Skip to main content

One Foot After the Other

The photo above is the first one I ever posted to this blog, back when I began it 8 years ago. I started blogging to  record  a study leave I was taking back then. I intended a sort of philosophical musing for a small group of friends and acquaintances, and the blog was called ReVision. Now with a new name; 602 posts; about 1,000 photographs; 2 sabbaticals; 4 trips to Europe and others to The Pacific, the USA and Australia; 2 pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela and one across Otago and Southland; a diagnosis of and treatment for cancer; the marriage of two children and the births of three grandchildren; the varied departures and arrivals of people very dear to me; and my election and ministry as bishop later,  here I am making a start again.

I'm beginning another pilgrimage.

Like the others this one will last 40 days. Like the others I have some clear ideas where it is going but I know it is going to surprise me. Unlike the others this one will not involve any walking, or at least no more than usual. This will be a journey of the soul, and, very much like the others will involve me following a path that thousands have trod before me. This is the one from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Of course this is a well known, often travelled route for me, but this year I am doing something I find just a little scary. I'm doing it publicly, recording it here, on this blog. Also like the others I am not sure I am actually going to be able to finish what I started but I know that the way ahead is to take one day at a time; make the 800 km journey by not thinking too much about it and just placing one foot after the other.

In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined, on April 28 2008,  that  first day when I sat down in front of my computer and knocked out a post to my new blog, where my life was to lead me. I have no idea where the next 40 days will take me. But walk with me if you will; I'd really like that. 

Comments

Merv said…
Right there with ya!
Sarah McMillan said…
Hello Kelvin would love to follow.

Alden Smith said…
I shall watch the Pilgrims progress.

Popular posts from this blog

How To Walk 800 km

John is just walking the 80 metres back to his bike here, but you get the general drift.  The question I get asked more than any other at the end of the Hikoi is "how are your feet?" It's nice that people care, but my feet have never been an issue on long walks. Good shoes and socks prevent blisters and cushion the effects of long distances on hard surfaces, but I have had other issues. When walking the Camino Santiago knees, Achilles tendons and shin splints have all at one time or another given me trouble. This time round, these have all been fine and I finished feeling as though I could just keep on going indefinitely; to Cape Reinga if needs be. Over the last couple of years I have learned 6 things that have made all the difference. Namely: 1. Footwear. On the Camino I wore walking shoes - Salomon in 2009 and Asics in 2012. A year ago I changed to full walking boots - Salomon Cosmic 2 - and the difference was instant and major. When walking more than 15 minutes...

Why I Hold the Views I Do

St. Hilda's Collegiate School, taken with my phone after a recent meeting. This picture has nothing whatsoever to do with what follows, but I like the interplay of shapes and particularly the shadow on the wall. My mother is a Methodist, liberal in her theological and social opinions. My father was a socialist, just slightly to the left, in his politics, of Karl Marx. My siblings -there are 5 of us- are all bright, eloquent and omnivorous in their consumption of books and other intellectual fodder.  One of my most cherished childhood memories is of mealtimes in our little state house. The food was ingested with copious amounts of spirited, opinionated, clever and sometimes informed debate on whatever subject happened to catch the attention of one of the family that day. Or whatever one of us thought might get a rise out of someone else. So, sex, politics and religion it was then - oh and motorbikes, economics, international relations, demographics, cricket, company ownersh...

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

It happens sometimes. I have a question or am pondering some conundrum or other and the right book arrives at pretty much the right time. In a session with my supervisor a few months back Paul mentioned an article by Rene Girard, whom I had never heard of. I read the article and over the past month have read two of his books, The Scapegoat and this one. I have another couple sitting on my shelf and they have elbowed all others in my to be read pile out of the way and sit firmly on the top. Girard has pulled a number of threads together for me: he has enabled me to rethink the atonement in a way which is consistent with an evolving Universe: he presents a view of scripture which is again consistent with what I know of science but is also faithful to the Bible as the Word of God; he has given me, for the first time in my life a theology (if that is the right word) of Satan which makes sense to me. Most importantly for me, he is consistent with my own lived experience of God's s...

2 More Years

An autumn leaf, the evidence of the death whereby the grapevine lives and bears fruit There are 31,102 verses in the Bible, or at least in the Protestant version of it which the conservative section of our church recognises. Of these, there are 6 verses which explicitly condemn homosexual practice. The best scholars in the Christian world have pointed out the ambiguity of even these scraps of scripture, but this does not prevent their becoming the basis of an antipathy to contemporary same gender sexuality which I was repeatedly told, during General Synod, was "First Order". I'm not sure what "First Order" means exactly, but I was told that this is a "Salvation Matter". So, presumably, holding a proper view on homosexuality is right up there in importance with belief in the doctrines I would consider foundational for the Christian faith: namely the Holy Trinity, Incarnation and Resurrection. In any event, antipathy to homosexuality has already ...

En Hakkore

In the hills up behind Ranfurly there used to be a town, Hamilton, which at one stage was home to 5,000 people. All that remains of it now is a graveyard, fenced off and baking in the lonely brown hills. Near it, in the 1930s a large Sanitorium was built for the treatment of tuberculosis and other respiratory ailments. It was a substantial complex of buildings with wards, a nurses hostel, impressive houses for the manager and superintendent and all the utility buildings needed for such a large operation. The treatment offered consisted of isolation, views and weather. Patients were exposed to the air, the tons of it which whistled past, often at great speed, the warmth of the sun and the cold. They were housed in small cubicles opening onto huge glassed verandas where they cooked in the summer and froze in the winter and often, what with the wholesome food and the exercise, got better. When advances in antibiotics rendered the Sanitorium obsolete it was turned into a Borstal and...