here and what were they doingin the church? I could not resist following them out and enquiring about their visit. Sadly, Ishould have been able to guess they were not English. In fact they could not speakEnglish except for one young man. His sentences were slow and thoughtful. 'We are fromSlovakia. As Christians, we have a new freedom. To celebrate our new liberty, we soughtone of the holiest places we had heard of and came to give thanks to God. Our pilgrimageis one of thanksgiving.' Needless to say, I was deeply moved by the directness andsimplicity of his statements. It was the next sentence that caused me much joy andamusement. 'I hope that we did not disturb anyone.' I could only take his hand and say,'Thank you. I believe that you have disturbed us all by revealing the presence that is everwith us. God bless you all on your journey.'

I would never see these young people again but what they did that busy August day wouldremain with me for ever. Without words they had introduced our visitors to the holy andthe mysterious. Their faith gave them a confidence, not in themselves but in their God.They rejoiced in his presence and helped others to be more aware of the God in theirmidst. I am sure they did not need to come to the Island to find God, they knew that Godwas with them. They did not come to proclaim God, yet their very lives and actions said,'God is with us.'

Here was I, called to look after a holy place and I was ready to write it off for the daybecause of the crowds. Was I not in danger of excluding God from the fullness of life, frombusyness and human encounter? This group of young folk said strongly, without words,'God is here. His presence is with us.' They rejoiced in a presence that was part of theirdaily life. They were not seeking God on the Island, they were here to give thanks thatGod was with them in their joys and sorrows, in their captivity and in their new-foundfreedom. Yet some of the visitors to the church that day would remember how theseyoung folk brought God to them. I am sure these young worshippers had no thought ofbeing missionaries. They did not come to preach. Yet, their lives spoke far louder thanwords. They did not come to talk about God but they did introduce a whole group ofpeople to a presence that day. In many ways these young folk reminded me of the earlyCeltic saints.

The Celtic saints were said to leave their homes peregrini pro Dei amore or peregrini proChristi amore, that is, as 'pilgrims for the love of God' or 'pilgrims for the love of Christ'.This would distinguish them from those who were just wanderers, or in our terms tourists.The word peregrini means wanderers or travellers. Because of their different pattern to thestars, the planets were called 'wandering stars'. For these early Christian travellers it wasnot wanderlust or the desire to see new places that made them leave their homes andmonasteries, it was the call and the love of God. In their journey along the road of life theysought the depth to their own existence and a closer awareness of the presence of God.They would have happily said the words of a modern writer:

God our pilgrimage impels,
To cross sea-waste or scale life-fells;
A further shore,
One hill brow more,
Draws on the feet, or arm-plied oars,
As our soul onward, upward soars.

(G. R. D. McLean, 1961, p. 55)

Pilgrimage is often not just a seeking of God but a response to his call. The journey is notonly to find God, it is to travel in his presence and to journey deeper into the mystery andwonder of that presence and love. Every seeker is responding to a call to somethinghigher and nobler, or to an emptiness that yearns to be filled. In fact emptiness andboredom are often a call for us to move on and to be changed. We all know there aregreater meanings and depths to life and are challenged to come out of our safety andsecurity. We need to recognize that our restlessness is often the call to look in newdirections that we may discover the presence and love of God which is about us. How wellwe should heed the words of St Augustine of Hippo, 'Lord, our hearts are restless untilthey rest in you.'

Sometimes we have to move out beyond the safe and the secure to become more awareof the mystery of our world. Leaving the familiar and predictable for a while gives us abetter chance of moving on in our lives. Dislocation can deepen our awareness. We takeour wrists for granted but if we dislocate a wrist we realize just how important it is to us.Dislocation can make us appreciate our home and our way of life. The Celtic saints, byliving as strangers in a strange land for Christ's sake, were able to deepen theirawareness of the reality that they were citizens of another kingdom. By going away fromhome they discovered that they were Hospites mundi, 'Guests of the world'. This did notmean they did not belong to the world, or that they did not like the world. They oftenshowed a great love for the world. But they acknowledged that, for them, it was atransitory place, a place of perpetual change that was only part of their life. Theyrecognized that they were travellers on the road of life. For pilgrimage to be real it has tobe a moving experience! The outer journey is a visible sign that we are being moved andchanged in our inner being. More important than the place that we are travelling to is ourattitude, our intention and the involvement of our heart.

I had a very holy site, the church on Holy Island, to look after and saw only bustle andcrowds. A group of young people came and placed themselves before God! Withoutwords they proclaimed the presence of God in our midst. I did not go for my lunch until Ihad returned to the church and said the words of Jacob, 'Surely the Lord is in this placeand I did not know it.'

There are two Irish sayings that I like: 'It is not by your feet alone you can come to God.'And, 'Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.' Travel for the sake of it can oftenhelp you to avoid being a pilgrim. To fill your eyes and your mind with new places and newexperiences will not benefit you unless the heart is touched. Here is some advice frommedieval Ireland to those that travel to Rome; you could change the destination to anyplace:

Going to Rome? Going to Rome?
It will bring much trouble, little gain.
Your long journey could be in vain.
The King you seek, will only appear
If in your heart you brought him here.

I have met 'pilgrims' who are wearied with their journey and long for the comfort andfamiliarity of home. One little Northern lad expressed it well, 'What's here? There's noteven a chip shop!' Some are not at home anywhere and so pilgrimage often leaves themunchanged. I see pilgrims reflecting the feeling of Matthew Arnold in his poem 'The GrandChartreuse',

Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born
With nowhere yet to rest my head.

