91. Leicester Cathedral online

I have, for a long time, had a soft spot for Leicester. Its proximity up the M69 and its splendid park and ride system means, with good fortune, I can be in the city centre in about half-an-hour. More recently I’ve taken to parking in a side street near the National Gas Museum (I kid you not) so I can take a stroll past the enormous bulk of Welford Road stadium before joining New Walk and the excellent art gallery of the same name.

I like the tight web of small shopping streets, the spread and noise of the market and the joy of being called ‘me duck’ almost everywhere.

Today Leicester is quiet - I know that even though I am not there. Alone among towns and cities in England it has been hit by an extension in lockdown measures. When everyone else is celebrating what the perennially credulous are calling Super Saturday and the return of, inter alia, pubs and hairdressers, Leicester has yet to be moved off the post-lockdown starting line.

It’s incredibly dispiriting I should imagine. Shops and cafes have recalled staff, re-planned their premises to observe social distancing and prepared themselves for the welcome return of revenue only to be told it’s not happening. Not yet anyway.  

Leicester Cathedral is tucked away in the middle of the city’s busy centre. It’s not the biggest or grandest admittedly, but it has a charm and a welcome and, for those who like their history, houses the mortal remains of Richard III since they came to light in a nearby car park.

This morning’s service is another indication of how good the church has become at producing programmes. There are five different contributors in five locations, musical inserts, illustrative shots from inside the cathedral and even a decent cartoon version of the beatitudes. 

This being the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the NHS (apparently) there are thanks offered to those in the modern organisation whose efforts are appreciated daily. The prayers and readings are accompanied by a splendid montage of archive shots from the city’s own infirmary down the years. 

There are prayers too for the city itself. The cathedral’s plan to reopen to worshippers has been halted by the lockdown extension and the cathedral’s thoughts are with all those in the city who have had to slam the brakes on any chance of immediate moves toward normality. Services, says the Dean, may return in September, but that seems a long way off and the road between now and then filled with obstacles.

On my many country walks I often find myself conscious of time as a measure. I know when I started out, I know roughly how long it will take and I’m always aware of how much further I have before I reach the finish. It doesn’t matter how many twists and turns the path takes, I can be confident that I’ll find myself back at the car at the allotted time. To live in Leicester at the moment must be like returning to find someone has dug up the car park in search of a stray dead monarch and moved your car to a location an unknown distance away. Probably best not to dwell on things too long but keep walking.

90. Surfing the TV Channels

Talking to a vicar whose church I pass on my walk, the prospects for normality returning remain distant. Confusion over guidelines, the problems of social distancing, the unavailability of many parts of the service and the continued vulnerability of the older worshippers mean it’s still an online world.

My TV offers dozens of channels for films, arts, music and sport - most of which I’m familiar with. Less familiar is the far end of the menu where almost as many channels are the preserve of religious organisations wanting to spread the message directly into our homes.  And there’s a lot to choose from - even if you limit yourself to an hour of your Sunday morning.  

There’s a massive telethon for the people of Israel on Heart For The World. The onscreen clock shows there’s only 13 minutes remaining for you to join the many followers of world evangelism pledging thousands of dollars to something they will never see, purely on the strength of the suited presenter and his smooth voice and smoother hair. You can become a partner in prophecy, he tells me, and you will receive a blessing. The account you’re sending to is in the Philippines somewhere. 

The Jewish Jesus is a channel after your money too. In this case the want you to ‘run with the vision’ and buy yourself a pack which explains everything about how the power of prayer can improve your home and business life. It’s just $52. It looks like something you could have thrust into your hands on any city centre Saturday.

Flip over to EWTN Catholic and the religious merits of Robespierre, St Francis and Joan of Arc are being presented in a dramatised debate complete with naff French accents, costumes, wigs and the set of Friends with a few crucifix additions. Ze arguments are simple like ze acting; what is hard to fathom is why anyone would ever want to watch this. I wonder if I’m the only one, but even that isn’t enough to keep me here.

Faith World TV is just as bizarre and equally colourful, but there’s no comedy here. The preacher here is deadly serious and his theme is the sin of anything but heterosexuality. The world, as represented by the holy temples of our bodies, is under siege from sickness and perversity battering down our doors. In fighting off this wave of lasciviousness we are armed only with an unending stream of quotes from the Bible. Plenty of nodding adherents in the studio audience. You would only watch this if you believed it and I don’t.

On LoveWorld HD the morning is based around a question and answer programme in which Pastor Chris sits on sofa which is part Louis Quinze - part Barbie surrounded by improbably bulbous flowers and a glitter slash curtain from Butlins. Queries presumably submitted by viewers lead to lengthy rants about encountering Jesus, keeping the Devil at bay and waiting for God’s sounding trumpet. It’s not unlike the gardening programme on the BBC only less believable.

