nature

“It is solved by journeying”– a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 20 April 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Gary Davies on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

Every spring, the BBC television series Pilgrimage follows seven celebrities of different faiths, trekking together towards a spiritual place like Istanbul or Rome, or this year: the holy island of Lindisfarne.

Now I’m no celebrity but, BBC, if you ever need a punter, give us a shout.

I’m not expecting producers to call anytime soon. So last week, I went on my own pilgrimage, without a camera crew, to an ancient monastery off the coast of Wales, on Caldey Island, where Christian monks have prayed for 1500 years.

The island is accessible only by boat – and only weather-permitting. And storms had thwarted crossings since Easter, but by the grace of monastic insider-information, I managed to stowaway on a morning mail boat that braved the waves.

Reaching the shore was like diving off the edge-of-the-world – a gateway into heaven. And not just because of lovely-old, barnacled monks chanting in the abbey. The whole landscape was bathed in currents of peacefulness, something I long for in my everyday life – but don’t fully experience, because I’m battling armies of distractions, or my awful addiction, sometimes, of watching myself perform a life instead of living mine.

Hiking the island cliffs, I saw a colony of seals on the beach far below. And then I noticed a rope-ladder hanging over the cliff-edge. More rope than ladder, actually – and not a risk assessment in sight.

At first, I felt a surge of fear, but then I heard a voice: “Mate, it’s a pilgrimage. Dive in!” And so I did, practically abseiling down the brambly cliff-face.

I landed on the beach, and immediately the seals startled, and honked and scooted dramatically into the sea. I thought: God, I’m like that sometimes. Anxious, reactive, so quickly-offended. The first sensation of fear, I rush, I shake, I snark with resentment.

But over the next hour as I sat, quiet, on the beach, the seals bobbed back to shore and then out of the water, cautiously welcoming my presence. As we all relaxed, I even felt welcomed by them. Seal pups started to play almost at my feet, and I felt a surge, not of anxiety, but of spiritual joy.

There’s an old Latin saying, from St. Augustine. Solvitur ambulando. Which translates, in paraphrase: “It is solved by journeying”.

I believe that’s how God works. By journeying alongside all of us – celebrities, monks, pilgrims, punters. Shifting our fear with love. Calming our anxiety with peace. And healing our loneliness – by being the truth that connects every created thing.

Take me to the river – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 23 June 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

When I visit a place that’s new to me, I like to explore it by walking ­– or running ­– along its water: the lochs of the Scottish Highlands, the reservoirs of the Elan Valley, Birmingham’s canals, the dykes of the Fens.

There’s something about the flow of water that tells the story of the land – what’s come before, what’s on the horizon. And it helps me get my bearings.

Maybe that’s why rivers show up in so many songs – Springsteen’s “The River”; Joni Mitchell’s, too; Tina Turner “rolling on the river”; Al Green asking to be taken to it. Water moves us – literally and spiritually.

I remember walking along the Thames in London once, near Blackfriars Bridge. A friend pointed out some bubbles rising in the currents near a metal grate. “That,” he said, “is the end of the River Fleet.”

The Fleet? I’d never heard of it. But it turns out that the Thames isn’t the only river in town. London is laced with hidden rivers – the Tyburn, the Walbrook, the Effra – all flowing underground, culverted into tunnels and pipes as the city has grown. You can’t see them, but they’re still there, moving quietly beneath the surface.

My spiritual searching as a Christian has helped me discover the hidden rivers in my own life. Buried beneath the noise of my anxiety, the concrete of my to-do list, the performance of my social-media feeds, there is a deeper stream. Something truer that I’ve forgotten, or concealed, or been told to hide. But still there, still flowing.

The nature writer Robert Macfarlane says a river is alive – “a gathering that seeks the sea”.

And the Gospel of Jesus says: “Out of human hearts will flow rivers of living water.” Real, spiritual rivers that, I believe, run through every single human being. Elemental currents that are in us – sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden – but never contained by us. We don’t own them so much as we partake of them. They flow through us. Their source and their destination is Something-More-Than-Us, Whom I call “God”.

So when I feel stuck or dry, lifeless or anxious, I meditate. I pray. I take a walk or a run. Or better yet, a swim. And I try to trace the river’s path through me, to feel its flow of freedom beneath my surface. And to trust, even when I can’t feel it or see it, that God is still moving. Alive, flowing, sacred in me and in everything.

A Web of Connection & Light – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 24 March 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

_______________________________

My husband and I moved to South London last summer. As we unpacked boxes, a spider crawled in through the window to welcome us. Everyone’s pretty-friendly in South London, but this spider was so friendly, she spun her web in the corner of our bathroom and stuck around.

Every day, she was there. We gazed at each other. I did some research and identified her species: Amaurobius Fenestralis in Latin. In English: a lace-weaver-spider.

I told a friend, who said: “if it were my house, that spider would be dead.” But even my husband, who’s not exactly pro-spider, acknowledged she’d already moved into our hearts.

Autumn came and she wove an egg sac, which she guarded until Christmas, when her babies were born. Ten little infants hatched and played on our ceiling for a few weeks, practising their lace-weaving-skills. And then one-by-one they disappeared, leaving our spider alone again.

A few weeks later, while I was shaving one day, I noticed she’d moved down the wall, to my eye-level.

We took each other in; we saw each other. And I sensed that her mortal life was ebbing. And sure enough, the next morning we found her dead, poor thing, lying on the window-sill.

I laid her fragile body onto a cotton pad, so she could lie-in-state, so we could pay our respects. And also because I heard a trustworthy preacher once swear that a dead spider on her window-sill had suddenly come back to life.

So as I mourned, I also commanded our spider: in the name of God, rise up. But there was no resurrection, not one I could see anyway.

Finally, we carried her into the garden and buried her underneath the hydrangeas. We gave thanks for the way she praised God in her particular-spidery-nature. I said a Christian graveside prayer: We commend you, sister spider, to Almighty God. We commit your body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

In the Bible, Jesus teaches about a lot of big things – forgiveness, justice, eternity. But as the old Gospel song goes: his eye is on the sparrow, too. Even the little things like our spider are precious in God’s sight. In fact, Jesus says: Whoever can be trusted with small things can also be trusted with big things.

So thank you, sister spider. And thank you, Jesus – for teaching me how woven-together we are in this life ­– and how in the next life, I believe, absolutely all of Nature will rise up again into a heavenly web of light and goodness like no eye has ever seen.