Norfolk Pilgrim

 .........   he that makes a pilgrimage does well if he makes it at a time when no others are doing so, even though the time be unusual. I should never advise him to make a pilgrimage when a great multitude is doing so; for, as a rule, on these occasions, people return in a state of greater distraction than when they went. And many set out on these pilgrimages and make them for recreation rather than for devotion. Where there is devotion and faith, then, any image will suffice; but, if there is none, none will suffice. Our Saviour was a very living image in the world; and yet those that had no faith, even though they went about with Him and saw His wondrous works, derived no benefit from them. Ascent of Mount Carmel. Book 3. Chapter 36

Sitting with the ancestors in   Advent’s long   dark   night, I sense   existential angst.  Photo Attribution: Geni CC BY-SA 4.0  On display in Norwich's Castle Museum, t his rare figure, dates from the  5 th Century; one of the very few known  3D,   Anglo- Saxon images.  It once formed the   lid of a cremation urn.   For 1300 years it lay buried in the dark, close to the  heart of Norfolk, on hill above the Wesum Valley.   You might say that the Spong Hill Cemetry was once  the dead centre of Norfolk; and the river like a long and winding artery that connected it to the encircling sea.