Tag: faith

pilgrimage, Prayer, theology

Walking with Werburgh…nearly there

Dr. Jennifer Fox Eades

Today was my final preparation walk before the start of my pilgrimage on Saturday next, walking from Chester to Lichfield over 9 days.

And I felt quite sad as I set out at 4am this morning (to avoid the heat!). Because I’ve loved my preparation days rambling around Macclesfield and Bollington, away from the news, away from the desk and the emails, even away from those I love most, just me and a walking stick and the birds.

And I’ve learnt a lot. I’ve learnt how to apply plasters in likely trouble spots BEFORE blisters appear. I’ve learnt to lace my shoes in a new pattern to provide maximum grip around the ankle and maximum space around my toes. I’ve learnt, through walking 10 miles carrying my pack with everything I THOUGHT I needed to carry that ‘need’ is relative and I can actually manage with a lot less…..

And I’ve learnt that, mile by mile, as my legs ache more my brain seems to ache less, to quieten down…somehow there’s more space between thoughts, more space within my feelings, my emotions.

Today, I was praying a traditional Orthodox prayer, The Jesus Prayer, as I walked. And at first I noticed the thoughts…what point is prayer? And then I wondered, and who else is praying now? And it occurred to me that, at any time of the day or night, probably, on a planet of 6 billion people, many, many people, of all faiths and none, are praying at any one time, offering their hopes for peace, their love for dear ones and for their communities, their need for healing and wholeness, their longing for more…

And I remembered how, at a hard time when my children were little and I was suffering from post natal depression, I saw a documentary about an enclosed group of nuns in Manchester who got up in the middle of the night to pray. And I wrote to them. And they wrote back assuring me of their prayers. And I was comforted. I love that monastics, the world over, give up sleep for the love of humanity.

And to answer my first thought, what point is prayer, I realised that at no point in the history of humanity has there NOT been prayer, countless prayers, offered at all times of the day and the night, in almost EVERY human life there has ever been. Because we ALL pray sometimes, in some way. And while we can’t say that all that hope, all that desire for the very best for our communities, all that love and longing poured out HAS made a difference in human history, nor can we say that it hasn’t.

And if even the people stopped praying, there’s still nature. This morning, as I thought those thoughts about prayer, the skylarks were singing their little hearts out. And I felt my lonely, weak, doubt-filled prayers lifted heavenwards on glorious bird song. And then, and then, I saw a hare, sitting on the pathway in front of me. Of all the symbols of the Holy Spirit I find the hare the most moving, the most wild, the most grace-filled. And the hare looked towards me and I was blessed. God happened, fleeting, wild, with larks and with hares at 6 am on a glorious day.

Thanks be.

pilgrimage, Prayer

Still walking with Werburgh….and the Risen Christ

Dr. Jennifer Fox Eades

This post is written a week after my last walk….a long walk to Marple and back. And perhaps it was too long? It certainly left me with bruised toes and a need to work out how to better protect my feet on a 20 mile hike. And perhaps it left me with a bruised ego too…..hence the time lag between walking and reflection. Somehow I thought I could do this without struggle, without pain.

But the day AFTER my overly long walk, I was planning ANOTHER pilgrimage, this time with Year 6 at St John’s Primary School, Bollington. The children want to walk a Bollington pilgrimage as part of saying goodbye and marking the end of their time at primary school. And a wise and articulate 11 year old girl said, ‘It can be hard work. Pilgrimages ought to be hard’.

And of course, she is right. Pilgrimages ARE meant to be a struggle, are meant to tax us, physically, mentally, spiritually. Because it’s when we are challenged that we grow.

And my walking is being done in the season of Easter. As I explained to children at St John’s and Bollington Cross this week, Easter is a LONG festival, it lasts 7 Sundays, ending on the feast of Pentecost on 24th May this year. And I have been walking it with Werburgh and, a little unexpectedly for me, with a new sense of the presence of the Risen Christ.

Ian Mobsby, in his reflection for the Sixth Sunday of Easter speaks of letting go as a contemplative practice….letting go of certainty, letting go of needing to have clear answers, letting go even of our images of God. https://postsecularcontemplative.substack.com/p/easter-week-6-10-16th-may-reflection?r=50siwv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

I agree. That has been my experience. About 20 years ago, after being profoundly wounded by people in the church, I felt called to let go of everything I believed about God. And it hurt. And I felt a sense of loss, of bereavement. I mourned the faith I had let go of.

More recently I found myself unexpectedly back in church and even on the path to ordination. Yet I also found myself letting go of Jesus. It was not that I stopped believing in the Trinity, the kind divine community at the heart of Christianity but the White Jesus, the Colonial Jesus, the dominating, powerful macho Jesus proclaimed in a riot at the Whitehouse and used to wound and hurt my black and disabled and LGBTQI+ friends….I felt called to let go of him. Not really knowing if another Jesus would turn up…..

