BBC Radio 4 - Sunday Worship, Holy Coasts - Northumberland Pilgrimage

Chris: Good morning and welcome to Sunday Worship. I'm Chris Humble. I live here in the North-East of England and I am privileged to spend some of my time making pilgrimages.

Today we are going to walk along the beautiful coastline of Northumberland from the ancient fishing village of Craster to the picturesque village of Alnmouth with its historic harbour.

We're beginning here at St Peter the Fisherman church in Craster. This little building began life in the nineteenth century as a Sunday School Hall and later became a mission church, serving the local community and the fishermen who followed the herring shoals around the coast. But of course the name of this church takes us much further back than the nineteenth century, back to fishermen plying their trade at the time Jesus began his ministry on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

I often say to people who are uncertain about making a pilgrimage, 'Just Go'. As a fisherman Peter knew the sea, the unpredictability of water, the necessity of working with other people, the fact that you could never completely control what the day would bring. And what a pilgrimage Peter began when he dropped his nets - and just went - to follow Jesus.

I'm joined for our own pilgrimage today by Gareth Davies-Jones, and Bronwen Davies-Jones, father and daughter, and both professional musicians. Before we leave for our journey today would you set the scene for us with some music?

MUSIC: WE ARE ALL PILGRIMS - GARETH AND BRONWEN RECORDED ON LOCATION AT ST PETER THE FISHERMAN CHURCH IN CRASTER for BBC SUNDAY WORSHIP

Chris: So as we set off Gareth, tell me about that song, 'We are all pilgrims'.

Gareth: Last year I went on my own musical pilgrimage from Lindisfarne to Durham which included St Oswald's Way, named after Oswald, King of Northumbria from 634.

I carried this small guitar on my back and played concerts for communities where I stayed. My intention was to turn the journey into music by writing songs that spoke of the landscape I walked through, the history and legacy of the Northern Saints, the people that I met along the way and what it's like to both be a pilgrim and have pilgrims pass through your place.

So I tried to capture that sense that we all journey through life trying to find meaning and belonging, to discover what and more importantly who life is all about.

Chris: On our journey today we are walking seven miles southward to Alnmouth along one of the most beautiful stretches of the Northumberland coast.

Gareth: This stretch of the coast has had quite an impact on me, people often take time out to come here in times of loss, adversity, challenge, change to stare out to sea and wonder. I began to feel that this built upon the legacy of the Northern Saints - the 'ordinary' and grounded faith of Cuthbert, Aidan and Oswald and Hilda still impacting visitors and residents today.

Chris: Throughout history people have lived on the coast because of what the sea can provide - food, transport, trade - and those familiar with the sea know of its dangerous power. A coast is a place of opportunity and vulnerability. Pilgrimage too asks us to accept a little vulnerability: to leave the security of what we know, and to see what we encounter on the way, just as Peter, the fisherman, did.

MUSIC: BE THOU MY VISION - EOGHAN HEASLIP COMMERCIAL (Hymns 4 vo 2.

Bronwen: Matthew chapter 4 beginning at verse 17.

From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will send you out to fish for people." At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

Gareth:

God of the road and the sea,

as we set out today,

help us to travel lightly.

Open our eyes to the landscape around us,

our ears to the people we meet,

and our hearts to what you may be saying to us.

Give us courage when the path is difficult,

patience when the journey is long,

and gratitude for the gift of simply being on the way.

Amen

MUSIC: SIMPLE GIFTS - YO-YO MA, ALISON KRAUSS Commercial. Album Essential Yo-yo Ma

Chris: Bronwen are you new to pilgrimage?

Bronnie responds.

MUSIC: GARETH AND BRONNIE "I am a pilgrim" with a passerby and their story

Chris: The Howick Stone Settlement is one of the most remarkable prehistoric sites you pass on the Craster-Alnmouth walk. It is easy to miss because what survives archaeologically is largely beneath the ground here, but it is extraordinarily significant.

Around 7,800 BC hunter-gatherers built a circular timber hut, around 6 meters across overlooking what was then a very different Northumberland coastline - likely around 200 meters further out than what we are looking at here. It is the earliest securely dated evidence of human settlement in Northumberland and there were more than 13,000 flint artefacts found here, plus remains of enormous quantities of hazelnut shells and animal remains! People stayed here for the rich combination of woodland, freshwater, coast and sea resources. This place reminds us that our pilgrimage today is just one tiny episode in a human story that stretches back thousands of years.

