St George and St Gabriel, Stockport

Nearly half a million people visit Galicia each year to walk the Camino de Santiago.  It seems that northern Spain is not the only pilgrimage destination that has become increasingly popular.  In the past couple of weeks I’ve come across four magazine articles on pilgrimages and pilgrim routes.  Two of them in our own Grapevine.

In his piece in the September Grapevine Peter wonders whether the runners pitting themselves against time constraints and the challenges of the Pennine Way could be on a pilgrimage.

Hazel’s description of the Peak Pilgrimage walks, in October’s Grapevine, is of something more leisurely and gentle.  Of following a route and visiting a series of churches. Nevertheless, both are about challenge and achievement – getting somewhere and proving something.  Even if it is only collecting a sticker to say you were there.

Certainly, traditionally a person on a pilgrimage is trying to achieve something.  They are on a journey with a purpose.  There is a destination the pilgrim is trying to reach.  A place  of spiritual significance.  But after they reach it, they are still, like the rest of us, on life’s journey. 

So we are all travellers, wayfarers, pilgrims even.  And being a pilgrim is a way of moving through the world.  A way that we create daily by our words and actions.  For, as the Spanish poet Antonio Machado says, “Caminante, No hay camino… Traveller there is no road… your footsteps make the road.”     

Chris Dawson

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

So says the writer of Ecclesiastes. In other words, each aspect of life has a natural rhythm, we may ignore it, even defy it, but it is there.

This year’s increased rainfall has affected the usual rhythms of autumn. More water has meant that trees are staying greener for longer. When a colder snap comes, the leaves are likely to turn all at once into their autumn colours and fall. Nature responds and does it’s best to get back into this rhythm.

Having just moved home, I am constantly opening the wrong drawer. I am out of rhythm. A pattern is slowly emerging, but I’m still searching for things. I feel a bit out of kilter. What was automatic and routine has become blunderingly deliberate. It’s only through repetition and focus that I will restore balance.

Though we benefit from having rhythms and routines, the pace and technology of modern life often mitigate against us adopting them.  We can switch on instant entertainment, contact anyone, anywhere at any time and travel across continents and time zones. We don’t have to wait for a time and a season.

What about our spiritual life, our quiet time, our prayer life? Do we just snatch what time we can? And does it work?  The Dalai Lama was asked what was key to meditation. His reply?  “Routine”   A very practical and down to earth response.

Chris Dawson

11th October 2024

How often do you look in the mirror?  Apparently men look more often and women look for longer.  And  when you look, what is reflected back?  Do you see a dearly beloved child of God?

A story:

“See yourself for a shekel!”  A boy in the market is holding a tiny piece of mirror, encouraging people to look at their faces for one shekel (about 20p).

He is making a living by offering a very rare service.  I have not seen my face since I arrived in Rafah, many weeks ago.  You can’t buy mirrors any more.  Anyway, a mirror is something you forget about in this situation.  How you look doesn’t matter.

I ask him: “Do you make money this way?”

He tells me he does.  “Lots of people want to see themselves,” he says.  “I make 30 shekels a day, or more.  “But you see him?”  The boy points to a man down the street walking away from us.

“He looked at his face, but gave the mirror back to me without paying.  I’m not stopping him, though.  He had a cut from his face all the way down to his chest, a long, horrible cut, not healed well at all.  I think it was from shrapnel.  He looked at his big, ugly scar and when he gave me back the mirror I saw he was crying, so I let him go.”

I took the boy’s mirror and looked at my face.  It’s got very skinny.  I have no mirror for shaving, so the stubble on my chin is all uneven, some bits longer than other bits.  I’m a mess.  I did not cry.  I gave the child two shekels and continued walking.

Hossam Al-Madhoun, February 18, 2024 (The New European)

Chris Dawson

Some people see a need and get on with things.  Others find excuses not to.  “It’s not my responsibility… above my pay grade… someone will sort it.”  Yes, sometimes we need to set boundaries, or we can end up running round like the proverbial headless chicken.  But we can also find all sorts of reasons for not stepping forward.

