Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Housekeeping note

This blog has both hiking posts and spirituality posts.

  • To read only the 2025 LEJOG Pilgrimage walk across Britain posts click the menu words “LEJOG Pilgrimage” at the top right
  • To read only the hiking posts, click the menu word “Hiking” at the top of the screen
  • To read only the spirituality posts, click the menu word “Spirituality”
  • To read all blog posts intermingled, click the menu phrase “Blog Posts”

And as a reminder, I’ve put a quick explanation of how hiking paths and the spiritual path intersect on the “About” page.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Mildly Famous on Facebook

I finished my pilgrimage as scheduled, on the morning on Saturday 12 July, when I hiked the last 7 miles from my campsite in the corner of a large windy field shared with a few sheep. Got to John O’Groats up there in the northeast corner of Scotland before the businesses that sell trinkets and refreshments to the tourists opened. But not before the tourists had arrived. I asked a woman who was part of a bus tour group to take my photo standing next to the iconic sign that I’d walked 75 days reach.

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Ticking Clock

The clock is ticking on this pilgrimage as it winds down. I’m writing from a campground in Melvich on Wednesday. And, God willing (everything is God willing), I will walk into John O’Groats on Saturday morning.

The Scottish Highlands near Bettyhill

So many of my thoughts have been turning to some sort of summary, or gathering together of loose threads, or working out what I have learned from this 1,000 mile walk the length of the United Kingdom.

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Roadblocked

Back near the beginning of the month I took a couple days off from walking to rest and rejuvenate. I stayed with friends of Ann’s in the village Kirkby Malham. It sits in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales.

(If you’ve seen any of the episodes of “All Creatures Great and Small” on PBS – which you should! – this is exactly what it looks like. And I do mean exactly, because this area is where the exterior shots were filmed.)

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My Sheep Hear My Voice

Sheep have been one of the constants of this long walk. I have no clue how many I’ve seen, but it must be thousands or even tens of thousands by this point.

Which, of course, has me thinking about the Good Shepherd and the sheep of his flock.

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Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Thomas à Kempis on Midges



“There is no creature so little and so vile as not to manifest the goodness of God.” (Thomas à Kempis,  Imitation of Christ, Book 2, ch. 4)

Really, Thomas?

When I was young, I questioned whether the goodness of God was manifest in gnats flying around me on a summer afternoon. (I was also not a big fan of worms, but they could usually be avoided.) Lots of other insects were not on my ‘good list’ even if they might be on God’s. Yellow jackets in the rotting apples on the ground under the tree or sipping from our soda cans at a picnic. Crickets in our cellar. Mosquitoes.

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Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Spiritual Ages and Stages

“Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God”
Hebrews 6:1 (NIV)

The central idea here seems to be that there are, if you will, “ages and stages” in the Christian life. There are elementary teachings, and then there is maturity. There’s a foundation, and there is what is built on the foundation.

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