Posted on Jul 20, 2009
The Holy Island of Lindisfarne is a rocky island in the North Sea off the Northeastern Coast of England. A long spit of sand dunes extends behind the island, almost reaching the mainland. Holy Island is a creature of the tides. For part of each day it is a peninsula and traffic can cross on a narrow causeway. For the rest of the day it is an isolated island, especially isolated since the 150 full time residents have refused the possibility of establishing a ferry.
During the summer months it is easy to see why they value their isolation. When the tide is out, busloads of day trippers descend on the island, clogging the narrow streets and crowding everything. When the tide is in, there are only the full time residents and a 150 or so folks staying in hotels and B & B’s. The contrast is stark, and the quiet is all the deeper because of this contrast.
Lot’s of the people who come do so as we would come to spend time at Wrightsville Beach. It is their vacation time at the shore. Others follow an older tradition. Since the Middle Ages Holy Island has been a place of pilgrimage. In those days it was because of the life and ministry of St. Cuthbert, a gentle reconciling figure in a time of conflict in the life of the church. They now come for broader reasons.
Holy Island has become a place of more general spiritual pilgrimage. I have met pilgrims who have come expecting the Holy Spirit to “fall” on them. Others come for the profound sense of quiet. A common thread is that many come again and again, saying that there is something special about this place.
I first felt it two years ago when I ended my walk along St. Cuthbert’s Way. Holy Island was the goal, This time it is the beginning of the journey. I think that all of us would agree that our three weeks or so of European travel was wonderful, but it was also exhausting. These four days on Holy Island have given me a chance to get some rest as the next phase of the sabbatical begins.
There has been time for prayer; Morning Prayer at St. Mary’s, the local Anglican Parish, and quiet, contemporary prayers in the evenings at St. Cuthbert’s Centre, a Presbyterian Church.
Aside from this I have spent a good bit of time walking the dunes above the rocky shore. The North Sea is frisky this week and the waves on the rocks are a lot bigger than we usually get to see at Wrightsville.