AUGUST 2009 & APRIL 2010
(click map to enlarge) Last year, I walked with my friends Paul Wood and Adam Clark from Stratford, east London through Leyton and Walthamstow to Tottenham. At Edmonton we continued north to follow the river Lea up to Luton. This April I joined them again to carry on from Luton to Northampton which crosses over Milton Keynes, a place that has been significant to the ‘Bell’ walk from Lincoln to Maidenhead. I noticed that there were 4 ‘Eleanor Crosses’ (red dots on map) on this trek having picked up the first one at St Albans in March. So we went by way to collect them and ‘bag’ those points for Jesus in Dunstable, Stoney Stratford, Woburn and Hardingstone. This journey crossed over my previous walk past Milton Keynes which had been north to south, so now we approached the same place from east to west along the roman Watling street and cutting through the very area that God had marked out for us last year as a place of ‘unlocking’. There seemed to be a theme of ‘crossing over’ with this walk on many levels.
As I studied the map I began to see a gateway on the Watling street in Milton Keynes, it was a spiritual gateway depicted as an archway, a place of crossing over, an ‘East to West’ gateway. With the eyes of my heart, I saw a procession of Indian elephants walking up the Watling street from the east, in full regalia and dressage, it was a beautiful sight as they paraded one after the other towards this east/west arch. As they reached the opening and went through they disappeared crossing over from the east into the west. I felt God say to open the gate and let them through! That night an Indian woman visited me in my sleep, she hit me with a pink bible, embraced me and prophesied over me in gujarati! For me this immediately linked with this ‘east/west’ gate and the pink bible said it all! It is a colour that speaks to me of that which has been divided coming back to together. Whether it is the red and white of roses in the english civil war or the red cross on the white background that has been used as a reason for war. Where the west has dominated with it’s ethos of ‘doing’, balance must come from the east and it’s ethos of ‘being’. That which has been divided must back together as both are essential, and where control has divided it is to be squeezed out. I see this taking place on many levels.
It has been exciting to see that just a week later, life sized baby elephants have appeared all over London decorated in amazing ways to highlight a cause to protect Indian elephants. Infact, the day I returned home, a news item reported the finding on an elephant tusk on the Thanet/Kent shoreline poking out of the sand! A year ago we walked there ringing a bell bought in the east as a ‘wake-up’ call. These signs are encouraging when God lets us into His playroom to have fun while He lines us up with His tracing of heaven on earth!!