I spend the last ten minutes of my telepilgrimage with On The Word Network where there’s a very imposing woman shouting from about six inches away from the camera. It’s hard to follow as she clearly has developed a way of yelling which requires no taking in air. Amid the calls for you to send money and hear the ‘Word of Gard’ which punctuate the endless stream, she appears to be saying the Covid doesn’t exist in the body and that Gard - through your donations - can and will spare you. If I allowed adverts like that to run in the papers I work on, I’d be up in court. In the realm of religious TV though, nothing is too outlandish or too plain wrong to be ruled out.

All of this makes the Sunday morning services coming from our local churches look low-key, slightly pedestrian and extremely reserved. And that has to be a good thing. There’s clearly a whole world of viewing out there, but while I still have control of the remote, that’s exactly where it’s going to stay.

89. St Nicholas, Kenilworth. Reopening the doors

It’s been a momentous week for the massed congregations of the land. Exiled from their scared sites and left with no focus to their weekends, they have finally received actual proof of what has been rumoured for a few weeks. Yes, football is back.

There are a few changes in place. No crowds - although piped in noise of the fans acts as a kind of sop to those who need it. There’s an attention to disinfecting the ball, the water bottles, the paramedics, the corner flags and so on which is as thorough as it is rendered pointless by the constant hugging and spitting of the players.

Churches and other places of worship have also been able to open their doors this week. This has not had quite the same coverage in the media as the return of football but for many it’s a significant step on the long route back to some semblance of normality. 

The opening of doors has not brought with it the automatic resumption on full service schedules, groaning pews and physical contact. Most churches I’ve seen advertising themselves as being open are only offering the chance to step inside for private prayer.

St Nicholas offers a one-way system and only a few pews not cordoned off by the sort of striped orange tape they use on Midsomer Murders. There’s a very evident hand-sanitising table and the welcome comes from behind the now almost normal face mask. 

There are only a couple of other people inside when I go. One sitting quietly in an open pew, one fighting an elaborate floral decoration under the pulpit. Like the football grounds, the sound is provided externally - choral music to remind us what this place used to sound like and, if all goes well, will do again in the not too distant future. 

Being more interested in observing than observance, I spend only a few short minutes perching near the front before quietly slipping away through the ‘exit only’ side door, pondering the irony of some people being kept out of their favourite places inside which the action goes on without them, while others are allowed back in only to find there’s no action of note taking place. Different routes to the same destination I suppose.

Back at the nation’s other religion, football is currently basking in a new light. Players have unanimously backed the need to stand together against racism by taking the knee. The Black Live Matter logo and message is all over their shirts - if you can let the focus of your gaze drop down for a second from the immaculate and outlandish hairstyles they all seem to have given themselves during lockdown. 

Making the headlines for totally laudable reasons is the campaign, led entirely by one player alone, to get free meals for school children who would otherwise be facing very lean times over the holidays. It’s a significant victory and, while it may not in itself be sufficient balance for all the daft, selfish, ignorant things members of this profession routinely manage to do, it is a clear indication that compassion and responsibility exist within the overpaid ranks of professional football.

So who would have thought it? Leading the way on racial tolerance and social welfare at the same time. They already have the litany and the hymns. At this rate the churches may as well just remain closed and admit defeat. Or perhaps just allow themselves an inward smile at the fact that the living staples of one group of people is lifted up as being shiny and new by another.

88. St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney

You have to be serious about cathedrals to tick this one off your list. It’s a good ferry ride off the top of Scotland and then, depending on where you land, a bus ride or cycle across the island of Orkney. Unless you’re lucky enough to own your own boat or plane it’s going to take more than a day even from the far north of the mainland. 

Fortunately (for me at least) my mother took her marital separation seriously enough to set up home on the island and, in my student years, I spent many a happy time there. She lived in Stromness, destination of the small ferry service which took you from the far end of the rail and road network over the often choppy waters, past the Old Man of Hoy and into the grey harbour. 

It was, to me 40 years ago, and probably remains another world. Insular and basic, living among its ancient history with little separation and - during the winter months - rarely blessed by more than a yellow, peat-smoke stained half-light. I went to the cathedral a few times during those years and loved its dark red gothic solidity - a solidity it needed whenever the traditional Ba’ Game brought hundreds of brawling men right onto its front steps. 

A generous helping of cathedral website footage from the streets around leads me to think that, while some things will inevitably have changed, the atmosphere and the muted palette of the colours would probably be the same. Unchanged too is the beautiful softness of the island accent, still infused with its Scandinavian heritage. A world away indeed.

But remoteness is only relative and the lockdown has certainly levelled things to the point where all churches and cathedrals are equally accessible from my laptop. With news that, from tomorrow, church doors  can reopen for private prayer and socially-distanced worship, this is a fine chance to round up this online exile with a return visit I’d love to remake, but probably never will.

