What do we want here?

A journey from Cardiff by boat across the Bristol Channel to the island of Flat Holm raises the question, ‘What do we want here?’ Fr Dean reflects on a pilgrimage with Matt Batten

“There’s an easterly wind from Newport,” said the skipper as I enquired about the weather.  I didn’t blame Newport.  I don’t think they were responsible for the wind or the waves or the sickness that overcame Matt as his face became a pallid green half-way through the journey from Penarth to Flat Holm.

I had noticed a break in the excited chatter we’d exchanged since we met that morning for Mass at St Mary’s.  The weather didn’t look good, but we were on an adventure, a personal pilgrimage, just the two of us, with the weather against us.

As we made our way across the waves of the Bristol Channel on board the Lewis Alexander, Matt had stopped moving around from taking videos of every moment and matter. He’s a ‘Comms Guy’ through and through, always looking for the angle, a new way of sharing something in a fresh way. For now, he had stopped. There was silence, apart from the chug of the boat, the sound of the sea.

As I turned away from my own view of the horizon and the grey sea which rose and fell and crashed against the boat, I saw him, sat there, looking, well, rather unwell, as grey as the sea.  He rushed to the side of the boat and stayed there for some time. There, he had his own ‘private’ moment.

Afterwards, we chatted about the journey of St Cadoc all those years ago, back in the fifth century, and how his coracle must have crashed on the waves which made the journey difficult and dangerous.  We marvelled at the faith and adventurousness of the Celtic Saints who pushed out from the familiar in search of something more.  We always want more.

No wonder that when St Cadoc, after his own Flat Holm pilgrimage, sent his fellow pilgrim, Baruc, back to collect a forgotten prayer book, that Baruc succumbed to the waves.  His body was washed up on the mainland, his name given to another island which welcomed his body. 

That island, Barry Island, is now a playground for day trippers and holiday makers, armed with candy floss and popcorn, and whose fingers smell of the metal of money dropped into the slots of the arcade games. There, the only sickness comes not from the sea but by the fall and rise of Fairground rides as they look for excitement. We always want more.

We arrived at Flat Holm, and were greeted by a battalion of birds, gulls who gathered in great numbers as the boat chugged onto the shingled shore.  I misinterpreted their cry as a welcome, a wing-flapped applause, an avian benediction.  Instead, they said ‘Go home, stay away, leave us alone, this is our home. What do you want here?’

What do we want here?

At the water’s edge, we were welcomed by the new Warden of Flat Holm who began his job just four weeks earlier, and we spent much time with him.

We talked about the island and nature and the environment and the beauty of the island, the harshness of life here.  But we also had conversations about the street and urban issues and young people. We talked about our backgrounds and our experiences. There, in seclusion and beauty, we talked about poverty and the lack of aspiration and opportunity, about politics and refugees and communities, about the direction of the country and how we all fitted in.  A pilgrimage is never an escape from life.  It’s an embracing of life, offers a new perspective.

From Flat Holm, we could see the city of Cardiff, from afar, across the rising grey waves.  Even though there were the grim, grey clouds, pushed across by the easterly wind from Newport, we could see the tips of buildings, the eclectic gathering of steel and glass, the shape of the city.

What do we want here?

That’s the question, waiting for an answer.  Whoever comes here is just dropping by as a visitor, a passer-by.  Each of us needs to be respectful of the home into which we step, and those who live here – the wildlife – allowed a time, a place, to be at home, and thrive beyond the steel and glass of the city’s staggered life.

Here, on Flat Holm, nature takes priority.  This is nature’s home, and we need to tread carefully with respect, with love, and to discover what it means to be at home in the world.

On the way back, as we gazed over the boat’s edge, I asked Matt what colour is the sea? He thought it brown. Yes, at times, it seemed brown, but then grey, and then the froth of broken waves which gave it a hope, an ambition to be a different colour, something new. We always want more.

The journey back was smoother.  Perhaps Newport was kinder to us as we were homeward bound.  It held back its wind, and we washed in through the Barrage from the flat tops of Flat Holm with a relative ease.

It had rained that day, across the island.  We hadn’t noticed the rain, just the easterly wind along the journey.  And the memory of the flat-topped island which welcomed us for a while, and asked us ‘What do you want here?’

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If you’d like to join us for pilgrimage to Flat Holm then check out our pilgrimage pages at www.southcardiffministryarea.co.uk/flat-holm