Day nineteen

19th May 2009 NORTHERN IRELAND

A chocolate chicken and the people and things that went before

It was one of those mornings when you half wake up and you’re not too sure where it is you are… for a moment I thought I was still in Scotland… and then I remember a boat… a truck driver laughing at me for being lost in the port of Larne… the looking for a castle… the streets of Belfast… a café… sitting in a pub… rhubarb crumble and ice cream. Got it… I’m in the spare room of the Rev. Richardson (Simon) and Moyra’s home, in a town called Hillsborough. I look at the time, it’s not yet six o’clock. A little too early to get up. Hands behind my head I slowly wake up properly, it is already light outside, the sky looks to be overcast, the bed is warm… I’m glad to stay put for a little longer… I think about yesterday, the day had started at the kitchen table of Omar, Sumie, Victor and Amalia’s home… a full breakfast and a pot of tea and again another pot of tea just after mid-day in a café on the streets of Belfast and if that was not enough tea, another pot in a pub at the end of the walking day… and then a hot meal… and more tea at the home of Simon and Moyra… how good is that (oh yeah and not forgetting the crumble) … and then a hot shower and a warm bed… This pilgrimage stuff is not as tough as it is made out to be… step into an adventure with the right heart and things happen… doors open… people do care… people are glad to give, more than glad… giving is a big part of how it is we were put together.

In the realm of science when something is given from one to another, the thing that has given diminishes and the thing that has taken what has been given becomes bigger (pour tea out of a teapot and into a cup… there will be less tea in the teapot and more tea in the cup). In the realm of heart things are different… people that have a heart (an attitude) of wanting to (and do) give, will grow… those who care little about giving and only take, will diminish… nobody wants to hang around with those that are just in it for the take… it is better to take care of another than to take from another.

I hear movement downstairs, best I make a move I get dressed and head down. Simon has the kettle on… Ten minutes later I’m sat at the kitchen table, corn flakes and toast in front of me… talking to six-year-old Patrick about Doctor Who monsters and sorting out football cards… is that not how days are supposed to start.

Breakfast is done, at the front door with bag on my shoulder, I am saying thank you to both the Rev. Simon and Moyra for allowing me to stay, I shake the hand of Patrick… as I am about to leave, Patrick’s big sister (by a year or two) Erin gives me a little chocolate chicken to take with me… I bob down… “really” Erin nods her head… I don’t really want to take her chocolate chicken… but sometimes I think it is wrong not to take… even from the hands of a child… “Thank you so much” I pause for a moment “That is so kind of you… I will save him for as long as I can” … Erin smiles and I smile back. And there it is… the Heart of God… a heart that wants to give… expressed in a child that is not yet ten… I wonder at when it was, I last gave something so precious (… as a chocolate chicken) to a stranger with such a pure heart as little Erin.

Heading south out of Hillsborough I pick up the smaller roads, only it’s not long (maybe about two miles) before the country road that I am on crashes into a dual carriageway… it seems by looking at the map that I have (it’s not the most detailed of maps) the only way to head south is to follow the dual carriageway… not ideal, but needs be… another two miles down the road the dual carriageway sweeps around the western side of a small town called Dromore. Instead of following the main road, I head into town… no doubt I will pick up the dual carriageway on the far side of town. In town I pick up a takeaway coffee from a small café (Thank you), I sit in the grounds of Dromore Cathedral next to the River Lagan. The weather is a little overcast but it’ not cold… the coffee is good, hot, sweet and appreciated and I again say thank you.

Still with coffee in hand I step into the cathedral, I sit quietly on a bench to one side, next to one of the many stone pillars… sipping coffee and lost in thought… Faith is a curious thing…. The need for something to believe in, has been with us since the dawn of time… the world of truth, beauty and love is I believe a world as real as the stones that make up this cathedral … it is how we get there, that sometimes feels impossible. The many different religions around the world have a background story of how it is they came about. I grew up with the stories from the Bible… as a kid that is all they were… stories... I think as I grew older (I like to think a little wiser… yeah I know that’s probably up for debate), I saw something more than just stories… no I don’t believe in talking snakes or that every creature that ever walked, slithered or crawled climbed onto a boat two by two or that we built a tower by the name of Babel, that was tall enough to reach the heavens… but what I do know is that those stories are old and for them to have survived, there is more to them than maybe we understand.

I am very much ‘a feet on the ground’ kinda guy (… just as it says on the tin ‘Truck Driver Walking’) … and yet many times when I walk into an empty church or a grand cathedral like this one in Dromore… I sense the closeness of that better world… it feels as if I can almost stretch out a hand and touch it… and yet not quite… or maybe it’s the ground that these places are built on…or the history of the people that have sat quietly in the same place as I sit now … I don’t know what it is… I think maybe quiet moments like this, more than the stories that I read, is what sometimes makes the atmosphere around me shift a little.

The seed of this cathedral goes back a thousand and five hundred years. It is thought that St. Colman built a ‘wattle and daub’ church here in 510 A.D (wattle and daub is a method of constructing walls using vertical wooden stakes (wattles) they are woven with horizontal sticks and twigs and then daubed with a mix of mud, clay and manure) … the time between then and now, churches have been built on this spot destroyed and rebuilt… and today on this same piece of ground that once stood a wattle and daub church… a cathedral now stands.

