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Virgin Champer

Sleeping under the angels of St Michael

Along the lane out of town the constrained rolling topiary of the rich gives way to hawthorn hedges, wild with flower and scent, just as the white picket fences give way to rusting iron. The fork in the road comes sooner than expected, just past the peeling plaster of a cottage wall that was built right off the track centuries before it was a road. 'Church Lane' says road sign, with all the practicality of the countryside: function before form. The lane continues its wending, but then there it is: first glimpse of the diagonal set towers of St Michael's.

broken image

To be fair, it was my second glimpse. Weeks back I'd done a reccy. I wondered if I would maybe walk out from Aylsham, but as the walk route didn’t inspire me, I opted instead for the bus to the nearest market town (I use the term loosely) and to amble out from there. I was early. There was no-one around, but I was expected. Warnings about 24hour police patrols sat alongside a sign saying "Shhh! Champing in progress." Camp beds and camp stools were set up inside.

I have written elsewhere that all buildings have their own particular scent. I remember saying that churches smell of old books and furniture polish. I'd forgotten that what old books smell of is damp, must, the point where age is on the point of turning to rot. St Michael the Archangel at Booton smelt like a church when I opened that huge wooden door, and closed it behind me.

There are no fixed pews. Church chairs of the kind I remember from Sunday School, have all been cleared to the sides to make space for…for whatever Champers do. In a way, it almost felt like a Sunday School game of let's pretend.

I wander for a while to get the feel of the place. A bang makes me jump. I never find out what it is, but it occurs at irregular intervals. I'd say 'heating' except there isn't any.

I find the back door and head out to sit away from the road, catch some sun, eat a late lunch.

Only one grave has flowers. A simple wooden cross bearing only a name: no dates, no reasons, no hope of eternity. Fresh red roses for love, and lilies for death, and a ceramic red poppy for remembrance. For the rest, hay is in the making where someone has half-heartedly driven a mower around, leaving each headstone with a beard of Old Man's Baccy, or a shawl of Queen Anne's Lace.

After a while, I move indoors. I came here in search of peace, but find my peace disturbed. As I sit down to read, the quiet is throttled. The steady drone of machinery echoes around the stonework, creeps under the doors, leaches through the leadwork of the windows. An antithesis of peace, the racket continues its back and forth as the machine works its way up and down, and I long for it to be gone. I'd quite liked the semi-wildness, the weeds with childhood names.

Perhaps they think the absence of a car means no one is here. Perhaps they volunteer and this is the only time of day they have to tend the yard. Perhaps I could remember to consider: what if all this were all alright? I am reminded as the scent of summer, fresh-cut grass, breathes its way in. It is indeed all alright.

Later, as evening draws on, the windows of the nave lose the light, their colours muting into the quietness of night, but above the west door, the angels catch a blaze of glory. Angels and children. Doves and waterlilies. There is little in the way of biblical teaching in these windows – and this church is almost all windows. Jesus gives his blessing from above the altar, we see the annunciation, Mary & St John at the foot of the cross, and Abraham's hand stayed by an angel as Isaac awaits his fate, all close to the altar, to the business of the 'church'. Out in the public gallery there is no bible liturgy. There are no obvious saints, no slaughter and repentance. Instead the nimbus shines around everyone's head. Most are beautiful women in mediaeval drapes. One scarlet-robed male holds a modest flag with the cross of St George. Perhaps a king, whose queen walks in cloth of the same hue, a few windows behind, a sheaf of arrows in her hand? Maids are laden with fruit; one group is reading. Many are musicians: playing harps and lyres, guitars, a triangle, even a trombone. There is a stray lamb. They all walk upon flowers, and the church fades into the background, small, above their heads.

broken image

I later learn that my 'king' is St George and his companions are St Dorothy and St Cecilia. Worse still, my 'queen' with 'her' arrows is St Edmund with his long hair unbound and his feminine features. St Etheldreda walks beside him. So little I know – and feel none the worse for it. I might even prefer the stories I made up for myself.

Evening draws on. Slowly all of the colours fade to black, silhouettes against the pewter grey of not-dark summer night sky.

Sometime in the depth of night, I open my eyes to see stonework and tracery, dark like a winter trunk and branches, and still the palest of light beyond them.

Then again, awake briefly, at the early hour of sunrise I watch the colours bleed back in. Walls are pale stone again. In the glass the shades come separately, unevenly. The blues are most vivid first but then pale as the reds deepen and I fall asleep again.

The question I had brought with me on this mini retreat was: what am I going to do with the rest of my life?

A thought had occurred during the night: I cannot know what I want to do with the rest of my life because I cannot know what it will bring. I can only ever know what I want to do with the next small slither of it. During the night that thought was immediately followed up by the answer "sleep!"

Awake properly at last I am delighted again by the colours of the glass, and the early light streaming through. I would love to say that it was a deeply spiritual experience, but in truth what was striking me most was how cold I was. In a sleeping bag that had been warmer in the below freezing temperatures of the Mexican Copper Canyon and the guest houses of Himalayan villages, I felt the chill…and figured by now it might be warmer outside.

I breakfast on hot chocolate and blackberries, back out by the graves, before heading off down another lane, to find another bus back to the city.

~ / ~

I can't remember how I came across the idea of ChampingTM , but it immediately appealed. For years I've wanted to go camping again, but my partner, who was happy for me to travel the world in the company of strangers , was far less comfortable with the idea of me and a tent in the wilds of wanny. His reluctance rubbed off on me. After his death, I still want to camp, but I'm not yet sure whether me & a tent is a sensible option…not least in terms of getting to the wilds, given age and unfitness and lack of practice etc etc etc. So however it was I came across the idea of camping in a church – a solid building, with a door that locks, that I could have all to myself – that felt like an alternative.

I wondered about all the pros and cons. I wondered where to start. The Churches Conservation Trust were really helpful, in terms of where they thought might be best for a first-time, lone, Champer (not a common occurrence – yet!). I didn't take their advice. Instead I opted for the venue closest to home on the grounds that if I really did get spooked, I could bail out.

Spooked? Yeah – that was the thing I wondered about most after booking my stay. Am I going to be totally spooked by being in a remote church, alone, at night. "Come on", I wrote in my journal, "what's the worst that can happen?" I then went on to answer that question in graphic detail. Not such a good exercise in self-reassurance as it happens!

I worried about all sorts of dangers: some of them real and present (or not) some of them unreal and hopefully absent. A friend said "I really don't think I could do that." Truth was: neither did I, which was why I wanted to: to see if I could – not just do it, but actually enjoy it.

Answer 'yes'. On both counts.

Apart from the cold, I enjoyed it. Solitude, but knowing that I wasn't completely alone (actually I was) I do want to do again, so the question is 'where next?'. I went intending to think about 'where next' in the larger sense, but the church didn't encourage thinking. Somehow it encouraged 'not thinking'...reading Osho might have contributed to that.In my journal the next morning after a few digressions & a short list of the day's intentions I wrote: Think no further than that. If I achieve one thing a day then all the important stuff will get done. This next part of my life is about being not doing, feeling not thinking. Slower. Simpler. More creativity, less achievement"

Just because it didn't feel like a spiritual experience, doesn't mean it wasn't.