TW3

Back from Walsingham again. We had a really good week with decent weather, good food, a trip to the seaside, lunch on my birthday at Sandringham (in the teashop only, sadly!) and a good drive back until we got to the border where the A66 turned into the Road from Hell and then the M73 was just ridiculous. And I avoided diocesan synod! Yaay!

So now I'm 41 - better than the alternative I imagine! and back to the usual routine!

Friends films and building links.

Slight bummer of a message from friends yesterday. Two of my best pals are moving to Walsingham in November, so will no longer be at the end of the motorway for socialising and holidays. I'm pleased for them and think it's a good move by them, as they have had a fearful year in Glasgow, but am a bit sad for self. And a sad loss for the SEC. Just hope it all works out. Time will tell.

Really enjoyed Mamma Mia at the flicks last night. Pierce Brosnan sings like my dad at Hogmanay, but it was good fun. Ideal fare for gal pals, gay mates and swinging aunties!

Now to do some ecumenical networking!

Back in the Old Country!

The Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, Norfolk.

Statue of King Charles the Martyr

founder of the Diocese of Edinburgh

near the Orthodox Chapel in the Shrine.

Madonna in the garden of the RC Pilgrim accommodation.

Oh well, that's another pilgrimage to Walsingham over and done with. And it was good. Starting 6 years ago with 4 of us in a car, the Scottish Ecumenical has grown to 2 minibus loads and 30 pilgrims. Our 2nd youngest pilgrim Elizabeth (5 in September) has actually been on 5 out of 6 trips - she was in the womb on her 1st one! There is a lay by on the M1 forever associated in my mind with an emergency comfort stop caused by that babe pressing on the maternal bladder!

It's a nice mix of RC and Episcopal and doing our own thing and joining in. Our own thing is daily Morning Prayer with up to 20 saying it together, a daily Mass, trips to the RC shrine for a renewal of Baptismal vows and the Stations of the Cross and Intercessions in the Anglican Shrine using the Rosary as a structure. Joining in is the Shrine's Evening Prayer, the Pilgrimage Mass & Processions and the healing Liturgy with Sprinkling from the Well, laying on of hands and Anointing.

As ever, it's not the Lacey Cotta bits that move me to the core. It's the silence and the healing. After the Image of Our Lady has been processed on Saturday evening and Benediction given, the Sacrament is left exposed on the altar for an hour of adoration and silent prayer. The quality of the prayerful silence in the darkened shrine with hundreds of pilgrims is rare and precious. and this year for the first time in ages it moved me do do something I haven't done for a long time. I went to confession.

Now, I gave this particular spiritual discipline up several years ago. Partly, I was in a place where my self image and sense of worth was very battered and it just wasn't healthy to do the "we are miserable offenders and there is no health in us" trip and partly it had become not just a discipline but a burden. Cranmer has a point when he describes the burden of sin as "intolerable" - it can be. But when you are trying to tell yourself you're loved and valued by God as you are, it isn't a useful way of thinking. But on this pilgrimage it came to me this isn't the way I wanted to approach confession. I wanted to make a formal act at one level, consciously surrendering my will to that of God and putting myself in the path of his merciful loving kindness. But I also saw it in the wider context of healing. It went with the healing liturgy and the sense I went to Walsingham with this time of having experienced some healing myself. God's forgiveness is in and of itself an intrinsic part of the healing of the body, mind and soul of the Christian. And for me, at this stage, that was a gift I was able to accept in and through the sacrament of reconciliation.

I wasn't disappointed. I was received graciously and thankfully by the priest and left with the prickle of thankful tears in my eyes, knowing I was back in good place with God. By which I do not mean I have relapsed into conservative Anglo-Catholicism! I still accept women's ordination and gay rights! No Damascus U-turns for Dougal!

I also found a fabulous wee orthodox Chapel upstairs in the Shrine for saying my own prayers and kissing ikon's etc! Near the statue of another who was born in Dunfermline, King Charles the Martyr, founder of the Diocese in which I currently serve. It was a very good trip and I can recommend the place strongly. And the intercession of OLW seems to work. Well, I'm still on the straight and narrow. Heavenly Ma, Ta!

"And tonight, Matthew, I'll be...a thurifer in Dumbarton!". No rest for the forgiven!

We're on our way to Wembley..or is that Walsingham?

The latter actually. But with the packing, taking Max to the vet (on the mend collar, off in few days), paperwork to sort before going, dropping mutt off at mums and a Cursillo meeting later on in Bathgate, I am frazzled!

Normal service to be resumed when I return. Unless I can find Our Lady's Internet Cafe!

Some thoughts from the jacuzzi!

After a longish Synod (which finished early and again I wonder why the heck they bother with a Saturday morning session), there is no better way of unwinding than a leisurely sauna and jacuzzi. While I was hitting the bubbles and they me, I mused on what the week ahead holds. I'm off on Wednesday with a mixed group of Anglicans and RC's on Pilgrimage to Walsingham. I've been going since 1992 and have been at least once a year since then. Part of me wonders why. It was perfectly explicable when I was a full metal jacket "nae wifie priests" Anglo-Catholic - it was "our" place and did "our" kind of liturgy. But now that I accept the ordination of women, why do I keep on returning?

Well, much as I enjoy smells and bells, it's not that. Two things do it for me. The healing and the place. Walsingham and its holy well has always been associated with healing and the Sunday afternoon liturgy with sprinkling, laying on of hands and anointing gets me every time at a level and in a way that processions of the statue (aka taking mother for a walk!) and even Benediction doesn't. And this year there will be a lot of things for me to take there for healing and prayer. Losing dad, Mum and my depression/booze problems - tomorrow is Father's Day and the 1st time I haven't had to remember not to forget to buy a present, as all those damn posters keep reminding me - the Anglican Communion, a friend of a friend who has just lost the twins she was carrying, Jessie in Palliative care, Burma. There's also the thanks to offer. I've stayed off the sauce since Ash Wednesday. The odd coincidence is I went to Walsingham that very weekend and asked OL for help. And I'm still sober. "Inspired by her example and aided by her prayers".

And there is the place. Like Iona and Taize it is, as George MacLeod described it, a thin place. I do love it and its atmosphere. I took these pics in February which might help to explain it a bit.




The Abbey ruins.



Snowdrops in spring

The River Stiffkey (pronounced "Stewkey")

It has been one of my touching places for nearly 20 years. That's why I go back.