One man reflected this when he asked if he could stay for our evening service. He said, 'Iwill sit right at the back, I do not want to be involved.' I could not say to him this was notpossible. If he was not involved he could not possibly understand what we were doing. Wewere placing our hearts before our God. We were offering our whole being. The wordsmight sound dull and boring to an outsider but for us this was a love affair. You cannotreally understand a love affair if you have no involvement. Yet God is gracious; perhapsGod would touch this man through our words and actions. If the heart is not involved in thejourney it will benefit us little. I believe we have dual citizenship: we belong to two worldsand should enjoy them both. Too often Christians give the impression you should turnyour back on this God-given world. God has created this world and loves it. If we despisethe creation and reject it how can we learn to love the Creator? Take to heart the words ofSt Ignatius Loyola:

God freely created us so that we might know, love and serve him in this life and be happywith him for ever. God's purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of loveand service here on earth, so that we may obtain our goal of everlasting happiness withhim in heaven.

All things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we cancome to know him better, love him more surely and serve him more faithfully.As a result, we ought to appreciate and use these gifts of God insofar as they help ustowards our goal of loving service and union with God. But insofar as any created thingshinder our progress toward our goal, we ought to let them go.

(The Spiritual Exercises,The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978, p. 23)

In order that we may live well, we need to be sure of our relationship with this world andthe next. The young folk who gave silent thanks to God did so for the new freedom thatthey had in this world. No doubt that freedom reflected their longing for the gloriousfreedom of the children of God.

Teilhard de Chardin outlines the dangers of a divided heart and mind if we do not loveGod and the world aright. He suggests that most Christians are in danger of becoming'distorted, disgusted, or divided'. We become distorted when we deny our taste for thetangible world and make ourselves look at purely religious objects. To do this we need tobanish so much of the beauty and splendour that is about us. In denying our natural lovefor the world we distort the truth about ourselves and our God. The disgusted decide thatthe world is too wonderful to deny and they turn their backs on God, like the man whowent away sorrowing because he had too many riches. They seek to live thoroughlyhuman lives without recourse to any higher being. Yet they know in themselves that thereis more to this world and in themselves than they are acknowledging. To deny all mysteryand wonder is to diminish ourselves and our horizons. The third group is the mostcommon and that is the divided. They give up any attempt of making sense of thesituation; they never belong wholly to God or wholly to things. Such people often live bydouble standards and are seen as insincere.

We can all experience this division in ourselves at times. There are many times in ourlives when we are not wholly there, when we are not giving our attention or ourselves. Totravel in body but not in spirit is to be a tourist but not a pilgrim. Yet even a tourist needs tobe there; Annie Dillard says, 'Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we willsense them. The least we can do is try to be there'. Sadly, divided people are rarelypresent wherever they are. To travel in body but not in heart cannot bring us peace orsatisfaction. Though we must not forget that the love of God seeks to break in at all times.God offers himself to us whether we are aware of it or not.

Many of the Christians who want to go on pilgrimage have been detained for a while fromtheir journey. Christians under obligation to work, state or family may not have thefreedom of movement they would like. Lack of resources or courage can prevent thebeginning of pilgrimage, at other times it can be direct opposition or an anti-Christianenvironment. Some may even be in prison. Then, like many that have gone before them,they have to make a pilgrimage of the heart. I often suggest to people that they become'armchair pilgrims'. When we are detained in body we are still free at heart. One prisonersaid to me, 'Though my body is in prison my heart is free.' We have a freedom that no onecan take from us, we are God's people and he is with us. Nothing can separate us fromGod or his love. We need to learn to rest in that love wherever we are, to abide in him andknow that he abides in us. Then we will know that God is with us wherever the road of lifetakes us.

I believe that we rarely discover that the world is a holy place until we have found one holyplace. Once we find one holy place there is a chance for all to become holy. Sometimeswe can choose a holy place and set our sights on going there one day. We can find out asmuch as we can about that place and its saints. We can have pictures and icons and filmsabout it. If we do this we need to be aware of the danger of fantasy. It is better to discoverthat the place where you are is holy or at least has the potential for holiness. Let Godenter your heart and the place where you are. If you feel that God is far off, rememberfeelings are liars. 'In him we live and move and have our being.' You are in the presenceof God no matter where you are. You are in the heart of God and God seeks to dwell inyour heart. Holiness comes with the territory, for the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it.You belong to God and in a wonderful way, God belongs to you.

There is a lovely legend telling of God after the Fall asking his angels where he shouldhide. Because man had hidden from God, God will now become hidden. A bright littleangel said, 'Hide in the heaven.' 'O, no,' said God, 'for humans will always aspire to higherthings and they will find me there.' A second glowing angel said, 'Well then, hide in thedeep.' Again God replied, 'Human life is full of many depths and they will surely plumb thedepths and find me.' The third angel had been biding his time and felt he was now on safeground. 'Why not hide in the human heart?' God smiled at the angel and decided to dojust that. God said, 'I will hide in the human heart and I am sure they will not ever seek methere.' If God is hidden from your sight, you can still find him in your heart. Learn what thePsalmist means when he makes God say, 'Be still, and know that I am God.' The youngpeople from Slovakia travelled deeper into the heart of God while carrying God in theirhearts.