Maybe one day Google Earth looking down from space at the many different places of worship be it a Cathedral, a Church, a Mosque, a Temple, a Synagogue, a Gurdwara, maybe a stone circle or some other place…. A woodland glade surrounded by ancient oaks… Google Earth will see at the foundations of such buildings and places the thumbprint of God… maybe…, of how it is places (and people) are made ready to take onboard something knew… a clearer understand of what it’s all for… an insight into that near invisible world of truth, beauty and love…Yeah I agree my thoughts are drifting a little… maybe the coffee was a little strong… I think it’s time I made a move… I stand up… give a nod to St. Colman and head back out of the cathedral and onto the overcast streets of Dromore.

Back out of town and on the dual carriageway… it’s not great walking alongside the bigger roads… they stretch out in front of you and seem to go on forever, the steady hum of traffic pushing away thoughts that you’re trying to hold on to… and till your left with nothing but the physical process of walking… one foot in front of the other… I guess it’s no bad thing… the walking on tarmac for mile on mile can act as a reset button… clearing away one set of thoughts and making space for the next.

A little after one, I again step off the dual carriageway and head into a town called Banbridge… a hub in the middle of an agricultural area. Close to the middle of town I am standing on a bridge looking down at the River Bann… it was probably not this bridge but back in 1712 a bridge was built over the river, and this small town grew up around that bridge… I don’t know why but, in my head, I have this image of a bunch of farmers standing around the bridge that they had just built… they look down at the River Bann and then look at the bridge and again down at the river and then at each other and decided to call the area Banbridge…the place where a bridge crosses the River Bann… I wonder if those bunch of guys thought the name would stick for the next three hundred years and beyond. Not sure why but I think names matter… be it a place name or a person’s name… they matter… there are places I’ll remember all my life… people and things that went before. I know I will often stop and think about them … Sorry… off track a little… I think it’s because I’m hungry… I put the idea of the importance of names to the back of my mind… something to come back to another day.

I find a café in town called the ‘Friar Tuck’s’, I step inside and explain again what it is I’m doing and again I am shown a table, given a cup of tea and a sandwich… I am glad to sit down… most of this morning has been walking alongside a dual carriageway, it’s been a tough morning… to be given a tea, a bite to eat, a smile and to be told there is no rush, that I can sit as long as I like… makes a world of difference… ‘Thank you’… I was glad to sit… an hour and three mugs of tea go by, before I again say thank you… as I hobble out of the door the waitress with genuine concern in her voice calls across to me “Take care”. “Will do… you too”.

The aim was to reach a place called Newry before the day was done… a quick look at the map tells me that it is over ten miles away, but under fifteen and again much of that would be alongside a dual carriageway… and that’s not much fun at all. A few times I did manage to get away from the main road, finding a few smaller roads here and there… but never for very long… one lane taking me past Loughbrickland Lake, and others past small farms and hamlets… but as I say much of the walking was alongside a dual carriageway that cuts through the gentle rise and fall of an arable landscape. It was a little after five thirty before I walked into the small city of Newry. It had been one of the hardest days that I had had on this walk, the legs were tired, I was hungry, the sky looked heavy… although it had not rained all day, I was pretty sure it would not be long before that changed… it really would be good to find a place to stay the night.

I found a fish and chip shop that gave me a bag of chips and refilled my water bottle… to have something hot inside me was good. Thank you. I knock on the doors of a few churches… with no luck… I hang around for a while before deciding to head out of town… knock a few miles off tomorrow’s walk… so here I am back on the dual carriageway (whaa…), with the light fading and heavy skies above (… yeah that’s another whaa…).

When it starts to get dark, I walk away from the road and into the heath. Once out of sight of the road, I roll out my sleeping mat and sleeping bag. I wrap up my hill bag and clothes into bin bags… with everything wrapped up against the oncoming rain, I climb into my sleeping bag.

l lay awake thinking about the early pioneers of Christianity, those that came to these islands in the early fourth and fifth century… the likes of St. Colman… moving from one place to another, with very little on their backs… I think unlike me... when they reached out to that world of truth beauty and love sparks jumped across and set them on fire… they went on to build not only ‘wattle and daub’ churches but the very foundations these islands stand on today… an island that in 2009 can embrace peoples from diverse backgrounds… be it race, culture or faith… Yeah I know… I know… we are not there yet… but that is where we need to be… we owe it to the many saints and sages that came before us to create that world… and not just on these islands.

Before I roll over and call it a day, I reach into my bag… pull out my water bottle… a chocolate chicken falls out the side pocket… wow how good is that…I again say thank you to little Erin… and then I say sorry… this chicken will not see another day.

Hmm… as I bite off the head off the chocolate chicken… I’m thinking I have a long way to go before I’m on the same level as those guys that came before me… to start a fire… yes you need a spark… but you also need fuel. The world of truth, beauty and love will supply the spark… it is our job to give that world the fuel… not the dirty fuel of our own self-centred ideologies, but the clean fuel of a pure heart that knows how it is to live for the sake of others… how bright that future would shine. I close my eyes… maybe I’m a dreamer… I hope I’m not the only one.