Retreat

It’s been interesting – being with clergy in their first three years of ministry. They seem so much more sensible and balanced than I was at that time. It’s been interesting some of the material which has arisen. These are clergy from Northern Ireland. I’m still pondering Bishop Peter Selby’s article ‘Why war is never a final solution’ It seems to me that a society can move on politically .. and economically .. and in terms of quality of life. But, at the level at which clergy deal with people, it takes a long time, a generation and more, for the cost and the feelings and the trauma of conflict to fade away.

Got the wheels of Bam Bam’s mountain bike onto National Cycle Route No 71. This is the famous C2C – which crosses England at this point. Reminiscent of the lines, ‘Thy Kingdom stretch from sea to sea till all the world be C of E’. Was that Betjeman? Anyway it was uphill at this point.