Another sacred space

You know, I might not be a fan of the Sky Gods, but I have to say that there are few places as lovely as old churches.

This one, in the village where Leanne lives, is particularly special. It seems to date for some 300 years before the Norman Conquest (parts were added later). It has an Anglo-Saxon eagle sculpture and there was a relic box which contained what's believed to have been the throat bone of St Boniface - who came from Devon!

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been stressed and strained and very tired (not going to bed until about 3am at the earliest and usually getting woken up at some point before I'd like to get up). What I planned was some tree time, but instead I went here after PT with Leanne. And there was a rather superb horse chestnut under which I sat for a while.

Peace.

I think the loveliest thing is that this place was open. Inside, there were prayer cards you could buy by leaving money in an honesty box. I love that this can still be the case. That there is still trust in the world and that people clearly honour that trust.

A rabbit ambled through the graves. I had a look at some... a baby who died at two months, nothing else legible. Two sisters, one who died as a very little girl and the second at 28. An 18 year old boy who died just a few years ago. His grave was covered in little statues and painted stones. A little sculpture of a robin.

I thought of Alastair Humphreys whose book Local I am listening to. He is an adventurer (rowing across oceans, cycling round the world) but he decided to spend a year going out once a week to a randomly selected 'square' on his Ordinance Survey Map. It's a charming book and also surprisingly hard hitting. He explores deeply and widely for information about what he is seeing and he says that the more you attend, the more you see, the more you think, the more you love and the more curious you get so that you attend more. Exactly.