A few excuses and a beginning

For those who are followers a profound apology. I have been on pilgrimage again with a group from the shires of England. It was the full way from St Jean to Santiago. It has taken these weeks out of my life. So there as been no blogging. I know many folk use the pilgrimage to blog but for me with a group to support it is not really possible. The walking took a total of 32 days quite fast really. It always leads me to the point where I decided that this is the very last pilgrimage I am going on. I have done my share. Only on return do I realise what has happened in those who I have taken with me that I reconsider and move from a complete ban to as maybe to the certain knowledge that I will be on the next pilgrimage. I am not at that point yet but I do know that I will be soon.I also begin to put the experience into some sort of context and understand what has been happening for me. My reflections this time are many. The one that is most in my mind at the moment is the old testament story of Moses where he asks to see God's face. The answer is rather interesting. He gets a refusal and a promise. I will hide in a cleft in the rock and pass by, covering you with my hand. I will then let you see me from behind. I found that I could relate to this incident as it occured to me that it is only in retrospect that we see that the space into which we have walked on pilgrimage was filled with God. We see him from behind so to speak. For me it has been this realisation that has been in my mind the days since I returned from Spain. I have been in a space with Jesus for nearly five weeks. In this space I have seen great things in his creation and great things he has been doing in others and me. I have discovered again at a deeper level that the Christian faith is not about the formal institutionalise Church, but it is about relationship. These relationships are vertical; us and God, and horizontal; between each other. More than that there is no way of knowing which direction God is going to speak from next.Sometimes it is vertical sometimes horizontal. The constant is that he does speak all the time in that 'still small voice' that Elijah heard, to those who will listen to him.