Interfaith pilgrimage for COP26
'We completed the Norfolk leg yesterday with a ceremonial handing over of a plastic bottle of Yarmouth sea water.'
More than sixty interfaith pilgrims came together in King’s Lynn last month to end their march across Norfolk highlighting the need for action on climate change.
The inspiration for the pilgrimage came from Quaker Peter Belton who first publicised the idea in an article in May in the Friend.
The Norwich Quaker said that he started the idea ‘because I wanted to find a way of engaging Quakers with the COP26 process as it all seems remote and impenetrable. So the idea was to go from Meeting house to Meeting house in relays and work towards Glasgow’.
After the article appeared, he said he received responses from all over the country. About twenty Meetings outside Norfolk are now involved. ‘In Norfolk, through ecumenical connections, Norwich Quakers made contact with the Church of England diocese who responded very enthusiastically. They have been most helpful in forming a multi-faith group. We completed the Norfolk leg yesterday with a ceremonial handing over of a plastic bottle of Yarmouth sea water. The bottle was found floating in the sea and symbolises pollution and the water represents the rising oceans. The bottle will now go on towards Glasgow with Friends from Cambridge Meeting and may join the Young Christians pilgrimage to Glasgow. The pilgrimage was carried out using churches as way stations, where walkers could sleep overnight. We also had Meeting for Worship at Yarmouth, Norwich and Kings Lynn, and an exhibition at King’s Lynn Meeting House.’
The Norfolk pilgrimage, organised by Quakers and the Church of England, began at the Britannia Pier in Great Yarmouth on 22 August and ended in King’s Lynn on 29 August.
At the end of the journey the local bishop Jane Steen offered a short reflection. She said: ‘We remember that what unites us as Christians is a beautiful world, which is much greater than anything that can divide us.’
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