I should have been on Retreat today..

I should have been on Retreat today..

I should have be on retreat today, I had penciled in two days and one night in a travel lodge on the M6 near Penrith to restore my spiritual wellbeing and engage in a bit of me and God time. Alas my mate Chris,  who was coming with me had a late night disagreement with a Covid test and bailed out on me last minute. This happened, just as I had celebrated Burnley football club taking a well deserved three nil lead against Hull City under the floodlights of a very wet stadium in the very depths of East Yorkshire.  

It was only my second away trip of the year, my first being to the cold concrete cacophony of the  rather soulless DW stadium of Wigan Athletic where Burnley rattled in five goals,  just the two more than I was treated to last night at the home of the Tigers. As someone who doesn't identify as a football antagonist I found the seat chosen for me and my daughter to be uncomfortably close to Hull City's most badly behaved school children, who perhaps identified themselves as the equivalent of the notorious fans of Galatasaray or FC Besiktas in Turkey.

Being an honorable Vicar means I can only join in some of the songs, such as 'Come On Burnley' of Vincent Kompany's Claret and Blue Army' and have to leave some of the more industrious melodies, to those who care less about what comes from their vocal chords. As the children of the 'Tigers', the rather ironic nickname for Hull City fans, gesticulated that I and 1800  other Burnley fans in attendance were partakers of masturbation. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the dozen or so security guards that were being paid only a modest salary to keep the derogatory foul mouthed teenagers from mauling those of us on the other side of the tarpaulin. On a positive note I guess it gave the local McDonald's burger shop a brief rest bite from antisocial children behaving badly and dressed indirectly by Sports Direct.

As the news came through that the trip back to Lancashire wouldn't be followed by an immediate trip up the M6 the following morning, I committed to ensure I would still use the days as retreat days and promised myself to do good and Holy Things. The trip back to East Lancashire passed by without incident and  we arrived home not long into the early minutes of the next day.

When I got up, I fed myself un-spiritually with a bowl of Shreddies, and set off. My plans initially started well, I departed with the intention of spending three hours in the countryside, contemplating the beauty of nature, pausing to pray, and enjoy the time with only myself, my God and my Patterdale Terriers.

After the Lectio 365 morning prayer  app led me through the ups and downs of Psalm 23, instead of losing myself in spiritual well-being I lost myself in a Jermaine Defoe podcast. Learning about his desire to be a footy manager soon won me over and sadly I forgot to pray until I reached the field where the dogs go mad at the sheep until there are as out of sight as Burnley FC are at the top of the Championship at this moment in time.

Missing the opportunity I made my way into the grounds of the National Trust, a good place to get spiritually back on track. As I I made my way through the muddy paths of Gawthorpe Hall, I had started to enjoy a Katherine Jenkins soundtrack I had put together on Spotify for a funeral back in 2019. Halfway through her beautiful rendition of Ave-Maria my phone pinged with a with a messenger update, informing me the cat had done a poo in the bathroom. Ignoring this first update Miss Jenkins proceeded on to 'Morning Has Broken' when the phone pinged again insisting I acknowledged the cat's digestive malfunction on the bath mat and I would take care of it on my return. 

I duly obliged by responding, and then shortly after made the turn for home up a pathway which used to take carriage loads of coal and other stuff to and  from the Padiham PowerStation that was blown up in a controlled explosion in the mid 1990's as it's source of power was no longer necessary.

Not feeling quite as spiritual as I did in the Holy Land just a few weeks before Advent in the Autumn of the previous year, I switched from Spotify to radio and listened to the Sport's headlines on Radio Five live. Then  the sports news that interfered with the prayer walk, was then interrupted by a woman admiring my dogs, to the extent they wanted to go home with her, in a direction and destination opposite to mine.  After restoring correct and rightful ownership we continued through a very muddy field where I slipped in a hole that shouldn't have been there and heavily soiled my Regatta trousers.

By this time the battery deficit on my phone removed my acquaintance with the Welsh soprano and I was left to my own devices, of which all had fallen silent due to poor battery management. I made a correct and wise decision to keep my JVC headphones from TK Mak in situ as if nothing else they kept my ears warm.

On returning home, as I wasn't on retreat I was summonsed to go Mother's Day shopping by one of the children that belonged to me, and so spent an uncomfortable 30 minutes in the church of St Primark in the precinct. My daughter allowed me treat her to a Greggs Steak Bake and treated me, at my expense to a mass produced cookie.

By this time mid afternoon was sailing into the not so sunny sunset and the planned retreat had retreated into nothing more than a diary intention and a missed opportunity.

Tomorrow is a new day, I am going to Carlisle, I am going to retreat for a few hours, I am going to do what a priest should do. I shall pray, contemplate, reflect, pause and be still. It will all go to plan without a hitch, wont it?

Till next time,

Alex