Many years ago my mother gave me a picture for my birthday. It is a sketch of that quintessential English scene—a towering medieval cathedral overlooking a tree-ringed cricket field. As she gave it to me, she announced, “Your two loves”. I could tell she was very pleased with herself!
Church. Cricket. It’s true. They are two loves—although the loves have been refined over the intervening years, with a need to manage the disappointing with one and the idolatrous with the other. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which…
On one Sunday earlier this month, these loves converged. Barby and I were in Northumbria, in England’s northeast, for the purpose of visiting Lindisfarne (Holy Island). Visitors can only drive over to the island in the hours either side of low tide and the timing worked perfectly for us. We arrived just in time for the morning service at The Parish Church of St Mary The Virgin and then had a few hours to wander around the island before needing to come back across the causeway to the mainland once again.
Our visit, from the time we left Rose Cottage (Beadnell), where we were staying, to the time we returned home, coincided almost exactly with the World Cup Cricket Final, the four-yearly high point for every cricket fan. Oh dear! For score updates I had to depend on intermittent connectivity with my mobile phone.
And yet there was so much to enjoy on a gloriously sunny day.
The Causeway
The Saints
The story of the island revolves around two saints, St Aidan and St Cuthbert—with two statues outside to commemorate them and two panels inside the church to tell their stories briefly.
It is possible to do a walk, called St Cuthbert’s Way—made more famous this past year when the Lectio365 host narrated his journey along this ‘way’.
The History
The history—from the birth of the work, to the raids of the Vikings, on to lifting Benedict’s body from its grave and carrying it around the North for seven years (!!) and into the present day—is fascinating.
I’m not really a museum kind of guy but the two sides of this stone (from 1500+ years ago!), depicting the Viking raids, was worth a lingering.
The Church
It was such a joy to step into the service and be singing these words in this place, almost immediately:
Then up near the Table, on the wall, there is an apology for the Viking raids from the churches in Norway—with the stained glass story of the Good Samaritan from the opposite wall neatly filling the margins—dated from 1993 [NB: sorry that the words are not so clear!].
While back in the foyer of the church, there is this arresting life-size sculpture:
The Views
Like so much of the countryside in the UK there seems to be a potential postcard, even a jigsaw puzzle, in every vista. We enjoyed the castle.
And the ruins of the original Priory are interesting, until I stepped on the wrong rock and got yelled at. Clearly, English ruins are different from Moghul ruins (and Roman ones, in the next week in Philippi). I yelped and slunk off to another part of the island…
And it was little St Cuthbert’s Island (see map above) that I found to be magical, especially as the sun began to set—with it possibly being the place to which he retired! Such luxury. Such space. Can you see the tiny little cross poking out?
The Company
Almost five years to the day that we welcomed Graham and Ruth to India—along with Andy and Ines—they were introducing us to the pleasures in the North of England. We enjoyed Bamburgh Castle, the Treehouse Restaurant in Alnwick (where the ‘l’ and the ‘w’ are silent, something I wouldn’t have figured out in one hundred attempts), The Barter Bookshop—together with great scenery and great conversation.
Ruth was leading a consultation for our core administrators in Langham Preaching in the preceding week. At the meal table on the final day I was sharing with others that we were going up to Holy Island over the weekend—and that the new book on St Cuthbert was in my sights. Later that day, as we passed through their home in Carlisle, there was an Amazon package on the dining room table. Ruth had already bought the book for me! Stay tuned :).
Yes, on this Sunday there was a love eclipsed. The Cricket World Cup Final was seldom on my mind. Truly. However what would have happened if New Zealand was in the final? My sanctified self tells me that the trip to Holy Island would still have happened. But what if it was a repeat of that 2019 final—New Zealand vs England—when justice was eclipsed? Well, that would have caused a dilemma, with my unsanctified self likely to reassert itself in the search of retribution… 🙂
nice chatting
Paul
About Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
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