St. Cuthbert - Something understood
It was too windy to go out to the Farne Islands on Wednesday last week, so I walked from Bamburgh around the coast to Budle Bay then back by way of the Spindle Stone. I could not help looking back at the castle and realising how close it was to the Inner Farnes . It was then I got cross with Cuthbert! He had his hermitage on the Inner Farnes. The king lived at Bamburgh Castle. It is one thing to have a vocation to become a hermit. Its another to go grand standing about it. "Look at me I'm a holy hermit living on next to nothing in the middle of the sea!" Bythe time I'd walked the circuit I'd come to terms with what he had done. I realised I thought nothing in mounting the steps of a pulpit and preaching in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Cuthbert's enacted example was far more costly and communicated deep and uncomfortable truths that still resonate. Life is precarious, it mattered little if you were a fighting king or a hermit. ...