This morning’s service - to a characteristically Orcadian soundtrack of accordion and fiddle - opens with shots of the boats in Kirkwall harbour, a reminder of the islands’ reliance on the sea for communication. 

And the theme for the day is, poignantly, the need for all of us to break down or overcome all the barriers that prevent our communication. Ubuntu, the African philosophy of establishing humanity by recognising each other as human, forms part of the sermon. 

The more familiar tenet that ‘no man is an island’ also makes an appearance in reminding us that Christians have to remove the unnecessary distinctions between people and treat us all alike. 

It’s a very moving sermon and speaks to us in the crowded, angry, confused world of today all the more clearly for coming from one of our nation’s genuine outposts. 

I shall enjoy returning to the real world of actually visiting places as soon as I it becomes practical. That, after all, is the purpose behind all this. But I have enjoyed visiting a few places separated from me not just be distance but by the passing of many years. And I will still hold these islands and this cathedral high on the list of places I won’t yet lose hope of revisiting.

87. St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, Online

Sunday mornings of late have often found me sitting on the sofa with my laptop wondering where to go to church that morning. This morning though, my laptop brings me news that the great lockout may finally be ending and that churches will be able to open their doors in a week or so. It’s a small step though. Social distancing means full services are still a long way off. Each church will have to decide when it opens, what it offers and what it continues to make off-limits. There’s talk of private prayers only - a bit of a blow to those of us whose wish is to join others to see what they do and be inspired by what they say. But to a world in which the various faiths have has to experience Easter, Ramadan, Passover and Vaisakhi without traditional gatherings, it’s a significant and welcome step.

But for this morning I’m still in the realm of the virtual. I find myself casting my mind further back into my past to choose somewhere I haven’t been for a while and then hoping they’ve managed to embrace the digital age. No such worries with St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol. This fabulous church even has its own branded channel - SMR TV.

And a top quality channel it is too. Into the third month of this online experience and it’s clear that the steep learning curve many churches have had to ride has produced some fast learners. No fuzzy faces or shaky changeovers here. The BBC’s temporary return to religious broadcasting may genuinely have no future if churches can produce perfectly adequate output like this. 

There are a few places around which can claim more than one cathedral. London, of course, and Liverpool. Bristol could make a claim, although only in architectural terms, to have three. This stunning gothic masterpiece is grander, more imposing and simply lovelier than many a city’s sole cathedral. I’ve enjoyed coming here since my school days when I was as impressed by the kaleidoscopic colours of the stained glass interior as I was by the presence in the churchyard of a huge black iron bar impaled into the ground as a result of a huge wartime bomb. The embodiment of power comes in all shapes and sizes, blessed and malign.

And the nature of power is at the heart of this service for Trinity Sunday. The trinity itself represents the power at the core of the Christian church and to have that power on your side is what has made the church and its leaders powerful for centuries. This week’s stunt by Donald Trump in which he used a wholly secular power to clear his path of gainsayers so he could pose with a bible, is not one which has gone down well with the church itself. To have secular power is one thing (and one thing which this particular leader has used immorally before) but to attempt to claim some sort of divine endorsement is just plain wrong. 

Under fire too is any claim that God is somehow more aligned with one set of people for having been formed in their image. God’s only a man because it suited men to portray him thus, says the sermon. And what is true of gender is equally true of colour. In a week when we’re really having to remind ourselves that black lives matter, it’s hard to imagine a clearer, more urgent message. 

In a clear, well-argued and impassioned sermon we’re set right on matters of power, false gods, colour and bigotry in a way that makes me realise how the church still has a part to play in shaping our lives. Politics is everywhere, but to have our moral responsibilities so plainly outlined and explained is refreshing indeed. 

As our experience and community response to the virus pandemic begins to slide unstoppably into political bickering, it’s probably better news than many people will ever realise to have the churches and other places of worship begin their slow and safe return to the picture. 

86. Social distancing in the wilderness

What started as a minor hiccup in the flow of my visits to churches and places of worship is now well into its third month with no definitive end in sight. Through television and radio and the full spectrum of the online world I’m blasted with nonstop coronavirus information and guidance but, as befits our impotence in the face of such a force of nature, no easy answers. An invocation to keep active has been at the heart of the wealth of help and advice being beamed into the homes of those undertaking a fairly isolated lockdown. Keep yourself healthy by doing your exercises while avoiding slothful comfort-eating. Gaze at YouTube for every instruction and inspiration you need to leap around the lounge worshipping everything from Aerobics to Zumba. There was even, during the lockdown’s stricter days, a special licence to haul the old bicycle out of the garage and get your heart pumping with a quick half-hour dash round the neighbouring streets.

The shortcoming I’ve always found with exercise regimes is that they only ever seem to cater for the physical not the mental and thus are only half the picture of what the soul needs particularly in these highly testing times.

