Day thirty-four

 3^rd June 2009     ENGLAND

The hardest thing to do

… and again, I wake up someplace in the middle of this adventure, in a warm bed, followed by a hot shower... and downstairs, a kitchen table, sunshine coming through the window… with grace said, a cooked breakfast and a mug of tea, this in the company of a beautiful family, a family that I am made to feel very much a part of… I don’t think it matters who it is we are, rich or poor… nor where it is on this planet we call home… is it not these simple things that matter, to have a place of shelter, food in our bellies, clean water (both hot and cold), the love of family and friends… don’t let me forget the mug of tea (I kind of need that)… throw into that mix the beauty of creation plus a little bit of grace…. Oh yeah, and we cannot forget the adventure of life itself... Everything else above and beyond that is no more than just a bonus… Those Rolling Stones come to mind, ‘You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well… you just might find, you get what you need’.

Nine o’clock and the boots are back on, and again I am given a packed lunch to take with me, “Thank you Ingrid”… when walking with empty pockets, it is good knowing you have bread, water and more on your back. Andrew walks with me for the first few miles… I am glad of his company and his knowledge of the local area; we pick up some farm tracks and by-ways and head over the gentle hills of the Cotswolds. After a while we stop at the edge of some woods, sit on the grass, share a drink and talk, again about this and that and nothing at all, it is what people do and I am glad of it… a good ten minutes go by before these aching bones push them self’s up of the ground, we shake hands, say our farewells and shake hands again, this time, on my part I add a nod of gratitude. Andrew turns around and heads back home… and me, the truck driver without a truck keeps on heading south… the English Channel is no longer a million miles away… if I screw my eyes up real tight, I can almost see that church… ok maybe not quite… without looking at the map, I’m guessing there is still over a hundred miles of walking to be done.

Yeah, that’s me back on me tod… the raggedy guy with his collar turned up, hands buried in his pockets and again kicking stones. Above me, blue skies and the ground under these worn-out boots, England’s green and pleasant land.

Yesterday I had said the man Charles Dickens, could not be found within his fifteen plus novels or any of his many short stories… I guess that’s not completely true, we do get a glimpse of the man in the story of ‘David Copperfield’. That story is in part autobiographical… muddled up in this novel the elements of truth and imagination are entwined, helping to give us at least an insight into the life of Charles Dickens… if not the man himself.

… and what of God… did we ever get a glimpse of God in this muddled up world, I think maybe we did… two thousand plus years ago a man walked this earth… in truth we don’t know too much about this guy. We understand he was born in a stable. For the next thirty years, we hear nothing… with the exception of one story… when he was twelve, his parents had taken him to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish Festival of the Passover… and when the festival was over and the family were heading back to their Hometown, it was only after traveling for a day, they realise Jesus is not with them (I have never really understood that part of the story… how can you travel for a whole day and not realize that your kid isn’t with you… that’s like me and my wife driving back to Scotland after visiting her parents in the south of Germany and only realizing that our two girls are not with us, when sat on the ferry in the middle of the English Chanel heading back to Britain… yeah, sorry sometimes I get lost in my own thoughts). Any road, Mum and Dad head back to Jerusalem, once back in town they spend another three days looking for the boy… they find him in a temple, asking a bunch of Rabbis a whole lot of questions. When asked “Where have you been”. The young boy answers “Did you not know that I would be in my Father’s house.”... an impressive answer for a kid, but somehow, I think it would have earned him a clip round the ear.

It is only when Jesus turns thirty, we really start to get an insight into the measure of this man. He is not afraid to challenge the authorities, be it… The Rulers (“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God’s.”)… The Law (“He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her.”)… or The Religion (“He who has seen me has seen the Father”). Both the political and religious leaders are beginning to see this guy as a headache… the challenge is turning into a threat… people are starting to listen to Jesus and the authorities don’t like it. To cut a long story short… they trump up some charges, find him guilty and then have him nailed to a cross like some common criminal… thinking, that’ll put an end to his story… it would be great to go back and ask them “…and how did that work out”.

