Walking to Jerusalem by Justin Butcher

Author:Justin Butcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Publisher: Pegasus Books

Saturday 23 September

Today I am the driver, covering a gap between Fatima’s stint and our new driver Ollie’s arrival. And, sod’s law having yet to be repealed, today turns out to be just about the hardest, longest and most perilous driving of the entire bloody pilgrimage. I drop the first group off to start their walk at the White (actually brown) Tower of Salonika, in the still dusky early-morning gloom after a 5.30 a.m. breakfast, then head back for the second group. Tim has real trouble navigating the drop-off point and we go round the whirligig three times until eventually we find a place to pull in off the motorway at the tiny woodland shrine and church of St George, which is also a travellers’ campsite, by the look of it, and the walkers cross the road via a tunnel. I give Tim the beautiful book Anam Cara, by John O’Donohue, from which to read a reflection with the group:

Humans are new here. Above us, the galaxies dance out towards infinity. Under our feet is ancient earth. We are beautifully moulded from this clay. Yet the smallest stone is millions of years older than us. In your thoughts the silent universe seeks echo. An unknown world aspires towards reflection. Words are the oblique mirrors which hold your thoughts. You gaze into these word mirrors and catch glimpses of meaning, belonging and shelter. Behind their bright surfaces is the dark and the silence. Words are like the god Janus, they face outwards and inwards at once.

If we become addicted to the external, our interiority will haunt us.1

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