And again, I felt lonely. Again, it hurt. Again I mourned the relationship I had let go. But I just wasn’t sure who Jesus was anymore. It was hard, listening to friends in chapel singing about this Jesus I didn’t think I recognized anymore. Intellectually I knew Jesus hadn’t gone anywhere but he felt …..absent.

And then, again unexpectedly, this Easter, the Risen Christ has been with me once more, walking the canal paths, sitting with me in Ian’s beautiful meditations, somehow there once more. And I feel a profound comfort and a sense of being healed, of being held.

The spiritual life IS a pilgrimage. And I know I, at least, need to let go of the idea that this pilgrimage is, or ought to be easy. Ought not to hurt. Because sometimes we get bruised toes. But always, always…..felt or not…….the Risen Christ is with us. Amen.

pilgrimage, Prayer, Spirituality

Walking with Werburgh 5: A crowded towpath or You’ll never walk alone

Dr. Jennifer Fox Eades

In these post Easter weeks, I am continuing to walk whenever I can in preparation for my June pilgrimage. And this morning, on the way to church along the Macclesfield Canal, I was reflecting on two things. Firstly, I had been reading Ian Mobsby’s blog on the text for this Sunday, the 1st after Easter. It’s John:19-31, where Jesus appears in a locked upper room, first to most of his disciples, but NOT Thomas and then a week later, to Thomas as well.

And Ian notes that the Risen Christ comes not into strength or victory, but into fear, into confusion and uncertainty, into anxiety, into the locked room of our ordinary and often muddled lives. The Risen Christ, Ian writes, ‘moves into the very heart of what they and we are experiencing’. You can read Ian’s blog, Contemplative Christian in a PostSecular Culture here https://postsecularcontemplative.substack.com/p/breathing-peace-through-locked-doors

And what I was noticing, as I walked along, was that I tend to think I OUGHT NOT to feel that anxiety in my chest or that grumbling irritation in my gut or that sudden inexplicable sadness that wells up unexpectedly. I tend to think I should rid myself of such feelings – be somehow more serene, more together, a more calm and confident version of myself. Surely, at my advanced age, and after SO much therapy and SO much self-work, I’m somehow past these emotional squalls?

But today, in the light of Ian’s words, I wondered how it would be if instead of trying to rid myself of that tight ball of anger/fear/sadness in my chest – and often I find it’s all three rolled into one – I saw that as the very place, the very room where the Risen Christ arrives, unannounced and says ‘Peace be with you’. I wondered how it would be if I effectively welcomed my emotions as the place where Christ dwells?

And as I mused on that this morning I noticed that the anger/fear/sadness didn’t go away, precisely. But I began to experience them a little differently, to be curious about their source and their potential, to wonder about Christ in the middle of them, not scolding me for feeling them, but breathing on them and me and blessing us, in all our muddle and confusion.

And my second thought was that, just as the Risen Christ comes and stands in the locked rooms of our lives and travels ahead of us into Galilee, so he walks besides us all the time. As do a lot of other people……

Last Tuesday I did a long walk in company, for a change. Part of my family and I walked through Rainow and along Kerridge to White Nancy and breakfast at Waterside Cafe before heading home along the canal. Now, as an introvert, while I LOVE walking with other people, I actually find it easier walking alone – I can go at my own pace, stop when I please. And certainly, most of my rambles and my planned pilgrimage will be solitary.

But of course, my walk isn’t solitary at all – or at least, a Christian worldview asserts that my walk is not solitary. And increasingly, that is my faith, that is my experience. I am ALWAYS walking in company.

This morning, and every morning, the Risen Christ is both before and beside me.

And I consciously place myself, through my prayers, in the company of the ‘kind divine community of the Trinity’ (Butcher 2022), Mother, Son and Holy Spirit.

And as a Franciscan I am always walking in company with St Francis and St Clare of Assisi.

And on this pilgrimage I have specifically invited both St Werburgh and St Chad to come along too.

And as I age I have more of a sense of the community of my own personal saints always alongside me – my mum, my dad, my beloved grandmother Nanny Hubble.

And I walk as a prayer with and for the people in my life now, my lovely family and friends, the churches I serve, St Oswald’s, Bollington https://stoswaldbollington.org.uk/ and St Peter’s Macclesfield https://stpetersmacc.org/; my Alexander colleagues, my church colleagues, the countries and causes I care about and more……

Somehow they are all there on the towpath. It’s quiet and peaceful and solitary – and crowded, full of an unseen presence. They are all there, in the locked room of my heart, in the midst of my grumbles, anxieties and sadnesses, beckoning me onwards, beckoning me outwards, beckoning me to unlock the door and take each step as a prayer of thanksgiving for all that is, all that I’ve been given, all that I am and will be. Introvert or not, I am always in company with others and I thank God for that. And I thank God that, together, they all whisper, ‘Peace be with you’.

