“A single ticket from Feniton, please. To errr… the South Pacific.” “The Pacific, sir?” checks the man at the counter, “that’s very adventurous, if I may be bold enough to say. Is that business, sir, or are we on holiday?” “Mmmm, you could call it God’s business, I suppose”. “My apologies, sir, I see you’re a man of the cloth. So I’m sure He will bring you back safely to us, sir. A Return ticket, then.” “I’m not so sure! Let’s stick with One-way.” “Well, have a nice trip, sir.”
It’s 1855, and John Coleridge Patteson leaves the Feniton family home to join the great Victorian missionary endeavour. In 1861 he was made the first Anglican Bishop of Melanesia. In 1871 he was killed by local people, probably in mistaken identity for a slave-trader.
“Ticket to Feniton, please,” a modern-day Archbishop requests at London Waterloo, 150 years on. “Would that be a Return, sir?” “Oh yes, I definitely hope to return.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury will be travelling rather less far than Bishop Patteson when he visits Feniton church this month. However, he has travelled across the seas to Melanesia previously: he journeys here as President of the Melanesian Mission UK.
Journeys – Patteson’s to the Pacific, the Archbishop’s to Devon. Justin Welby is coming here to start a journey – or more precisely to start the opportunity for journeys. At St Andrew’s Church lychgate on Saturday 18th September, at 9am or thereabouts (all are welcome), he will cut the ribbon on a new pilgrimage route, the Patteson’s Way. This follows the footsteps of John Coleridge Patteson: from Feniton to Alfington where he was curate, Ottery the Coleridge family home, Patteson’s Cross, and back to Feniton. The pilgrimage invites us, as we walk, to look back at history, to be present in the moment through nature, and to look to the future: what is our own journey?
Our Planet itself has travelled far since Patteson’s day. Not just colonialism and Christianity were exported by Nineteenth Century Britain, but carbon. As the world’s industrial powerhouse, we blindly led the journey in burning fossil fuels. And now? Melanesian islands are shrinking from rising sea-levels, a tragic contemporary connection with the Melanesian people.
“A ticket to the Future, please,” requests Planet Earth. “It’s nice and warm there, I gather, madam.” “That’s one way of putting it.” “Travelling alone, madam?” “No, I’ve plenty of company, thank you, everyone’s on this journey. Even God’s squeezing aboard.” “Well, have a nice trip.”
