The Sauntering Ordinand

Some years ago, with my husband and our son, I walked the St Cuthbert's Way from Melrose in the Scottish borders to Lindisfarne , in Northumberland.  It was a wonderful walk of great variety; woodland paths, upland moors, riverbanks, farmland.  But on the last day we walked through an almost other-worldly landscape.  Having walked through the morning, we had time to sit on the shore, eating our sandwiches, and looking out across the sea to Lindisfarne.  Almost imperceptibly land gradually appeared before us as we ate, and spindly wooden poles became waymarkers beckoning us onward from our resting place,  revealing our route across this land between lands.  Initially the sands, although wet, were not very different to walking on our beach at home at low tide, and it was tempting to keep on our trusty boots.  But it had been suggested that barefoot was really the only way to make this pilgrimage, so boots, and socks, were peeled off, and tied on to our ...

The Sauntering Ordinand ...   I am a Scottish Episcopal Church Ordinand and primary school teacher who lives on the Black Isle in Scotland.  My husband Simon and I have three children who have all now left home, and our lives are at a turning point.  For 2020/21 I have taken a break in my studies, and will take a 6-month teaching career break from January-July 2021.  Our plans are to spend six weeks studying in Jerusalem at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute , before embarking on a 3-month walk from Vezelay, France to Assisi, Italy, following the Chemin d’Assise . I have been very generously supported by various organisations and trusts including the British Trust for Tantur, the Scottish Episcopal Church St James’ Fund, and the Scottish Episcopal Church Global Partnerships Committee, for whose support I am very grateful.  Saunter is a word that has a confusing etymology.  In current dictionaries its meaning is often described in terms such as 'a slow and...