A walk in company – photo by my son-in-law

Nichalos Herman/Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, Practice of the Presence, A Revolutionary Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher 2022, Broadleaf Books: Minneapolis

pilgrimage, Spirituality

Walking with Werburgh 4

Dr. Jennifer Fox Eades

My Franciscan Third Order book Lentscapes, https://www.spiritoffrancis.com/lent/ uses the clarity and light of Antartica to reflect on the honesty and the exposure of Holy Week.

By contrast, my Werburgh walk today, over the hills near Macclesfield, was misty and dank – weather Macclesfield does particularly well. And the fog meant I could not see clearly at all.

But perhaps that’s not an inappropriate landscape or weatherscape for the Tuesday of Holy Week either – or for the muddle and confusion of so much of human existence, for that sense of seeking what we can’t quite see, struggling to understand what we can’t quite grasp, for the sense of not knowing and not understanding that often characterises the spiritual path.

And I found myself musing about ‘in groups’ and ‘out groups’ on my walk today, inspired in part by my breakfast reading of Ian Mobsby’s blog, Contemplative Christian. For the Monday of Holy Week Ian wrote about the generous outpouring of divine love represented by Mary, washing Jesus’ feet and annointing him for his death in John 12.1-11 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2012%3A1-11&version=NIV

https://postsecularcontemplative.substack.com/p/monday-of-holy-week-radical-reconnection

The nature of that divine love is echoed by Jesus’ washing of his disciple’s feet in John 13 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2013&version=NIV

This is not a love that guards against vulnerability, that seeks to hold onto status or even dignity. This is a Love, this is a God, who kneels at the feet of people who will betray and lie and seek to engage in violence. And who offers Love to them.

Because Jesus washes Judas’ feet, the person who will betray him to his death; Jesus washes Peter’s feet – the one who will run away and lie to save his own life; Jesus washes the feet of the friends who will abandon him. Perhaps there are other disciples there too, those the artists don’t include – perhaps Mary is there, with her sister, Martha. Perhaps Jesus’ mother is there. Perhaps he washes their feet too – the mists of time have obscured their presence if that was so.

But the point, for me, is that what we are doesn’t matter to whether God kneels before us or not – nor to an extent what we do. Nor does it matter which group we are a part of or NOT a part of – whether we are part of the ‘in group’ or the ‘out group’. God kneels and offers to wash our feet, pours love into a bowl and, if we consent, holds each foot tenderly and soothes away the dust and dirt of our lives, then dries each toe gently and puts our foot back down again.

And it can be hard to recieve, that kind of love. Peter, initially, resists – no Lord, you can’t possibly wash MY feet. And it’s hard to accept, too, that each human person, no matter what they have done or will do, is also offered the same Love, has God kneeling before them offering care, offering kindness.

Just this week I read a post by a (male) priest who was incensed that Sarah Mullalley, our new Archbishop of Canterbury, met with other women on the eve of her installation. He saw, in this gathering of women, evidence of witchcraft and feminism, both clearly meant as insults.

Quite apart from the ignorance this displays, of both witchcraft in it’s modern form and of feminism, I was struck by the fear in that post, the sense of impotent rage screaming about power taken away, status diminished. And yet God kneels in front of that fearful man and offers to wash his feet. And God asks me, as a follower of Jesus, the Christ, to do the same.

And that IS the challenge of Holy Week. To love as Christ loved, not condemning or cursing or hitting back in anger. But kneeling before my Judas, my Peter. And offering to wash their feet. That, for me, is what is exposed in my own soul by the clear light of God’s generous, transparent and universal love. My own reluctance to kneel before those who pour contempt on women, who would take away our hard won rights, and who belittle and mock out of their own fear, their own insecurities, their own littleness of spirit.

I fear such people. And God calls me to walk into and beyond the fear, whether I can see the way clear ahead -or whether the dank mist of Macclesfield obscures the view.

And God also calls me to let my feet be washed by Love that holds my fear – and those of such male priests – in gentle hands. For eternity.

pilgrimage

Walking with Werburgh 3

Dr. Jennifer Fox Eades

“Creator of all, have mercy on us

Jesus bearer of our sins, have mercy on us

Spirit of grace and truth, grant us peace”

The prayer above emerged in the course of a 12 mile walk this morning along the Macclesfield Canal as I prepare for my June pilgrimage along The Two Saints Way. 6 miles one way, 6 miles plus breakfast on the way back ( I left early, to catch the bird song!)