… sorry rattling on again… That’s me off the hills and back on England’s grey and pleasant (pot-holed)
lanes, heading into the small village of Andoversford. In the village I find a pub called ‘The Royal Oak’. Stepping into the pub, I am greeted by the barman not with a ‘hello’, but with a “And how can I be of help”… not sure why, but that made it a little harder when having to explain myself (this part of the walk has never been easy)… and yet, five minutes later here I am again, sat at a table with a mug of tea and a sandwich (a proper sandwich, bread as thick as door wedges)… it is hard to put into words the gratitude I feel… it is because of the people that I am meeting… moments like this, that has made it pretty much impossible for me not to put pen to paper. Sitting in this pub, a now empty plate in front of me, mug of tea in hand, legs stretched out under the table… the guy from two thousand years ago steps out of my head and up pops the landlady from the very first pub I had walked into on little adventure, nearly five weeks ago now (the Crask Inn, second day, top of Scotland). She is holding a plate of shortbread, and with a big smile, she says, “Did I make you jump”… I smile at the memory… I hear myself say, “Not at all” (…out loud I think). For the next twenty minutes and more I try to recall the faces of all those that have made this walk possible and again I say a ‘thank you’ to every one of them (this time quietly… not out loud). Time is moving on; I take the plate and mug back up to the bar and add another thank you to that ever-growing list.

Back out on the road and again heading south. Looking to the west I see high up a thin vale of white cloud slowly moving towards me, but for the moment the sky above is blue, the fields, trees and hedgerows are green and the tarmac grey and potted… all is good in the world. Hobbling a little… always do after stopping, I find a good size branch on the side of the road; I pick it up and use it as a walking stick… not really sure if it is of any help, less than a mile down the road the stick is gone… I guess I’m more of a hands in pockets kinda guy.

Hmm… a glimpse of God in this muddled up world… is that what we see in this guy of two thousand years ago. Many believe that Jesus was God in human form… Me, I don’t know… if it is true that Jesus is God (and God is Jesus), then I’m thinking, that maybe I should just throw in the towel. I cannot live up to that standard (it almost seems unfair, even cruel to suggest such a standard is possible)… the phrase ‘Way above my pay grade’ comes to mind. Yet at the same time something inside of me, tells me that he was more than just a man… A conundrum, not God, not man… What if… (this is again a truck driver pretending to be something he is not… this time a theologian)… What if, the figure of Jesus stands in a realm where both the Divine and humanity touch (similar to Michelangelo’s painting the ‘Creation of Adam’ that is in the Sistine Chapel… the picture where God reaches out to Adam). To push the idea just that little bit further… maybe, just maybe Jesus did not only touch the finger of God, but instead fully embraced Him… I imagine sparks flying… and the coming together of what is divine and what is human… the creation of a second Adam… the chance of a new beginning… I think in many ways Jesus is the same as you and me, the difference being is that he fully understands the heart of God, the value and purpose of creation and what it really means for us to have been created in the image of God… and I guess above all he understood the power and the beauty of love (I don’t think even God could survive without love)… I cannot help but wonder, did Jesus already understand all of this at the age of twelve, when he was in the temple with the Rabbis, sitting up half the night or maybe more and kind of knowing what it was all for… and what about, way back in a manger… was that babe made ready to take on his shoulders the weight of that understanding and bring it to the world, even if that meant at the cost of his life...