During World War II a German widow hid Jewish refugees in her home.  When friends discovered she was doing this, they became extremely alarmed and feared for her well-being.

          “You’re risking your own safety.  You know what will happen if you’re found out,” they told her.

          “I know,” she said.

          “Then why are you doing it?  It’s crazy.”

          Her answer was straightforward and simple.  “I am doing it,” she said, “because the time is now and I am here.”  (Source unknown)

So, if we see a cobweb that needs clearing, perhaps we can just get a brush and deal with it! 

Chris Dawson

“Finally brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”  So says St Paul at the end of his letter to the Philippians.

Over the past few days I’ve found myself doing just that – thinking about what is true and fair and just.  Today, Tuesday, there is a debate and vote in Parliament about the proposed cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance.  Last week we had the publication of the Grenfell Fire Enquiry.  Coming up next month is a Government budget. 

I’ve discovered that thinking – even about truth, fairness and justice – can come to comfortable conclusions:  I’ll be OK without the Winter Fuel Allowance. We don’t need it. Yes, I am outraged – at a distance, of course – at the buck passing and unwillingness to take responsibility for the Grenfell Fire.  I’m also rather hoping that taxes are raised on the rich rather than me.

“Whatsoever is comfortable and convenient and doesn’t give me too much trouble….then I’ll think about these things.”

Chris Dawson

GCSE results last week.  A levels the week before.  Expectations met.  Expectations exceeded.  Hopes fulfilled.  Hopes dashed.  Futures mapped out….?

I have mentioned before that one of my favourite Radio 4 programmes is The Life Scientific.  Jim Al-Khalili – the son of an English mother and an Arab father, who lived in Iraq until he was sixteen – interviews scientists about their lives and work.  The programme is as much about people and their life stories as it is about science.

We discover how, quite often, guests now in distinguished positions and having made significant impacts in their chosen fields, went down a different route from the one they originally intended. More than once because they didn’t get the appropriate A level grades. 

Mr Townsend was a blind piano tuner who lived in our village.  I was about nine years old when he put his hand on my head and felt my skull.  He predicted I’d be a low comedian.  Maybe it’s not too late.

I wonder how those fisherman saw their futures when an itinerant rabbi told them to stop fishing and follow him.

          Lord of every pilgrim heart,

          bless our journeys

          on these roads

          we never planned to take,

          but

          through your

          surprising wisdom

          discovered

          we

          were

          on…

(Peter Millar, from A Book of Blessings)

Chris Dawson

When I have won my gold medal, who am I?  Or more challenging still, perhaps, having spent four years and not got the expected medal, who am I?  Not questions that most of us have to answer.  But we all have the challenge of identity.  Who am I in relation to myself, to others and, ultimately – or is it foremost – to God?

It is tempting to seek identity in places that turn out in the end to be an illusion, all of them fading with age and time.  To seek it in money, status and power.  Through being clever and achieving.  By being an influencer, or belonging to an in crowd. 

We all need to know that we exist and to have our existence acknowledged.  The worst thing is to be ignored – people living on the street will tell you that.  We also need to know that we are loved and valued just for who we are.  Identity is more than the persona we create, or the picture in our Greater Manchester bus pass.  It is, as John reminds us, ultimately about love, about loving relationships.

That is challenging, because to find our identity, we have to let go the identity we have created and connect with those around us in a spirit of love.  As John exhorts us, “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God.”  Identity is about giving and receiving, loving and being loved and connecting with our source.

At the end of the Women’s Pentathlon all the competitors embraced each other,  stood in a line across the track, held hands and, with smiles on their faces, raised them aloft in a salute to an applauding crowd.  Thousands of individual identities merged in a greater loving whole.

Chris Dawson

The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics was certainly different.  Instead of taking place in a stadium, it was a continuous procession down the Seine, with teams and tableaux on barges. 

