When I woke Sunday morning it was to the sound of rain; it was tipping it down. Were the weather reports not on my side for the day? After some quick checking, it was apparent that a weather front was moving through, and by the time I would be leaving the B&B it would stop. Sure enough, I didn’t get rained on all day, and while there was no sun to brighten the day, the clouds did not bring a single drop on me.
I left Kirkbymoorside around 10.30am and spent the next 90 minutes making multiple stops because my noise canceling earphones weren’t properly seated or I tried them over my ear plugs or to get petrol. But my first stop out of Kirkbymoorside was to take a photo of three rings. This is probably something local, but it reminded me of the three interlocking rings of Celtic origin, symbolic of the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit). We use this as part of our logo for thethirdplace. Made for a lovely start to the day, and a sense of promise for the week ahead.
I made 227 miles for the day. I took a short detour to see Hadrian’s Wall…at least that’s what the sign said. And the detour wasn’t so short and then I saw just a short and deteriorated section of the wall from the road about 10 yards long with no convenient place to stop. As it was this detour was long enough that I wasn’t able to ‘follow’ the route of St Cuthbert’s way, and I was worried about making it to Lindisfarne before the rise of the tide made the way impassable. So, I arrived to the island about 4.15 with an hour to spare.
After dinner, and meeting briefly a couple of other students and the course instructors for the week, I returned to The Open Gate (a celtic community and retreat centre) where I am lodging and took up some reading again in George Hunter’s The Celtic Way of Evangelism and read a reference to Ray Simpson’s Celtic Prayers for Life Today about simple modern prayers for every day life including motorcyclists! I realized then that Ray Simpson is the co-founder of the community in whose retreat house I was staying! Not only that, their library and bookstore had that book. So I looked up the prayer, and read and prayed this prayer:
#39 On a Motorcyclist: God bless your steed. God bless your speed. Christ meet your need. By the Spirit be led, with angels overhead, until you reach your bed.
Every time I start a ride on my motorbike, I pray for safety and protection, wisdom in my riding, and for God’s blessing on our friend and colleague David in America in his riding, and for fruitfulness and effectiveness in finding and restoring lost people to the Father. I will be adding this to my prayer blessing.
I am trying to add photos to this blog, but since I using my iPad and a bluetooth keyboard, it isn’t straightforward. There is a WordPress iOS application to upload photos, but I cannot seem to get logged in. Until I sort that, you’ll find photos on my facebook postings which you can locate at www.facebook.com/timothy.c.aho.
timothy.c.aho
timothyaho