This year I fulfilled a dream: I walked home to Hastings from Cape Wrath, the north-west tip of Scotland, a trek of just over 1,200 miles. (You can read about the whole journey at walkhometohastings.net.)
The Walk
I had been planning the adventure for well over a year, but I left one decision till the very last minute: which way to walk, north to south or south to north? It was still undecided a week before I set off! I am so glad I settled for north to south. Within a few days it became clear that homecoming was at the heart of what the walk meant to me. Here is part of my blog post from Day 27 (slightly edited) – a rare sunny day in Scotland. I was walking south on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond…
Maybe it was the tranquility of the morning, or the sun on the lush, dewy grass, or the scent of honeysuckle and warm bracken that sent my mind flying homeward. (Perhaps I even journeyed to a mythical home of my youth that never truly existed.) Whatever the reason, my thoughts that beautiful morning were of homecoming, and I realised how incredibly important this aspect of the walk was to me.
Home to Sussex, home to Hastings, home to Rachel… And beneath these, I realised, at the kernel of my walk, was the journey home to myself.
In coming home, you see, there is release from everything which is not of home, or not of myself. So as the ‘old skin’ of the miles walked from Cape Wrath, over Ben Dreavie and the Knoydart Peninsula fell away into the past, so too did the operas I never wrote, the operas in which I never sang, the sermons I might have preached to shock good Christians, but now never will, and the beer which I never brewed. All these unfulfilled dreams fell from me with joy with the advancing miles… And so too did the dreams which were fulfilled: the opera I did write, the roles I sang with joy in England and Russia, Toby the wicked baritone in Serbia, ho, ho! the celebrations of the Eucharist at which I had the great honour to be the celebrant, and the beer I did brew, albeit at home, and which Rachel, my friends, and I consumed with deep pleasure.
What is left is just me, my I-ness, stripped of its worldly festoons, and thus my homecoming is a kind of a death – because I die to what is not of me…
Letting Go
And so now, sitting in my den at home, with another frosty evening closing in outside, my thoughts turn to a parallel question: is death a kind of homecoming?
I’ve heard it said of the dying that there comes a moment of acceptance near the end: that which has been accomplished is accomplished; that which has not is released. This feels very much like the letting go of all my achievements and unfulfilled dreams as I walked home to all I loved.
My walk was truly a journey of a lifetime, and so perhaps unsurprisingly, I was reflecting on all my life. But the same process happens when I go to bed. I rest from the funeral scripts, the blog posts, the washing up, and my Country Park walks. I put aside, too, that bunch of emails I never got round to writing. And then I fall back into the arms of sleep, coming home to the me-beyond-this-world of my dreams.
Alright, I’ll come clean, I seldom fall asleep just like that; more often I have a sleepless hour or two first! But when I do finally drop off, there is the letting just mentioned.
I long for – and so hope that – my own passing from this world will be the same, that I might softly let go of all those worldly things whose release I rehearsed on my walk. And in letting go, that I may come home to the world-less Toby which remains, to the love by which I’m surrounded, and to the peace which surrounds all.
Home at Last
I don’t believe this is wishful thinking. Nor do I believe that you have to know what lies beyond the earthly veil to feel you’re coming home. I am happy to release myself into the arms of whatever awaits. It doesn’t have to include reward, meeting this person again, or not having to meet that one. None of that makes sense anyway, because I have no knowledge or control over what lies beyond. In fact, it is the act of relinquishing my past and future that brings me home to the dwelling place in myself now.
If we treat life, not as a possession to direct, but as a gift in which to rejoice, life will be kind, and we will come home at last.
Toby Sims is an independent funeral celebrant in Hastings, Uk. Read about him and about his work on this, his website. If you would like Toby to celebrate the funeral of someone you love, please get in touch.