Living at the Edge

I've just returned from an amazing week at Summer School, with my spiritual batteries re-charged. The theme for this year was 'Living at the Edge' and the workshop I was in was called 'Recovering Who You Are' and was billed as a reflective writing workshop, taking stock of our lives. Which it was. It was wonderful.




And of course, in the afternoons and evenings there were many other inspirational and fun things to try. But the culmination of the week for me was a Walk to the Edge with Nancy Crumbine and Julie Dadson. The Edge in question was Froggatt Edge in the Derbyshire Peak District, and we were invited to stand at the edge and either ask a question or discard something from our lives. It was an incredibly powerful ritual. It reminded me of that bit of the film Gone with the Wind when Scarlett stands in the ruined fields of Tara after the Civil War and swears "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

On the face of it, standing at Froggatt Edge on a sunny Summer afternoon, with a couple of dozen fellow Unitarians, just wouldn't compare. And yet it did. I threw my promise to the wind and the fields and the limestone and the heather, and I intend to honour it.