Hello!

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 relaxed walk', 'a walk with no particular direction or destination', 'walking gently'. These fit very well  with an important element of our pilgrimage walk to Assisi. We will go at walking pace, which over 3 months seems incredibly slow, given that we could fly to Assisi in a matter of hours.  Instead each step will take us, slowly, and meanderingly, just one step further along our path. And while we have a possible destination - Assisi - in mind, it makes no sense to try to keep this large in our minds as we set off to walk for 3 months.  Instead, we will undoubtedly be focused (and inevitably forced by our  bodily demands, our aches and pains) on this moment, in this place, and each next step our legs and feet will take. 

Another, 'folk' definition of the word also seems to add something to my blog title ... there have been suggestions that the word saunter may derive from French, suggesting possible links to 'la Sainte terre', describing pilgrims making their way to the Holy Land, or  'Sans terre', without land, or from the French 'sentier', meaning footpath.  Wherever this word's beginnings may lie, it feels like a comfortably nuanced word to describe the dreams I have of the hundreds of miles that meander on the maps I peruse.  Hundreds of miles that will become real places, and people, and paths, and trees, and flowers, and minibeasts, and dogs, and cows (I really don't like walking through fields of cows!) and sun and wind and rain, along the way.

I look forward to walking and 'talking' with you!