04/04/2025
‘They all hate it. They think it’s for the birds’.
I had myself convinced that the 18 people who had come along for the ‘Self Care for your Soul’ were all just politely tolerating my invitation to enter into stillness. Asking them to walk in silence along Buncrana’s shore walk seemed like a good idea in my head. I had been part of this kind of thing loads of times before. But this was different. I was leading it on my own, rather than as one of a group, it was a gathering of people who didn’t already knew each other. And sorting all the practicalities, had stressed me out more than usual, because I really wanted it to go well, and also because both our kitchen tap and our dishwasher had packed it in the day before at home.
18 months before, I had run two similar sessions in Buncrana, before I worked with Inishowen Development Partnership. At the time I was piloting the workshops to see if I could branch out beyond weddings and move into offering retreats and reflective spaces in a way that was financially viable. This was something I really wanted to do. The first was Self-Care for your Soul workshop, the second a Self-Care for your Soul walk. Back then, those who came along to the workshop were all International Protection Applicants. It was a powerful session, and all those who came got something from it, including me. Knowing how little those attending had to live on each week, however, I didn’t charge them anything. I would have loved to keep working with them, but realised that I’d need funding to offer anything on an ongoing basis. As a sole trader, at the time, I knew that wouldn’t be easy. I offered my first Buncrana -based reflective walk, a week later. I had to cancel due to an orange warning. No-one showed up at the re-scheduled date. I was gutted. I walked along Ludden beach, just outside Buncrana, raging at God, who I felt had put the idea for these walks in Buncrana, and the wider idea of offering retreats, in my head ( and heart) in the first place. When no one showed up, I felt like a complete idiot. I was mad, and sore and I let God know that in no uncertain terms.
A year and a half on, the walk happened again. Thanks to the critical voices in my head telling me it was rubbish, I almost missed that that what I had a sense of being drawn to, inspired to offer, was happening. 18 people, both those living and working locally, and those who have recently arrived and are staying in International Protection Application System centres in the town, were connecting with themselves, with each other, with nature and with whatever they understand as God.
So all that I had imagined, got so excited about offering and had been so deflated when it didn’t happen the first time around, was now happening. Prayers answered, not at my pace, and not in the way I had imagined.
A few weeks after that first walk I had offered in Oct 2023, when no one showed up, the part-time role with IDP, which involved working with asylum -seekers came up, and I got it. And funding for health and well being became available, of which spiritual wellness was an accepted part. And so, that which I had been so angry at not having worked, came to be. Quietly, in what I have come to think of as God’s very modest way: so that it would be possible to say, ‘ah, sure that was always going to happen’.
And, thankfully, my inner critics had got it totally wrong. Rather than hate it, those who came along, relished the chance to walk with others in silence, and then to engage and share, and hear something of where people were coming from, as they drank the glorious scenery, and heard something of the stories of struggle, hope, sanctuary and transformation associated with the place.
I am finishing a course at the moment in Ignatian Spiritual Accompaniment, which involves meeting with people 1-1 to talk explore their sense of connection with God. We have been asked to think of an image for that role. For me, it something of a pilot boat, where one guides, accompanies someone as they explore the depth of their connection with God. The role of a reflective walk leader is like an onshore companion to the pilot in the boat. That role is not about in-depth exploration of any one person’s connection, more a highlighting some of what might be found in the depths, and pointing out safe places to access the water, but stopping short of being fully informed of what people find when they do go enter the depths themselves.