In spite of the incessant rain, there were some magic moments. Celine Dione singing Edith Piaf’s Hymne à l’amour and the Marseillaise  sung by soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel from the rooftop of the Grand Palais.  Not to mention the silver horse with Sequana, the goddess of the Seine on its back, riding up the river to the Eiffel Tower.

This tableau of the horse and rider, entitled Solidarité, was intended to embody the Olympic spirit.  But what was the intention behind the tableau with transgender model and singer, Paloma, at its centre.  Dressed as Dionysus, the Greek God of wine and pleasure, other drag queens posed either side of her, to many the scene was reminiscent of Da Vinci’s depiction of The Last Supper.

“Is nothing sacred?”  I hear some people say.  Yes, the tableau has caused quite a stir.  But what do we mean by “sacred”?  To followers of Islam the black stone in the Kaaba at Mecca is sacred, Christian scriptures are often referred to as sacred, to pagans Stonehenge is sacred.

“Sacred”, it seems to me, is a value we humans put on things, depending on our view of the world, our culture and the beliefs we hold.  What if we held all of creation to be sacred and treated it as such?  Now, that would be a challenge.

Chris Dawson 

It’s a wonderfully warm day today and I joked that I was glad that I hadn’t entered the Olympics this year.  I wouldn’t have had the energy in this heat!  Of course, you can’t self-select yourself for such a competition.  But we do tend to set ourselves our own challenges and competitions. 

Sometimes we push ourselves, as the Olympic motto puts it, to become,”Swifter, Higher, Stronger.”  And sometimes even that is not enough.  One of Team GB’s swimmers, Max Litchfield came 4^th in the Individual Medley final.  He missed out on a medal by hundredths of a second.  His time would have won Olympic Gold 4 years ago.

Adam Peaty is a phenomenal breast stroke swimmer.  He has already won gold medals at two previous Olympics.  Last Sunday evening he went for a third and came equal second.  The winner was a mere two hundredths of a second faster than him.  All that training, all those mental challenges – and he has spoken publicly of his mental health struggles – all the ‘doing without’ to achieve a single goal.  How do you handle that?

The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews likens the Christian journey to a race and urges us to, “run with perseverance the race that is set before us,” with Jesus as our example and guide.   As part of that journey we might also embrace the other three Olympic values of Excellence, Respect and Friendship.  Adam did just that when he immediately embraced and congratulated the gold medal winner, Nicolo Martinengi.

Chris Dawson

It’s peak holiday time again.  The flights to and from Manchester are just as numerous as before Covid. 

This weekend some 20,000 Mallorcans protested in their main square in Palma.  As one of them put it, “We don’t want to be a theme Park.” What did a tourist think?  “I’m here with a girlfriend for a long weekend,” she said.  “We flew from Liverpool.  It’s only a three hour flight.”

Yes, we all need time out, time for refreshment, renewal and reconnection – as Jesus shows us when he and his disciples remove themselves from the crowds.

Cheap as an all-inclusive holiday to Mallorca may be, it still excludes plenty of people – bereaved families and families living in poverty, often with a child with additional needs.  Such families are supported to take a break within this country by the Family Holiday Charity: 

Mandy has a slipped disc and suffers from fibromyalgia.  Her son Logan, has a prosthetic leg and autism.  Her daughter, Erin, is often called on to help around the home.  Mandy and Erin are considered as Logan’s carers.

Erin and Logan lost their father, Chris, unexpectedly at the start of the Covid pandemic.  As Mandy says, “Since then we have been feeling a bit lost.”  Unsurprisingly, relationships between the three have sometimes been a little fractious.

The holiday was just what the family needed.  “The kids got to spend some time bonding and I got time with each of them individually.  Plus, I actually had some alone, just me and the dog which was nice.  It’s helped us to realise that sometimes you just have to step back a bit…To be given that opportunity to help us heal was phenomenal.”

Chris Dawson