Bob Warwicker's blog

Janet is back walking today, and once again displayed her amazing powers of avoiding rain. Today she dodged all the showers, and was on top walking form too, going down the straight road from Brackenburgh to Burthwaite in quick time.

In the middle, we paused at Southwaite services for refreshment. I left the car outside on the local road, because of all the dire warnings about authorised traffic only. But the gates were rusted open and there were plenty of locals going in and out, using the service station as a motorway junction. This obedience of mine (selective though it may be) feels like a character defect.

Tomorrow is Trinity Sunday, and I leave it to a new generation to explain the inexplicable. Maybe we wouldn’t have so much difficulty if generations of theologians hadn’t tried so hard to nail it all down.

Janet is doing a daily blog…

We’re back on the road again now, staying just north of the border for a few days as Janet walks through Carlisle and into Scotland.

She starts again tomorrow, having taken some days off to help with a summer school, and despite the break she really seems up for it again.

The place here is lovely, and we are being soothed by birdsong.

Great day’s walking, and I was with Janet for some of it. The route was generally downhill, the showers were dodged, and we had Cross Fell and Great Dun Fell to look at on one side, and the top of Blencathra on the other.

Later on, we saw this at Brougham Hall.

Today Janet passed level with Shap on the minor roads east of the motorway. Some of the route was on the moorland track to Oddendale, and I enjoyed walking with her for part of this section. It was proper moorland weather, with showers almost joined together. The sky looked like it’d been painted in watercolours.

Today was day 60, half way through the days, another milestone.

I thank God for science. Science told us that the rain would set in just after lunch. So Janet started her walk at 8am, and it was all done before one. The rain came on cue, and we were in the dry.

The readings for Pentecost remind me that the glory of the togetherness of races at Pentecost is just a hair’s breadth different from the horror of the togetherness of the races recounted in the Babel story. The life, the work, the influence, the love, the spirit of God makes all the difference.

We’d all be poorer without international cooperation: for instance, without it, Janet would never have known when the rain was going to start. If we can’t manage to have the love of God in our hearts, can we at least manage to respect people of other races?

Anyway, it’s still raining outside. It’s gloomy, and the dampness seems to close out all sense of joy. I went out to look for something in the car. I could hear a distant barking dog – and the rain.

Now Janet is most of the way up the road which follows the western flank of the beautiful Howgill Fells.

On the way, Janet passed the Friends Meeting House at Brigflatts. We discovered that in the early days, Quakers would take nightcaps to their meetings – so that they would be more comfortable when they were imprisoned. In our times too, Quakers are sometimes arrested for actions taken in the name of peace. Would that I and more Christians of other denominations could have that kind of courage.

The burial ground there has headstones all the same size: in death, as in life, people are equal. How unlike the Chapel burial grounds of West Yorkshire, dominated by flashy memorials to the mill owners.

Later we passed through Sedbergh, where the school is embedded into the town.

God give us grace
to respect all people, 
all created by you, 
all deserving of honour:
strong and vulnerable, as we are, 
prone to wrong,
and nursing the seeds of goodness, 
as we are:
help us to know Christ
in others. 

Today and yesterday we’ve encountered small groups going at walking pace on their way to Appleby horse fair.

Janet too is going at walking pace, and today the rain was unavoidable, though not the heaviest.

God of love, 
We pray for all who are making journeys,
By foot and plane, 
In horse drawn caravans, 
In campervans and trains, 
Canal boats, buses and cars… 
In these and many more means of transport, 
May all be safe, 
Treat others safely, 
And keep our air and waters clean. 

A good day’s walking, Janet’s last on the Lancaster canal. The bridges are elegant, the water is calm, the trees are good, and the hilltops are sometimes lost in the cloud. It rained in the middle of the day, but wasn’t bad overall.

The attraction of the canal is not the work of God (or nature) alone or of the human race alone, but a (possibly accidental) collaboration.

As I was walking round a supermarket today, I heard someone whistling the theme from a Wallace and Gromit film. Later, as Janet and I sat in the Carnforth station cafe, trying to have a brief encounter, a child was sat at a piano in the corner, playing Beethoven’s ode to joy music. For me, these little musics conjured up deeper and richer realities. The Wallace and Gromit opened doors to memories of innocent fun. The Beethoven reminded me of the dream of a Europe no longer at war. OK at the minute, but this dream could be heading for trouble. Let’s hope this music will never be banned.

Maybe this power of music to bring up memories for us is part of the appeal of hymns to a certain generation of churchgoers: we need to discover what the ‘buttons’ are for people who have different cultures.

Carnforth was Janet’s ending point for today, and once again the scenery has changed: the sea has been visible through today’s drizzle, visible for the first time in many weeks.

God of the whole of me, speak to me, through reason, through emotions, through music and memories, through the love of friends, through my senses and my sense.

Another day on the Lancaster Canal for Janet, including the magnificent Lune aqueduct. This was made over 200 years ago by people without any modern equipment, also suffering great privations and epidemics of deadly disease.

So much for the golden days of yesteryear.

God bless all whose work is hard, or dangerous, or unhealthy: give them fairness in their life.