Day Twenty-two

22nd May 2009 IRELAND

An unbroken thread

I wake up in the home of John and Tae, in the town of Balbriggan, a coastal settlement with a history of fishermen and weavers… the name Balbriggan refers to fine knitted cotton fabric. Tae has put together a breakfast fit for a king and after the table is cleared, another pot of tea is back on the table, the three of us sit and talk… you guessed, about this and that and nothing at all… and it is good. Time is moving on… at the front door Tae gives me a packed lunch… ‘Thank you’. John walks with me for a little, at the edge of town and on the road heading in the direction of Dublin we stop a moment, under a drizzling sky, shake hands and I again say thank you… John nods, turns around and heads back home… me I keep going south heading for the bright lights of the big city… Dublin.

My Gran (my dad’s mum) was born in Dublin or someplace nearby… when she was a teenager her family moved to Manchester in the north of England and set up a Guest House… my Grandad when he was also of a similar age moved down from Scotland to Manchester for work and stayed at their Guest House… and there it is… a boy meets a girl… a part of a never-ending story. We are told all roads, including this long twisting country lane that I’m walking on lead to Rome… I wonder if we were to follow the thread that connects us to our grandparents and then to their grandparents and again to theirs and again and then again… if we kept going to a time before dance floors existed… and still kept going further and further back into the mists of time… maybe to the banks of a river where Running Bear stood… and on the other side of the river stood his lovely Indian maid… Little White Dove was her name, such a lovely sight to see… and between them they had a love that couldn’t die… that is the thread we are following… love… a thread that holds everything together… the very fabric of human existence… a thread that takes us back to the Heart at the centre of the universe… cut that thread and everything starts to fall apart... unravel… without love, life would mean nothing at all.

By late morning the drizzle has stopped… I see blue sky… a little after mid-day the drizzle is back on… goodbye blue skies. Jacket on, hood down, hands in pockets… and I walk. This will be my last full day in Ireland… tomorrow I jump on to a boat and head to Wales… I again say a thank you to Omar (from Carrickfergus) for giving me the money to pay the ferryman… the drizzle is getting heavier, still not proper rain, the hood goes up. The walking is easy going… pretty much on the level… thoughts drift back to the people and faces, the smiles I have experienced these past weeks… the extraordinary kindness that I have been shown fills me with humility, gratitude, a belief in the goodness of people… a sense of belonging. This raggedy truck driver would knock on a door, and it opened… an extra space found at a kitchen table… tea and cake in pretty much every café I stepped into…and at the end of the day if there was no spare bed, then benches or bales of straw would be pushed together… even a fire station unlocked and the soft chairs from the crew room are rearranged in order that I should have a bed… before the start of this walk if someone had told me this is how it would be, I would not have believed them… I stop walking for a moment, place my hands behind my head and turn around… not sure what I was hoping to see… maybe the beach at the top of Scotland where I started this walk from, or the places I had stayed each night… maybe the faces of all those that had gave… I see none of this. With my hands still behind my head I look up at a grey damp sky… close my eyes for a moment… a prayer with no words… Opening my eyes, I see a bunch of cows pushed up against a gate, quietly looking at me, wondering what it is I’m up to… probably glad that I am not on the same side of the gate as they are… looking back at them I think I said ‘What’ out loud. The drizzle has again eased off… I turn my eyes away from the cows and back at the road in front of me, and again start to walk… suddenly I am aware that the hole in the top of my right boot was letting in water.

It is mid-afternoon, there is no blue to be seen… the sky is a blanket of different shades of grey, the air is still, the drizzle as fine as fine can be… sounds grim, but not at all… a handful of cars pass by, not many….there is a quiet, still, and mystical beauty in this landscape that I am walking through… just me and a world, that for the moment feels at peace with itself. In the near distance I see an old tree standing fifty yards inside of a field, I decide to aim for it, a good place to dig out the packed lunch Tae had made for me this morning. At the base of this majestic oak, I sit on my bag, lean up against its rough bark and unwrap my sandwiches… Thank you Tae.

The oak is very much tied up in the history of the British Isles… the Celts and Druids revered the oak, they saw them as magical and the providers of medicines, the first bridge the Romans built over the river Medway (in Rochester, Kent), used oak… the kings and queens of old built their strongholds of oak and stone, Nelson’s fleet, the ships that defeated the French and Spanish armada at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) were built from oak… step into an old Inn, barn or a Cathedral and look up at the rafters and beams, yeah they will be oak… a number of days ago I talked of the ‘wattle and daub’ church that St. Colman had built, I’m not sure but there is a good chance the wattles (upright posts) would have been oak… I had also said it was the likes of St. Colman that had laid the spiritual foundations to these islands, many will say the physical material used in the building of that foundation was oak.

I sit under the protection of that old oak a little longer than I guess I should have; the canopy kept the drizzle away… it was good to sit awhile. Before I push myself back up on to me feet, I check out the hole on the top of my right boot… the stitching has come undone, I can fit both little finger and ring finger into the gap… I don’t think it’ll get any bigger... I hope not I don’t have a second pair.

