The Sabbatical Diary: May to August 1997

After 25 years in the church it seemed right to take a break. The Diocese were offering sabbaticals to those who had been more than ten years in ministry, so I could get some funding and I knew that USPG would give me some too. The Ecclesiastical Insurance Group were offering bursaries for study as well and that made it possible to think about a return to Zimbabwe. I hadn't been back since we left in 1987. During my time in the Lake District I had started looking at Celtic themes and began to see parallels with African Spirituality. I was interested in the way people left doctrines and dogmas behind and were developing spirituality in response to their lives. So I put together a proposal and was accepted. Angela and Len Thomas lent me their bungalow in Harare and Barry and Brenda Venn lent me a car.

May 1st – 3rd

I began my sabbatical by going to Iona Abbey for three nights. Iona is the place where Columba established his monastery and is a place of pilgrimage for people from all over the world. Many return with a Celtic cross from the gift shop, others with a pebble from the beach, still others with a story of St Columba in their hearts. 

The planned week at the abbey had been cancelled which enabled people like me, who phoned up on the off chance, to get in. So the group that met at the abbey were from a variety of different countries and offered many varied experiences. A Maori woman minister from New Zealand struggling with issues of race and gender; a couple from Australia who worked with Aborigines and who told us that the Aborigines had not been given human rights until 1969 - until then they had to defend themselves in court using the mistreatment of animals act; a South African priest who had seen the dramatic changes in that country over the past ten years; a Dutch worker with those dying from AIDS; a couple from Northern Ireland involved in small signs of hope in their own divided community; a group from an inner city housing estate in the north-east; and an American who was searching for inner peace for whom all the talk of struggles for justice were just too much.

As the stories were told and pain shared it became clear that spirituality is not about doctrine or dogma, about rituals or institutions, but about people and their struggles. Anything the church has to offer has to relate to that search for meaning, and peace can only be truly found in the context of community.

As we walked along the beach Peter Millar, the warden, asked me to lead a session on Celtic Christianity the following day. I had no notes with me but I pointed to the role of story and poetry in the tradition, the involvement of the priests with their people, Patrick and Columba appearing before secular leaders and confronting them, and the central place of healing and God's power in the life of the church: the whole of life lived in the presence of God.

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