A heart set on pilgrimage

Pauline Hoggarth

Southern Peru, Holy Week at 1952. Old-fashioned lantern slides throw the scenes of Good Friday onto the white-washed mud wall of the church. My father reads from one of the gospels about Jesus’ betrayal and death. The packed congregation listens and looks. Next to my mother and younger sister, I listen and look. Our dog, always a great church-goer, snores peacefully under the bench. Suddenly, Jesus, alone on the cross, is there for me, God’s love expressed for me. Word, image and the Spirit’s ‘Yes!’ come together in a seven-year-old understanding of faith, an early marker on the pilgrim route.

Two more years of mostly idyllic childhood followed, living happily and securely in this Andean community. My father travelled widely with Quechua Christian leaders, working to encourage the indigenous churches. My mother schooled us, read to us, nursed sick people who came to the door and organised wonderful, impromptu picnics. But in 1954, it all came to an abrupt end. Secondary schooling wasn’t available in this remote area; there weren’t yet scholarships to schools in Lima. So, like many expatriate children of our generation, we travelled ‘home to Britain and boarding school. Unlike others who rejoined their families in the summer, we wouldn’t meet again for five years. During holidays we lived with committed, caring guardians. Distance, cost, and mission culture made travel problematic.

What shall I say about the Christian school we attended? Many staff worked sacrificially; my English teacher built further on my love of language and literature. But the Bible was becoming a tedious textbook, unrelated to life, and often used manipulatively. Answers to painful questions were often as glib as any Job endured. I remember the paralysing boredom of dictated notes on the minor prophets, and rigidly enforced ‘quiet times’ creating a sweaty, anxious kind of Christianity. The subversive sense of humour of girls coming from a mission school in India went some way towards keeping us normal, but I, at least, left school with faith and life quite unintegrated.

The God who is ‘rich in mercy’ hung on to me through the following years. Underneath an orderly surface — I finished a degree in modern languages, completed doctoral studies and had a good job teaching in Scotland — all was chaos. Finally, an unremarkable, elderly friend had the perception and courage to ask what I was going to do about my fragmented life. The prayer of Psalm 86:11, ‘give me an undivided heart,’ marked a change of direction, though the pilgrimage since has not been without deviation and faltering. I still struggle with regular reflection on the Bible and prayer. Alongside the pilgrimage of four jobs since 1978 (three with Scripture Union and one with another mission organisation) has been a parallel pilgrimage with the Word. Markers on that road included discovering the work of Carlos Mesters, a priest committed to helping the poor and illiterate of northern Brazil discover the Bible for themselves. ‘The Bible imprisons us in chains or sets us free. It is never neutral,’ he writes. When editorial deadlines made the Bible a dull textbook again, a friend lent me Eugene Peterson’s Run with the horses on Jeremiah. Peterson’s faithful and creative readings of life and Scripture have unfailingly built my confidence in the Bible.

A thoughtful friend in my home group criticised our analytical, information-oriented Bible study, demanding, ‘I want to say “So what?” all the time. What does this have to do with life?’ That last question shapes how I work today. I aim to be passionate about helping children and adults, as they struggle to discover the place where God’s story and our story come together. Transformation can happen when the Lord meets us, magnificent beyond imagining. Throughout his lengthy, painful, confusing pilgrimage, that’s what Job was discovering. I’m trying to be something like him, heart set on travelling with a limitless God (Ps 84:5). By his grace, pilgrims progress. The best is yet to come!

© Scripture Union