sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com: Unholy Land

Monday, 5 August 2019

Unholy Land

Lindisfarne

But disappointing location at £9.00 a pop for The Castle and the Priory even though I had a voucher for 20% off.

Ye Olde Aidan's Tea rooms, Bede's Brasserie were names I made up for the Hostelries that faced me.

I've just walked across the water from Iona for this I felt like saying but then I am a congenital liar.

Mea Culpa.

Where in God's name can you get spiritual sustenance in UK today without having to pay for the pleasure of turning wine into water?

Everybody wants your Tax Payer Assisted Benefit Money to pay for the upkeep of relics.

But at 53 I am the old relic.

Saints preserve us, only NOT the ones at Holy Island, Lindisfarne.

I shouldn't have gone with such a Holy Man. My pilgrimage companion was a lay preacher with the Presbyterian Church of Wales. He is a man of God as the son of a Minister and I am a 'Seeker' after my experiences of 2005. Read about them here. I have been seeking through mini pilgrimage but I should have known better. This is 3 years into a Brexit debacle. How do you expect to find spiritual solace in among that. Brexit feels very real in Wales. It felt the furthest thing from our minds whilst taking a sojourn in sunny Northumbria. I'm a man who likes his rough and ready areas and originality and we found that in Newcastle & Gateshead. I didn't find it when I went to the town of Glastonbury in Somerset a few years ago. You can read about that here. I didn't find it at Holy Island and Lindisfarne either so maybe I should give up seeking. "NOOOO" I hear you screech like harpees. "You must continue seeking, it is what makes your blog posts so interesting" "Why thank you" Perhaps I shouldn't go looking in the so called obvious places at the height of summer holiday in cagoule and shorts weather. Perhaps I shouldn't expect to find miracles of nature and answers to the meaning of humanity because humanity is all about escapism as far as I can see. Escaping into your car to visit somewhere a little intriguing, a little different, somewhere the kids can run around shrieking among strangers, somewhere that isn't too steep at the Pay and Display Car Park. We were under the impression that National Trust England had their act together and were a different mindset to our own heritage highway persons of Cadw and National Trust Waaaaleees. Not surprising perhaps because they were charging £9.00 to get into Lindisfarne Castle, the interesting looking outcrop that you can see from the mainland and they were also charging £9.00 to get into the ruins of the Priory which was next to the church of St Aidan's which was free so we went in. It was packed with people like us who wanted things for free. There was no escape from the madding crowd on Holy Island. Wherever you turned there was a Brit in cagoule and shorts which is like London but the person on your shoulder there is a foreign tourist. Not many foreigners on Lindisfarne. It is too far from London, the metropolis where the Lindisfarne Gospels are kept under lock and key and glass case in the British Library along with the Elgin Marbles. As a pair of 'hard line' Welsh Nationalists' we were very tempted to start up the Northumbrian Republican Army on Holy Island, march on London and demand the Gospels back but then we saw the Initials of our group N R A and realised that that might bring Donald Trump along the causeway so we abandoned our plans before any armaments were stockpiled.

Lindisfarne, Holy Island and Glastonbury may have been a disappointment but Newcastle United's St James' Park certainly was not. The second part of our trip saw us make for the Mecca of 'Wor Jackie' and 'Bobby Pop Robson' You'd have thought that the Toon Army would have been in despondent mood after the departure of Rafa Benitez, not a bit of it! They were out in force to see The Magpies host 'Les Verts' St Etienne near Lyon. The atmosphere was like that of a shrine, especially second half when local lad Matty Longstaff came on and scored within a minute. 16,000 but it felt more like 60,000.

What struck the pair of us before we went into the ground was the Newcastle United Foundation Team with their promotion of Be A Game Changer. Mental Health means a lot to Seeker & Holy Man because that is how we met, by sharing our mental health stories and journeys with each other and we continue to do so with podcast conversations which you will hear more about in due course. After the game we had one more pilgrimage to make and that was out past Gateshead to pay our respects to the Angel of the North. This certainly was a pilgrimage worth making so to see the canny angel's outstretched wings not embracing the area in front of it but to my eyes protecting the area behind it. With the North East having the highest rates of suicide in England in 2017 the area and its people certainly needs protecting.