Last week I was able to see my parents again after 9 months deprived of their company.  We took them for a holiday back to North Yorkshire where my father worked for much of his priestly ministry and where we grew up.  This was a wonderful opportunity to revisit many of our favourite locations in the Yorkshire Dales.  The weather was mixed, but it actually made the spectacular views of Upper Wensleydale and Swaledale even more impressive, seeing the limestone crags in different lights and changing skies.  This year’s late flowering of bluebells and wild garlic coincided perfectly with our visit.  We heard the bubbling call of curlews on the hillside, we saw lapwings and oystercatchers flying over the fields.  There were red squirrels running along the garden fence and numerous garden birds on the birdfeeder.  And the sound of a waterfall immediately below our bedroom window offered a soothing accompaniment as we fell asleep each night.  In this spectacular environment I was reminded once again of the sheer beauty of nature, and the joy it brings to the soul, especially in a setting which also contains a deep emotional attachment from my past.

I mentioned in my last blog the significance of ‘thin’ places – where human and heavenly spaces seem to converge, and we feel deeply immersed within God’s presence.  We revisited two such ‘thin’ places last week which are only four miles apart from each other – Ripon Cathedral (my favourite cathedral with all its special associations) and Fountains Abbey.   Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132 by 13 monks who were dissatisfied with the increasingly lax rule of the wealthy Benedictine St Mary’s Abbey in York, and they were determined to found a more rigorous monastic house as Cistercians (or monks in a white habit).  They travelled to Ripon Cathedral where they spent Christmas, and on Boxing Day 1132, they set out to find a deserted spot in a small valley nearby with running water provided by the River Skell.  Here they founded their new community which came to be known as Fountains Abbey.

When my father was part of the Ripon Cathedral ministry team in 1982, as a church historian with a particular interest in monastic history, he thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to re-enact that journey of Boxing Day from 850 years earlier.  So he initiated what has become a remarkably popular event which still continues nearly 40 years later as part of the annual events at Ripon Cathedral and Fountains Abbey.  On Boxing Day 1982 we walked from Ripon Cathedral with a smallish number of congregation accompanying us (maybe 40 to 50 people as I recall), to retrace the footsteps of those original monks who set out to establish their new abbey.  By contrast, the Boxing Day walk now attracts up to two thousand walkers and pilgrims.

On our return to Fountains Abbey last week, I wanted my parents to be able to have sight of the abbey ruins once more although they would not be able to walk any distance.  When we arrived at the visitors’ centre, we were lucky enough to catch the attention of one of the administrative team there, and we told her about how my father had instigated the walk from the cathedral in 1982, and how much it would mean to him to have another sight of the abbey.  The remarkable administrator was so touched by his story that she laid on a brand new minibus with the longest-serving National Trust employee on that site to drive my parents and me through the grounds and deer park.  We felt so blessed by this remarkable act of kindness, and my parents were able to enjoy a beautiful view of the abbey in the sunshine.  It was truly a God-given moment for them to return to this ‘thin’ place once more.   

Sarah Bourne, Chaplain for the Arts – 2^nd June 2021           sarahbourne@banburystmary.org.uk