Local Heroes

by Jennie Hurd.

The Welsh priest and poet R S Thomas wrote in his poem “Welsh Landscape,”

To live in Wales is to be conscious
At dusk of the spilled blood
That went into the making of the wild sky[1]

It’s a dark and brooding work, painting a bleak picture of a country trapped by its past. I am not Welsh, but I have worked in Wales as a Methodist minister for sixteen years to date. Thomas’s poetry is essential reading for me, but I often want to dare to put an alternative understanding alongside the message of much of it. The past need not constrain us but can be a source to set us free.

“To live in Wales is to be conscious” also of the sacredness of the land and the presence of the saints of years gone by. In Wales, you are never far from a community whose name begins with the prefix Llan – Llangollen, Llandeilo, Llandaf and so on. Llan is not easy to translate, but it implies a religious settlement, community or church. Often, it indicates a place where a holy man or woman lived and prayed, sometimes with followers, or where people wished to name their church in his or her honour. There is no escaping these local heroes, many dating back to the Age of the Saints in the sixth to eighth centuries. They are offer inspiration and encouragement and are remembered still.

If this is so in Wales and in other Celtic nations, it’s also true in England, if a little less obviously. St Albans, St Neots and Bury St Edmunds might be clear examples of places with associated saints, but historic holy men and women are often present, wherever you go Sometimes it takes some digging, that’s all. When I lived in Lichfield, I became aware of St Chad. St Who? He was one of four brothers who were among the first monks on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne when King Oswald sent St Aidan to establish his missional community there in 635. Chad became an apostle to the Mercians and lived for a time in Lichfield where you can still visit his holy well. Chad sent me digging. I found that his brother, Cedd, was the founder of St Peter’s on the Wall at Bradwell, Essex, and of the community at Lastingham in Yorkshire, as well as being an interpreter at the Synod of Whitby in 664.

King Oswald spent part of his youth in exile on Iona, to which he looked when planning the evanglisation of Northern England from Lindisfarne: Aidan was an Iona monk. I dug further. I discovered St Paulinus who had come over to England from Rome in 604 as part of the second Gregorian mission. He became chaplain to the wife of King Edwin of Northumbria who became a Christian and enabled the baptism of thousands of people, including his niece Hilda, later Hilda of Whitby. I discovered Paulinus’s association with Goodmanham in East Yorkshire and Dewsbury in the West Riding as well as further north, for example at Yeavering. Oswald built on Edwin and Paulinus’s foundations. I learnt that John of Beverley was educated under Hilda at Whitby, and that led me to the Hermit of Spurn Point, at the very edge of the east coast of Yorkshire, my native county. From Lichfield I returned to live in Wales, near to where Oswald died in battle, the place marked by a well. I’m sure you get the idea. We are never far from the heritage of a local saint.

I do not have a clearly developed systematic theology of the communion of saints, but I do know that my awareness of them and of their geographical closeness to familiar places inspires me and helps me in my discipleship day by day. I feel they stand in solidarity with us. I have never visited the Holy Land, but perhaps my experience rings true for those who have walked where the New Testament saints walked. I treasure being part of the one church on earth and in heaven, and to know that some of the great heroes of the faith – local heroes – were familiar with places I also know makes my journey that little bit easier. I feel they accompany me on the way, as they accompany many.

I wonder who are your local saints, your local heroes? Perhaps an awareness of them helps and inspires you as well.  

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[1] Thwaite, Anthony (ed.) 1996, R S Thomas Selected Poems, London: J M Dent