Working out where the boundaries are

The first Sunday of my pilgrimage happens to be Rogation Sunday, 25 April. In former times, and in some rural settlements today, parishioners 'beat the bounds' by walking the fields, identifying the boundaries of their community and praying for God's blessing on the growing crops.

As a child of the town rather than a son of the soil, this was all lost on me until recently.

Unsurprisingly, the moment when newly-sown crops lay in the fields has been a time for earnest prayer long before the Christian era. At this time of year, the Romans celebrated Robigalia, when the fertility gods Robigus and Robiga ("green/life") were worshipped. I imagine that before the Romans, our ancestors were up to similar things in late April.

As the first Christian missionaries arrived, they faced a choice between attempting to abolish a festival that was already deeply established and crucially relevant to the life of the community or adapting it. They chose the latter and pointed to reliance on God's provision and to the simplicity in prayer of asking for practical needs to be met. So the feast of Robigus and Robiga became Rogation, meaning "asking".

The custom of "beating the bounds" refers to the thrashing of boundary markers, though this too, is apparently a later adaptation of earlier tradition. At one time, according to Revd Robert Barlow, Chaplain for Agriculture and Rural Life in the Diocese of Worcester, it wasn't the boundary markers that were beaten but the children of the parish!

Identifying the boundaries of one's territory would have been vitally important in less ordered times. Like the gang turf-wars associated with today's inner-city, the countryside rivalries of our forefathers were nasty affairs. Put a foot wrong and your inadvertent trespass could be seen as a violation of space, an attempt to usurp the property of others or an invasion. So by established custom, the youngsters of the community were taken out to walk the perimeter of "their place", to learn which trees, rocks, streams, paths or deliberately erected stones marked its limits. To make sure they had learned their place, having received their instruction the hapless youths were rolled in brambles or nettles or were beaten by the adults.

This communal violence, however softened by ritual, would certainly link the idea of transgression with painful penalty. "So far and no further, or else!"

In time, the children were spared the rod and only the boundary marks themselves were walloped.

I shall be in France on 25 April, walking through the Vexin, and it would be wonderful to discover fields being blessed on that day, as they will be in our neighbouring parish of Great Glen.

Whether I see Rogation being observed or not, I shall cross hundreds of territorial boundaries while on my travels. Some of these will be signposted with the limited imagination of county councils, "Welcome to x, please drive carefully". Others will be marked with the tags of gangs and groups, like the lampost outside my vicarage front door, whose significance will be known to few. Boundaries are "edgy" and are still places of threatening behaviour, where it feels legitimate for the mildest middle-Englanders to proclaim "NO ENTRY", "PRIVATE", "KEEP OUT", "LARGE DOG", or, "YOU ARE ON CCTV!"

I shall be careful.

Coincidences and comings together

When I began my planning almost a year ago, I didn't realise that in deciding to Walk Home I'm following in the steps of John Davies and Roy Bayfield. All through the planning I've been making discoveries and finding the blogs of these two has been fascinating, instructive and inspiring.

John's Walking the M62 has become a legendary tale of cross-Pennine adventures among the ordinary and everyday. He blogged as he went in poetry, prayer and prose, showing affection for places which are often uncherished. His compilation of diary entries and other thoughts has been published as a book and I'd recommend it.

Roy's walk home is a long distance affair, over a longer period, studded with intriguing photos. In his Walking Home to 50 blog he explains why a walk should begin at Southport Pier and end at Brighton Pier. He presently lives near Southport but the 'home' of Roy's journey is his birthplace, which while not on Brighton's Pier isn't far away. Cunningly, Roy's spotted that connecting these two is a kind of 'pier to pier networking', which is a clever move. His walk is to be completed by his 50th birthday, and he sets off to walk a new stage every now and then.

So rather than being solitary, I'm walking in very good company.

I met up with John a couple of weeks ago and we compared notes. Though we've never lived in the same town, we share a similar outlook on the urban landscape.

Roy and I almost met yesterday as he's just described in a post which recounts an early morning adventure in central Leicester. A conference brought him within a mile of my house but sadly our urgent schedules kept us apart.

Not all meetings are appointments and they may or may not occur according to chance. Google Latitude is a step towards discovering people on the move. I signed up a few weeks ago and not yet found anyone. But if coincidence keep occuring like this, who knows who I'll bump into next.

52 days to go

I like the symmetry of the facts: there are 52 days before I set off on a 52 day walk.

A place to sit

A seat on Stoughton Road.Sign on a seat in Stoughton.

Local press interest

Perhaps you've found this blog through yesterday's article in the Leicester Mercury. If so, you're most welcome. (Actually, you're all welcome, whichever way you found your way here).

Last week I was photographed and interviewed but I didn't know when the story would appear.

