End of the Road for Me

One of the nice things about Holy Island is that when the tide is coming in at a rate of knots, and it does come in at a fair old pace, you know that you are more or less have the island to yourself. That no one else can get on or off! It is almost a seize mentality, in a friendly way, because you are secure in the knowledge that what is on the island will be on the island for next 5-6 hours.

A lot of people come to the island to just see the castle or to visit the various churches here in the village of Lindisfarne. To have lunch at the very popular Pilgrim’s Coffee House and other hostelries. Hardly anyone goes beyond the village and walk past the castle to the East Shore, where many people have built cairns. There are many places to visit here, St Aidan’s Roman Catholic Church, St Mary’s Parish Church, St Cuthbert’s Centre, various Retreat Houses, the Priory Ruins and Museum, cafés, two pubs and a hotel that welcomes the stranger in for hospitality.

If you like walking, which is what I did today. I walked around the outer edge of Holy Island on the shore line, where I could and on cliff tops when needed too. Then you have various geographical point to head for, like the Hough, St Cuthbert’s isle, the Causeway, passing the one end of the Pilgrim’s Crossing. Snook Point, North Shore, Snip Point, Coves Haven, The Links (a range of sand dunes, which between May 1st and July 31st is a reserve for ground nesting birds), Sandham, Emmanuel Head (where a white pyramid stand as a navigation maker for shipping), Sheldrake Pool, Eastern Shore, The Ouse (below the castle), the harbour, full circle to the Hough. It easy going and there is the odd climb to hight ground because the beach runs into the sea. It took me about five-and-a-half-hours. About the length of time you would have to wait on the island between low tides.

In that time you will have seen more wildlife, more deserted beaches, and a whole lot of peace to think! I meet two people on my journey around the island, because today an angel appeared in the St Cuthbert’s Centre this morning after prayers and came and joined the conversation between myself and two other ladies (one URC and the other CoE, but married to a retired Methodist Minister). The subject matter was, “the stresses and strains of ministry”. I appreciate I only work one day a week! However, in the real sense of the word, there seems to be an awful lot of ministries who have reached at some point in their ministry, the ‘end of the road’ and have not known what to do, or who to talk to about it. This angel was another minister who has had to take time out from ministry to fully restore herself to what God is saying her about her ‘calling’.

Her prophetic words were, “Maybe you are still doing so much and you need to let more of it go. That it was not until you let things go that you find the space to hear God speaking to you.” As you can imagine, I was somewhat taken aback by this, as I know it was for me to hear, since I was the only serving minister in this conversation explaining my first ten years of ministry and what could be in front of me and the thinking and decision making that needed to be thought about over the next four to five months. I have known some very low point in my ministry about three years ago and cried a lot about it. Yet here I was standing and sharing, with all the old emotion running through me again. Why was that? Then this statement came... When I turned around the person who said it had gone and silently as she had arrived.

So, going for a walk a long the Causeway, only to realise that the tide was coming in behind me, meant that I not only ran out road behind me, but in front too, as you can see. The number of photographs I took today that were out of focus was pitiful, but clearly this one clear image of the road’s end, marked a place to stop and refocus on something else. I needed. I need to refocus on me and what God is saying to me. The angels words stayed with me for the rest of walk and for the rest of the day, and will stay with me for a long while afterwards too...