Sabbath circular walk near Burford

Religion

” As you look into the Lord’s great moral looking glass, His holy law, His standard of character, do not for a moment suppose that it can cleanse you. There are no saving properties in the law. It can not pardon the transgressors…”

EG White.

For God loved us living in the world, that He gave His Son, Jesus, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so we shall be with the Lord.

John 3:16 ( Sandy’s wording )

1 Thessalonians 4: 16,17.

Our walk

Paths linked for a circular walk through reaped fields, a town, and two churches. Let’s walk six miles on this last day of August 2024.

Where are we?

Burford

Then…

… along paths through two stoney fields.

Cotswold stone has a warm yellowish tint. It is a type of limestone composed of skeletal remains of long- buried marine organisms. The granular texture is said to have an oolite appearance. ( oolite – egg like bumps on the surface – the term is from the Helenic ooion) . This was the building material during the Middle Ages.

Soon, ploughed fields give way to stubble. The textures of the left and right lie of the straw move against each other and guide the eye in patterns of paths that stop and start as grey-white of the sky is soft against gold straight ups of unbending stalks.

Along the reaped fields and for a little way through them
until the map read, take the path through the hole in the hedge.

” Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.”

Calvin Coolidge

“It is surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.”

Barbara Kingsolver

A couple of miles, and we come to a church all alone.

Once surrounded by a medieval village, this church of St. Oswald Widford stands among the fields surrounded by a hedge and a dry stone wall. Access to this peaceful place of worship is on foot. An ancient stone place to be in.

Saint Oswald.
The church is mainly a 13th century building with remnants of an 11th century Saxon and Norman building.

Let us look at its ancient box pews and sit inside one, where there would be no distractions except from those in your box. You must look up to see the pulpit and the person addressing you.

One could be sitting below this arrangement of pink hydrangeas. The wooden box pew comes as high up as this with the deep brown of the pulpit right next to one.

And the 10 Commandments written on the wall in front.

” Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Then, back to the town where the stone glows yellow from iron oxide. It is busy with cars, but the church of St John the Baptist Burford is open and peaceful with jugs of flowers. One here and then there.