Gareth: Celtic Christianity was largely the practice of the Northern Saints like Cuthbert, the patron saint of Northumbria. He adhered to the idea that God speaks to us in a number of ways - through his word but also through his creation. Nature was so important to these early Christians and it's no accident that Cuthbert is famously known for his interaction with wildlife and his love for the people and places of Northumbria and what it told him about the character and love of God.

Let's pray:

God of the guiding star, the bush that blazes

Show us your way

God of the stormy sea, the bread that nourishes

Teach us your truth

God of the still small voice, the wind that blows where it chooses

Fill us with life

God of the elements, of our inward and outward journeys

Set our feet on your path today. Amen

MUSIC: COME THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING. SUNG BY LUCY GRIMBLE (BBC RECORDING)

Chris: We're just walking into Alnmouth now. We've walked from Craster, past Howick and Boulmer, along this remarkable space between land and sea. When you drive somewhere, seven miles is hardly a distance at all. When you walk it, seven miles becomes a series of experiences. Pilgrimage slows us down enough to notice where we actually are and who we actually are.

MUSIC: ANCIENT PATHS - Anna Raine CD title Ancient Paths, songs and celtic blessings from the Island of Lindisfarne. Upper Springs Music.

Chris: We're on Alnmouth beach now, looking out across the mouth of the River Aln.

We've come to meet author and storyteller Margi McAllister and Brother Finnian, from the Abbey just a few hundred meters from here.

Margi: It's the most beautiful and unspoilt beach I know, it's still beautiful on the fierce wild days when the sleet sweeps in from Siberia. When Cuthbert was living as a hermit, the king came to visit him to personally implore him to become a bishop. Some people think that happened here, some think it was further inland, at Whittingham.

We're on a beautiful long stretch of sand, and just to the south of us is Coquet Island. It's tiny. It's now a bird sanctuary. You're not allowed to land there without permission from the RSPB, but long ago when St Cuthbert lived on Inner Farne he went there to meet Aelflaed the Abbess of Whitby to discuss who the next king of Northumbria should be.

In the 12th century, along comes Henry, who was a sort of accidental pilgrim. He was a Danish nobleman escaping from an arranged marriage when all he wanted to be was a hermit, and he turned up at the monastery in Tynemouth. They gave him permission to build a cell on Coquet Island. He lived ascetically, very much vulnerable to the sea and the elements, and people came on pilgrimage to seek his guidance.

When we lived just along the coast at Amble, my husband took a stunning photograph of Coquet Island in twilight with a military aircraft hovering immediately over it, like a hawk. I thought of something in the writings of Bede, about human life being as brief and fragile as a sparrow flying into the hall at one window and out at the next and I wrote this poem, Coquet Island.

POEM: COQUET ISLAND - written and by Margi McAllister, Copyright. Springmead Publishing

MUSIC: BLESSED ASSURANCE - Celtic Worship (performer) Album: Morningtide.

CHRIS AND BROTHER FINNIAN INTERVIEW

Chris: Standing here with the sand beneath our feet, and the sea ever-moving before us, I'd love to end our pilgrimage saying the Lord's Prayer together.

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation

but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power,

and the glory are yours

now and for ever.

Amen.

Chris: We began our journey today with Peter, a fisherman who put down his nets and followed Jesus. We've walked beside a sea that has sustained people for thousands of years. And we've ended, beautifully, with the Franciscans, whose own tradition places enormous emphasis on simplicity, peace, creation and the presence of God in the ordinary world.

Standing here beside the sea, we think of pilgrimage not so much as a journey towards somewhere, but as a willingness to keep moving -- to remain open to God, to other people and to the world around us.

Alnmouth was once a much, much busier working port, with ships, fishermen, merchants and sailors coming and going. It had a rather less than saintly reputation, too. John Wesley is said to have described it as "a small sea-port town, famous for all kinds of wickedness." So perhaps it's quite appropriate that our pilgrimage should end here. Because pilgrimage isn't about arriving in a place where everything is perfect. It's about learning to see the ordinary world differently. The people. The landscape. The places with complicated histories. All become part of the journey.

Prayer - Margi McAllister

God of pilgrims, thank you for the paths we have travelled,

for the people who have walked beside us,

and for the places that have opened our eyes.

When we are settled, make us willing to move

When we are lost, give us courage to continue.

When we are tired, give us strength,

When we are lonely give us companions,

And wherever our journeys take us,

help us to recognise your presence

in the people we meet,

in the world you have made,

and in the unexpected places