…Hey, I don’t know about any of this stuff, not really… I’m just a truck driver walking, with time on his hands, working through a bunch of muddled up thoughts. I wonder how it is we even begin to comprehend the mystery of life and how it came into existence… Do we really (I mean really) fully understand the miracle of creation… Here’s a ‘did you know’; There are more atoms in a grain of sand, than there are grains of sand on this planet… crumbs, how do we even get our heads around those kinds of numbers. The world is fall of impossible things…how is it a blade of grass can figured out how to make sugar using sunlight, carbon dioxide and water, there has to be a little bit of magic in there somewhere… I don’t know, I also don’t understand… How an upside-down smile can turn the world the right way up… And here’s another thing, what’s love got to do with any of this… is that not just a second-hand emotion. I kick a stone, with no intention of keeping it on the road…

I slow down a little, not because the legs are tired (the day I had off in Birmingham had done me good), I slow down because I guess I wanted to feel something, I wanted this country lane to take me to a place of understanding… maybe that sounds daft… the slow down becomes a stand still… and the stand still becomes a moment, I close my eyes (again never a good idea when standing on a road), I breath in deep and slowly, filling my lungs with good clean air (… the by-product of plants making sugar)… and the world is quiet… Have you ever felt like you’re standing between two worlds, the physical world and a world unseen, a world of ignorance and a world of knowledge, a world that sits in the shadow of a far better world… a world of love… I want to reach out and touch it… only there is always something that stops me… this time a tractor rumbles by, I open my eyes and the moment is gone.

It's not long before I walk into the small village of Chedworth in Gloucestershire, a very English village (a chocolate box kind of place), the village is known for an old Roman Villa. The villa was discovered by a Victorian gamekeeper, that was out and about with his dogs and a spade (doing whatever it is gamekeepers do), and when digging stumbled across a fragment of mosaic floor. The excavations that followed uncovered a Roman Villa, including bath houses and more incredibly preserved mosaics… it is thought to have been occupied between 180 – 350 AD. It’s not hard to imagine the family and friends of this villa sat around one of the hot bathes with a beaker of French wine in hand, talking about Jesus (…the new guy on the block)… the Emperor Constantine, in the first quarter of the fourth century had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Sitting on a bench, I dig out the sandwich Ingrid had made me this morning…’Thank you’. I find it fascinating that those Romans back in that villa, from over a thousand, six hundred years ago, were talking about the same guy that I had been thinking about today. According to scripture Jesus started his ministry at the age of thirty… three years later they had nailed him to a cross… and yet just in those few years He had tilted the world in a different (and a better) direction. He saw God, not as a Master, but instead a Father… into the old book of laws, He brought compassion and love... I would like to think, we built this island and our cities on those foundations… rock ‘n’ roll came later.

Still got a little bit of walking to do before I call it a day… I wrap up my last sandwich, best keep it for later… not sure where I will end up tonight. Bag on my back, collar up and hands buried in pockets, and again heading south. I ask myself the same question as William Blake (the poet), “And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England's mountains green:” We know nothing of what Jesus did in his teenage years, nor when He was in his twenties… Did He walk on England’s green and pleasant land… probably not… but hey I’m going to tell myself that He did.

I finish the day a handful of miles north of a Roman fortress (the now town of Cirencester). I walk alongside a row of cottages; I’m guessing they were once the homes of farm labourers… in one of the cottages there’s a couple in the garden… they say hello and we get talking. Ten minutes later, we have crossed over to the other side of the lane. Dominic and Sarah are asking if I would like to camp down here for the night, we are standing in a… not sure what it is… too small for a barn but too big for a shed. I am glad of the offer… a roof is always good. Thank you. We talk some more as we clear a space for a sleeping bag. Left alone, I dig out my water bottle and my last sandwich… I think today I go a little hungry… and an hour later… Sarah crosses the lane from her cottage with a tray, a flask of hot coffee sandwiches and snacks … “wow… thank you”. And that is how my day finished. In my sleeping bag, leaning up against a wooden box, a tray next to me, a coffee in hand… I again reflect on the guy from two thousand years ago, (hmm, not just Jesus, but all the Saints, Sages, Prophets and Founders of the other great religions). I think we push them to far, to high… we turn them into semi gods… do that and they become impossible to imitate… do we not need to stand in their shoes and have the courage to put aside what it is we think we want and reach out (not unlike Michelangelo’s painting) to what it is we need… yeah I know, easy to say and the hardest thing to do.