 
I give the old oak a high five and head back across the field to the road, climbing over the fence back onto tarmac, I glance again towards the oak, and I wonder was this giant of a tree standing in this field as a young sapling in a world, when Running Bear was standing on the banks of a river… how different that world must have been... It is said an oak will take three hundred years to mature, another three hundred years to grow and after that another three hundred years in slow decline… that’s quite a time… but nothing… nothing in comparison to what Running Bear and Little White Dove had between them… they had a love that couldn’t die… true love is eternal… never ending… and that is no small thing

Maybe just over half an hour of walking I come across a rural garage… I am given a take-away coffee… thank you… so here I am walking on a country lane on a wet afternoon in southern Ireland with empty pockets, a bag over my shoulder, a hole in my boot, collar up, a coffee in hand and not a care in the world…

…yeah ok not completely true… but not completely wrong either… yes I have money in my bag, given to me by Omar to pay the ferryman and I am a dad of two little ones, so that is already two cares I have in the world… and if I were to stop a moment and bring to mind all of the people that are in my life… I care about each and every one of them… and what of the people I don’t know or have not yet come across… what’s that phrase, ‘A stranger is a friend not yet met’… on this walk I am very much aware that it is I who is the stranger and is in need of people that care.

Late afternoon I walk into a small town called Swords (the Irish Gaelic name for the town is ‘Sord’ meaning pure, referring to a holy well founded by St. Columba back in the mid five hundreds). In the middle of town there is a castle… While walking out of town I cannot help but wonder… do castles and saints fit together… it feels like a contradiction… purity and swords… wrong and right… I guess the world that we build, is a reflection of who it is we are… or maybe I’m just over thinking things. I take a look at the map; this little town is about eight miles from Dublin (13 km… a little short of a half a thumb print).

By the time I reach the outskirts of Dublin, the drizzle has stopped… there’s a little bit of blue mixed up with the grey… rays of sun break through… the light, shade and colours adds to the beauty of what it is I see around me. For the moment there is a sense of tranquillity in this conflicting world of castles and saints.

I know that in Dublin there is a local Universal Peace Federation (UPF) HQ… much of the work I’m involved in when in Africa is UPF connected …I decide to find out where this building is… maybe there will be an evening meal and a place to stay the night… just maybe. It’s about five thirty when I find the place… I knock at the door, a Mr. Halvard answers and welcomes me in, I start to explain myself, but he already knows who it is I am… I didn’t ask how but guessing through the small blog that I have been putting together after each day of the walk (it is that blog / diary that I am using now to re-tell the story of this adventure). It wasn’t planned but it turns out my timing was good… dinner is just about to be served… ten minutes later I’m sat at a table with Mr. Halvard (I learn that he is Norwegian), another guy sits down, his name is Mr. Jack (he is Irish but has spent many years in America) and in front of us a bowl of Irish stew, bread and coffee… over dinner I am told they have a room that I can stay the night. I am asked what time the ferry is tomorrow. “I don’t yet have a ticket but hoping to catch an early ferry”. Mr. Jack checks the times, there’s a ferry leaving just after eight in the morning. Mr. Halvard informs me “We will have breakfast ready by six… I’m not letting you leave Ireland hungry”. I have been walking for three weeks and I still don’t know how to better say thank you… “Thank you”.
After dinner I am shown the room that I can stay the night… and then more coffee… and after coffee, I decide to head out for a walk (yeah, I know). I don’t stay out long; it is very different walking without a bag on my back.

A little later, laying on the bed… with another coffee next to me, I reflect on the day just gone. My first thoughts are of gratitude… for the roof over my head, for a bed and the stew in my belly. I think these are things that we should try every day to say thank you for … sometimes we take shelter, warmth, a place to rest and food as a given…for many it is not.

What of this unbroken thread, the fabric of human existence, the love between Running Bear and Little White Dove, a love that couldn’t die… Love is not an easy thing to measure, scientist cannot put this stuff under a microscope or in a test-tube over a Bunsen burner nor break it down to its base elements… love is outside of science… and yet without it I’m not so sure anything would make much sense at all. Some would say the purpose of attraction (love) is for the purpose of passing on our DNA, our genes (…I guess there would be no need to pass on boots with holes in them)… the purpose of love is to pass on our genes and nothing more… really!... hmm.

I talked of this thread taking us back to the very heart of the universe… just for the moment imagine (…just for the moment) that that heart belonged to a God that was somehow responsible for the creation of said universe. What would such a God need… as the creator does God not own everything… is not God the Almighty...the all-knowing… and yet the heart of God could not exist without love. Love is a two-way thing… the very nature of love is designed to be given… maybe God had no choice but to create you and I so as to experience the joy of love. Have you ever sat in a café or stood under an old oak tree, with butterflies in your stomach waiting for the one you love to arrive and then the heart ache when they don’t turn up… and then the feeling of over-whelming joy when they do turn up with a… “Sorry I’m late”.

Maybe God is waiting someplace with butterflies in His stomach waiting for us to arrive… with a “Sorry I’m late” on our lips.