麻豆约拍

I came to the sea this week and I swam in it and was remade. It鈥檚 breathtaking, the sea: the scale and unspoken threat of it, the sheer blank, power of it.听听And this is no ordinary sea.听听This is the deep, grey North Sea of Northumberland.听听And these are no ordinary swimming places.听听These are the lonely, windswept sands, the bleak, seaweed-strewn beaches of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Now there is a long tradition of sea-swimming here, where the great saints, Cuthbert and Aidan, embraced the cold, cold water just as they embraced the grass, the trees and all of the defiant little sandbank they called home.

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So, I came prepared to emulate them and equipped to embrace the cold, cold water as they did.听听Which is to say, I brought my wetsuit. Now there are, I know, those who think that a wetsuit betrays the purity of the sea-swimming experience.听听I respect that.听听But I wear it anyway because I love swimming in the sea, but I really don鈥檛 like pain. So, I dress up, like a great neoprene seal and as soon as I am in the water, I am visited by the real thing: sleek, grey seals pop up to watch me, and suddenly I know that these empty beaches and blank waters are not actually empty at all but someone else鈥檚 home.

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One of the poets whose collected works we call the Bible, wrote that 鈥淭he earth is the Lord鈥檚 and everything in it鈥�. In other words, it鈥檚 not ours, but we are made to share it.听This is why Cuthbert and Aidan knew Holy Island is holy, because although it is a place apart, it is not a place alone.听听It鈥檚 a place where we are part of something. And that is holy. Because holiness consists in completeness, and in restoration to completeness.

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This summer, I reckon we all need restoration.听But we will all be restored differently - in the sea or the hills, at a gig or in the pub; alone, with friends, with family. I am restored in the sea, under the watching eye of the seals. And as I swim and am put back together, I hope that when I go home and to work next Monday, I won鈥檛 just feel myself again but be a part of something.听听I hope I鈥檒l remember the seals watching me.