Then last night I queued for the cashier in the local petrol station. The assistant looked me up and down and said, "You're Simon Harvey!" This sort of thing doesn't happen to me, so I was taken aback. How did he know my name? I was confused and my mind raced. What could have given my identity away, before I'd even handed over my card to pay?

"You're in the paper. You're doing a long walk, aren't you?"

I laughed and thought that this amazing student of the local news was rather wasting his time in a petrol station with a memory like his. Did he really remember a small article on page 11 in detail? It seems he did. We had a chat, I paid up and said goodbye -but only after I'd bought a paper.

Beautiful feet

This morning in Leicester's Cathedral, I and 200 other clergy and lay leaders sang Frances Ridley Havergal's hymn, "Take my life and let it be"

The occasion was a clergy study day all about money. We were looking at ways of teaching and preaching on the subject of God's giving, our response.

I suppose whoever chose the hymn thought it fitted the theme perfectly, with its verses that pledge the utmost commitment. But I, having walked five miles to get there, couldn't get my mind to move on from verse two:

Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love;
Take my feet, and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee.

Now, dedicating my feet to the Lord's service I'll gladly do, but asking that they be swift and beautiful may require more faith than I possess. Just in case you doubt how difficult a transformation that might be, take a look at the picture, which I snapped when I peeled off my socks, after walking a further five miles home.

Notice the webbed second and third toes - more pronounced on the left foot. This mutation hasn't blessed me with swimming ability but neither does it seem to have impeded my locomotion on ground.

Ms Havergal's verse recalls Isaiah 52.7, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’ I certainly aspire to bringing messages of peace, good news and salvation in Christ and to declare God's reign. But as for beautiful, well I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.

Could I walk it?

There's a scene in Bruce Almighty, where Bruce Nolan (played by Jim Carrey) asks God for a sign. This is the set-up for a string of gags where the road signs that he passes suggest he's heading into danger and should really change direction.

I had my own Bruce Nolan moment this morning, as I trudged up the A6 into Leicester:


Is someone trying to tell me something?

Encouraged to blog

On Friday, I joined over fifty other anglican clergymen (and a handful of women) at Ecclesiastical's reception and ministry bursary awards. We met in the chapter house of St Paul's (externally drab but inwardly rather pleasant). Shaking clerical hands and describing the work being sponsored was Nick Baines, right reverently the Bishop of Croydon.

His encouragement for us sabbatical taking vicars was enthusiastic. In particular, he wanted to know what we'd been up to when we completed our adventures. The scale of ambition of the projects ranged considerably. One person is determined to master the fiendishly complicated language of Mandarin in three months. Another wishes to learn to play the Leicestershire small pipe. A couple of people are exploring the potential of the church's role in the Olympics, one by visiting Athens, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney and Los Angeles. Another is exploring mission to white working-class men. There are plans with specific, tightly-focussed areas of enquiry and some rather less defined projects that look like a kind of holy 'pottering about'.

Of course, pottering about isn't necessarily a bad thing. I shall be doing plenty of that in the months after Easter. Sometimes, moments that are unsought and unintended turn out to be the most significant of all.

I admire the generosity of spirit of those who allocate these annual awards. This year some £60,000 is being donated by Ecclesiastical, with no promise of a return on investment. The best they can hope for, in terms of feedback, is that we'll write something along the way.

And that feels like a reasonable bargain to me. Writing will require that we preserve the gleanings of our endeavours, for the education, edification or amusement of others.

Nick Baines is one of the CofE's few blogging bishops (good on him, see his blog here). I'm encouraged to keep blogging myself, despite the teasing that it's drawn from clergy colleagues (not so much from lay people) over the last three years. I've decided to alter my plans slightly and so instead of beginning a brand new blog, I've renamed this existing one and am about to go public with it.

Originally I used the perhaps too-clever title of "Covering my tracks" for a blog for my own personal use, to record notes and thoughts prior to launching a brand new blog for the Walking Home project. My thinking was that I could use "Covering my tracks" experimentally, to see what worked and to cull its best bits for a more public, more polished affair. But I haven't really got the time for all the messing about and besides, looking back on the rough bits of this blog (feel free to browse the archives, you'll find plenty that's rough) its provisional feel is quite charming.

So I've re-hashed the logo, and given it a new name. "Walking Home" feels less subterfugal* than "covering my tracks" and says what I'm actually preparing for. So, do enjoy the posts, feel free to offer comments and I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I do, but without the blisters.

*Not sure that 'subterfugal' is a real word but if it isn't, it should be, don't you think?

I would walk 500 miles

Kinda fits, doesn't it?

Support from Ecclesiastical

The good folks at Ecclesiastical, an insurer specialising in church insurance, have sent me confirmation that they will support me with bursary for my sabbatical project. I'm off to St Paul's Cathedral on 16 January to collect the sponsorship. Thanks Ecclesiastical!