And what I realised I had done was to craft a trinitarian prayer. The Holy Spirit can seem the poor relation of the trinity – She is mentioned far more rarely in our Christian prayers and liturgies than the other two persons of the trinity, traditionally God the Father and God the Son. And I make no apologies for prefering to gently balance the overwhelmingly masculine language of protestant Christianity by naming the first person as Creator, whatever the theological arguments against it (and there are many! There always are!)

One of the books I have been reading this Lent is a beautiful new translation of a spiritual classic, the Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence (a 16th century friar). This translation is called Practice of the Presence and is by Carmen Acevedo Butcher

Butcher speaks of the ‘kind divine community of the Trinity’ that weaves throughout the friar’s teaching as a bedrock of Christianity, a ‘healthy threeness’ often somehow missing from theology and church language.

So I am choosing to prepare for my pilgrimage in conscious company with that kind, divine community, as well as with St Werburgh and St Chad and my Franciscan friends, St Clare and St Francis.

And as I prayed I began to wonder who, exactly I was praying for? And indeed who I was going on pilgrimage for in the first place?

And at the start of today’s 12 miles I found I was praying for people I know and love – my own family and friends and the people of St Oswald’s, Bollington whom I have been privileged to serve and to grow to love these past 3 years. And then my prayer widened ….and I realised I was praying, too, for the wider world, and asking Jesus to bear the structural sins of inequality and poverty, war and racism, sexism and homophobia.

And then my prayer widened still more. Last night I was attending a Lent Course with my sisters and brothers of the Third Order https://tssf.org.uk/ which you can find here https://www.spiritoffrancis.com/europe/,. And we were asked what the land, in this case of Europe, asks us to remember truthfully. And perhaps because of that I found myself, this morning, praying for the land I was walking upon and asking the Creator to have mercy upon Mother Earth and Christ to bear the sins that we inflict upon Her and the Spirit to bring peace between humanity and the rest of creation, as well as peace between people and nations and peace to the heart of every human.

And I pondered, too, on the purpose of my pilgrimage. At a simple level it’s a kind of retreat, time out to mark the end of my ‘training curacy’ and the beginning of…..whatever the future holds. But I began to see, as I walked and as my prayer widened, that I would be walking and praying and letting my walking BE prayer for many people; for my churches, St Oswald’s, Bollington https://stoswaldbollington.org.uk/ and St Peter’s, Windmill Street https://stpetersmacc.org/; for the schools and carehomes I have worked with, for the diocese of Chester in which I serve https://www.chesterdiocese.org/ ; for our nation and the nations of the world and, yes, for Mother Earth itself on whom I will be walking .

St Francis understood the relatedness of all people – and all things. He called all humanity Sister and Brother but he extended that relatedness and mutual dependence to all of creation.

I hope to quietly, prayerfully, do the same.

And did I mention that the porridge at Waterside Cafe https://www.facebook.com/cafewaterside is REALLY good?

pilgrimage

A woman of peace

Dr. Jennifer Fox Eades

This has been a week when the world has felt full of angry voices and violent actions. It is a week when those of us who work for peace and kindness and care in our world and in our church have been shocked anew by stories of violence and abuse.

It was a week when, bruised and bewildered by the news of my church’s shame, I wondered what on earth I could say to an assembly full of beautiful children and their equally beautiful hard working teachers.

And as I knelt, early on Wednesday morning, in front of an icon of St Clare, it shone in the light of my candle and I knew what I wanted to say. I knew how I wanted to be. So let me tell you her story……

“Clare was a woman of love, a person of prayer and a person of peace. And she always remembered that she followed Christ, the Prince of Peace.

But the times she lived in were not peaceful times. Men of war, men of violence, meant that life was often dangerous for ordinary women and children and men.

And a story is told about St Clare of how, one day, an army of violent men came to attack the little town of Assisi where Clare lived.

And instead of running away and instead of fighting back, St Clare remembered that she followed Christ, the Prince of Peace. And she went into her little church and brought out a  box. And in that box there was a small piece of the bread and a tiny drop of the wine that Christians eat and drink when they remember Christ, the Prince of Peace.

And Clare held that little box and she just stood – and remembered. She remembered all the women and men and children in the town of Assisi. And she remembered Christ, the Prince of Peace. And she remembered that the men of war she could see before her were also children of God.

And on that day, for some reason, the men of war turned back. Some people say they were scared of this little godly woman. I’m not so sure. I think that on that day they, too, remembered peace and remembered that they were children of God. And I think they chose – and it is always a choice, to stand and remember peace and love for themselves.”

So today, sisters and brothers, (and everyone, of any faith, who is reading this IS my sister and my brother) in the face of the violence and injustice and sheer nastiness that can happen in our world I invite you to stand – not to flee and not to fight – but simply to stand for peace, to stand for justice and love and kindness and compassion. And please remember that you – and everyone you meet today – is an infinitely precious child of God.

May She bless you and may She keep you and may She give you Peace.