I have plenty of friends whose worthy attention to healthy living means they rarely put anything unwholesome in their diet - no treats or stodgy, fast food rubbish etc - but who would never dream of applying the same laudable rigour to what they put in their minds. If you only eat one meal a day, they seem to say, make it something healthy that has to merit its place in your body. To which, perhaps, should be given the reply that if you only watch one thing on TV don’t make it Eastenders or Love Island or Avengers 7. Your mind needs a filtered intake every bit as healthy as your body.

Thankfully there is an exercise which seems to me to be as healthy for the mind as it is for the body - well, this far-from-ideal corporeal self at least. And so for the last eight weeks and counting I have done little other than work and walk. Round the golf course, into the fields behind the castle, through the town or, now that we’re permitted to use our cars to move the starting point, slightly further out. Regardless of the location, the pattern is always the same; I walk and I think. 

Perhaps it’s the act of taking oneself into somewhere less populated - and the current pressure of social distancing even conspire to help here by keeping distractions to a minimum - that makes think-walking both possible and fruitful. The gentle rhythm of the footsteps along very familiar paths allows the mind to flit, to land somewhere and to ponder upon whatever it finds.

There is of course a great wealth of example for journeying (and walking in particular) as a metaphor for moving from one state of understanding to a higher one within the rich spectrum of religious texts. Jesus, so the story goes, is out wandering in the wilderness when he faces his greatest temptation to let his standards drop; Buddha is invariably out and about when enlightenment comes calling. Even in the observance of pilgrimage you can see the key role of sticking one foot in front of the other and walking somewhere. Some two and a half million people take to their feet and let their minds focus every year while circling in Mecca during Hajj.

Life’s great questions have yet to feature in many of the literal and metaphorical ramblings I enjoy. Sad to relate but I haven’t managed to stumble on any truths profound enough to carry the weight of any religion. I’ll let you know if that happens. But it has been invaluable in trying to make sense of the changes around me and the comparative unimportance, when seen against that background, of many of life’s smaller questions which plague me daily. And through the sweat drips from my face and my feet and knees lambast me for not having bought better shoes, my mind certainly feels the benefit of this lockdown-beating workout.

85. Ascension Day, a joint online service

One of the rules I set myself when I started this blog was to keep discovering new places. I had a rule against going back to the same place twice or more. It’s not a law of course, just something I think I’d like to stick to. But there have been exceptions. St Barnabas where it all began will probably remain my Christmas tradition, and I know I’ve featured Coventry Cathedral three times at least, reflecting perhaps the wide range of experiences you can have there.

I’ve been to both of these churches before. A fine sunny morning at St James in Old Milverton and a dark Sunday evening at St Mary Magdalene in Lillington. They were both very pleasant visits and reason enough to return but that’s impossible at the moment so their joint online service is the closest I’ll get for a while.

Today is Ascension Day, a feast to celebrate not only the ascent into heaven but the promise of a swift and glorious return. It’s a communion service with readings and prayers from people at home and a sermon filmed in the deserted grounds of the church. It’s been very entertaining to watch these online streamings develop from people staring blankly at their own laptop to more thoughtful, managed contributions. Apparently Ascension Day involves a need to replicate the mountain-top setting of the story by getting as high up as possible. Sadly an attempt to record prayers at the lofty summit of Chesterton Windmill was thwarted by strong winds and instead we get prayers from the attic. Nobody can say these churches aren’t resourceful.

For me Ascension Day is a key part of understanding the whole Christian religion. I know that’s a bold statement, and probably over-simplistic, but it has a basis of sorts. The traditional biggies in the calendar - Christmas and Easter - are in many ways all about belief. The stories provide the claims and the evidence and we have the choice of believing it happened or it didn’t. It’s the debate that’s kept people going for thousands of years. 

With the story of Ascension Day it’s slightly different. There’s plenty to judge when it comes to believing what did or didn’t happen, but there’s also the case of the promise made that the second coming was both imminent and certain. And because that was about something in the future it requires not belief that it happened but faith that it will. Faith in this context becomes almost the belief that something will in time come along that you can fully believe in, if that doesn’t sound too confused.

Faith is what sustains the faithful against arguments of lack of proof - when we can’t empirically know something, but still have an unshakable  conviction that it’s true. It’s no different in my mind from putting one’s faith in science to one day come up with the things we can’t even begin to understand or master now. 

And our faith has probably never been tested in our collective lifetime like it is at the moment. The facts that surround us are frightening - from the death toll to the job losses, financial hardship and turmoil. Everything looks bad, but there’s still faith. Few of us can make any claims to having expertise in theoretical economics but, while we have absolutely no idea how it will happen, we’re happy to put our faith in things somehow getting better. Faith, for whatever reason, is something we as people really need to cling on to.