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The Spirituality of Walking course

Walking is among our most ordinary activities, but it can also be highly intentional, rich with symbolism and meaning for our lives. We can go for short local walks, or more sustained ‘planned’ walks along the myriad paths and trails that criss-cross and edge these isles. Graham Ussher notes that “as we walk into a landscape, we leave our mark on it and it leaves its mark on us; as we explore the outside, so we explore our inner selves”, and Rebecca Solnit writes of how the ancient practice of pilgrimage is a “literal means of [enacting a] spiritual journey”.

Come and spend a weekend at Sarum College, where we will walk together in the local area and explore writing about walking in prose and poetry. Writers we will discuss may include Robert Macfarlane, Raynor Winn, Graham Ussher, Kathleen Jamie, Thomas A. Clark, Fréderic Gros, Cheryl Strayed and Rebecca Solnit. We’ll consider the relationship between walking, identity and transition in our lives, and how more recently women are claiming their voices (and feet, and bodies) as walkers and travellers alongside men. We gather in the vicinity of Elisabeth Frink’s Walking Madonna (1981) and she will also form part of the weekend. Robert Macfarlane writes of walking as “enabling sight and thought … [and] paths as offering … ways of feeling, being and knowing”. This is very much the spirit of our journey together on this weekend.

About the course leader
Rosie Miles lives in Birmingham and spent over twenty years as an academic and educator, teaching and writing about English Literature. She now offers poetry courses, workshops and occasional retreat events under the banner ‘Poetry with Soul’. She has contributed to many Wild Goose anthologies and her debut short collection is CUTS (HappenStance, 2015). Rosie is gradually walking the entire South West Coast Path and has now walked 421 miles. She walks solo, carrying everything in her rucksack, and strongly believes walking has a great deal to teach us about living well. In recent years Rosie has retrained as a professional gardener, and she is part-time General Gardener at the Alpine Garden Society, Pershore. She also runs her own small gardening business in south Birmingham.

Details

Dates & Times

07 - 09 Jun 2024

Expired!

arrivals 6pm Friday; departure 2pm Sunday

Course code

2463

Other Notes

This is a weekend course to be held at Sarum College.

Residential tickets include B&B, meals and refreshments during the course.

Please note this retreat includes evening sessions during the event.

What our students say

PhD Research Programmes

Visual Artist Claire Reed

The complex and sometimes fractious relationship between contemporary art and religion has intrigued me throughout my art career, informing my direction as an artist. It has led me to work in sacred spaces with their immediate and wider communities, to study an MA in Theology, Imagination and Culture at Sarum College, and recently to become artist–researcher at Leo Baeck College of Jewish scholarship and learning.

My aim is to examine the extent to which this creative approach might generate fruitful inter-religious theological insights within a Jewish and Christian ministry training context.

Sarum College combines an open-minded embrace of the imagination and the arts with a supportive, questioning and diverse community. Crucially for me, the Sarum-Winchester PhD programme is one of the very few UK university programmes to offer a hybrid thesis in art and theology in which the creative process and resulting art output along with a written critical component are presented for examination.

This PhD research is a key part of my development as an artist engaged with theology and inter-religious dialogue.

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Stimulating and Challenging

What is Successful Ageing? led by James Woodward

I enjoyed the course immensely from beginning to end – the seamless interweaving of knowledge, ideas and research and the linking with belief and faith.

The content was stimulating, challenging, thought provoking and I was greatly appreciative of the contributions and questions from other participants, your considered and sensitive responses and integration with your presentations.

Thank you!

Netflix, Theology and Pastoral Practice

Peter Butchers on his MA in Theology, Imagination and Culture student experience

How do cultural tropes, like those found in Black Mirror, help bridge the gap between what academic theology espouses and what the everyday Christian believes? In his research as a student on the MA in Theology, Imagination and Culture, Peter Butchers explored platonic philosophy, digital theology and eschatology, and pastoral practice around death and dying.

Rewarding Sabbatical Stay

The Revd Greg Syler, is Rector of Ascension & St. George’s, Resurrection Parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC USA, spent part of his ministry sabbatical at Sarum College in spring 2022.

His account of the experience begins: ‘I loved spending nearly three weeks of my ministry sabbatical at Sarum College earlier this year.

Not only did I rest, and rest well in the comfortable care of the Sarum College staff, I experienced very significant renewal and fresh insights.’

The Road Not Taken

Sarum Graduate Mike Truman

January 2022

Five years ago, I told my Warden of Readers that I would not be renewing my licence when it expired in 2019, as I thought my faith was becoming too unorthodox for a Church of England licensed lay minister. As someone who knew me well, she challenged me to actively explore what I did still believe. Thus started the journey that ended last August with the dissertation completing my MA in Theology Imagination and Culture (MATIC) at Sarum College.

Clergy Study Breaks

The opportunity for clergy to get away occasionally from their own context, to have an overnight stay in the beautiful setting of Sarum College and all that the Salisbury Cathedral Close offers is hugely valuable. All the clergy I have suggested who have spent 24hrs at Sarum College have benefit greatly from the experienced mentoring where they can talk, reflect, think, plan and pray.

The support and encouragement they receive is excellent and has a positive on their on going ministry. This is something the Diocese of Rochester encourages and supports financially in preparation for their clergy preparing for Extended Ministerial Development Leave (Sabbatical).

— Canon Christopher Dench, Diocese of Rochester Director of Formation and Ministry

Retreats and Private Stays

When I arrived, exhausted and sensitive, I was grateful not to be asked by Reception were I came from, whether I had had a good journey etc. That was the kind of hospitality I needed: a non-intrusive welcome that was found in ancient cultures and still survives in some societies today, where the host asks questions about a stranger and his journey only when the visitor has rested and been given food and drink.

— guest on a private stay

Biblical Study Breaks

I just found it very refreshing – as a leader of a church I don’t get as many opportunities to step out and do courses (my fault, not the church!) and so I loved it. I think it was run really well online – which is a difficult medium to work with.

Pádraig Ó Tuama (pictured) was outstanding in his balance of getting us to engage and sharing his learning. Also the quick availability of resources provided by Sarum College Librarian Jayne Downey was excellent.

— course participant, Story Theology: Narrative Approaches to Scripture

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The Spirituality of Walking

The Spirituality of Walking course