Sabina Wurmbrand (1913 – 2000)

 Her husband was the famous one, deservedly so. 

You can read about Richard Wurmbrand here https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/04/richard-wumbrandt.html

But Sabina was an extremely strong lady. 

She should never have become a Christian, but when she did, there was nothing lukewarm about her faith. And it was a faith that endured years of terrible suffering. 

This is a short essay about her life. There is a lot to learn from her

When she was a student at the Sorbonne University in Paris in the 1930s, no one would

have thought that the then Sabina Oster would become a Christian. For Sabina was

from a traditional Jewish family. By the time she arrived in Paris from her home town of

Czernowitz in northern Romania, Sabina was no longer very religious; but she still knew

exactly how the ‘Christians’ of Europe had treated the Jews. Christians were the

enemies.

And she enjoyed the good life, first in Paris, and then, after her studies, in Bucharest,

Romania’s capital city. Here she met and fell in love with a tall handsome business

man, also a Romanian Jew. His name was Richard Wurmbrand. They went to the

Bucharest night clubs and theatres together, with little thought for the future. They

married in 1936, and the good days continued.

And then Richard developed tuberculosis, a killer disease in those days. Richard was

sent to a sanatorium in a beautiful part of Romania. Sabina visited him, and noticed that

he seemed very calm, indeed a change was coming over him. During one of these visits

Sabina was shocked to the core of her being: Richard started talking about Jesus

Christ. For Sabina, this was to betray the Jewish people. She wrote, ‘I didn’t know what

to do. I was utterly dismayed’. Sabina had been personally attacked by ‘Christians’.

Often after school two bigger girls would lay in wait for her and pull her hair, because

Sabina was ‘a dirty little Jewess.’ As Richard talked about becoming a Christian, she

exploded in anger: 'I don’t need Him. You don’t need Him. It isn’t natural. We’re Jewish

– it’s another way of life…I’d rather die than see you become a Christian!’

Night after night Richard talked to her, especially about how Christianity sat on the foundation

of Judaism, and eventually Sabina agreed to read the New Testament. Slowly her mind

accepted the validity of Christ; but her emotions were at war and when Richard

announced he would be baptised, Sabina decided she would commit suicide at exactly

the same time. The day came for the baptism. Richard left the house, and Sabina threw

herself on the floor and sobbed her heart out till there was no more energy left. And

then, a peace came. The Holy Spirit. Surely in answer to Richard’s prayer. Sabina

wrote, ‘Life began to flow back.’ And when Richard returned, she met him with flowers.

A change had happened, but not a conversion. For as she wrote, ‘I wanted to go to

parties and dances and cinemas, not sit listening to sermons on churches.’

Her change of heart happened at a party. There was the noise and the drink and the

smutty jokes and Sabina realised her heart was not there. She found the conversation

either boring or disgusting. As they were going Sabina said to her husband, impulsively,

‘I’d like to be baptized at once.’

The decision seemed impulsive, but it was not. For months Sabina had lived with a man

whose faith spread the fragrance of Christ. The smell of that party was foul by

comparison. And she had been reading the New Testament. She knew how beautiful

Jesus was, compared to the darker history of the church.

As Richard and Sabina celebrated the arrival of their first child, Mihai, in 1939, so

Hitler’s shadow and murderous anti-Semitism loomed over Romania. Leaving for a

safer country might have been on their minds, especially because Richard had trained

to be an Anglican priest. They had international contacts.

However, they had also started a church, mainly for Jewish converts. It had grown

phenomenally. Hundreds were coming to the meetings. With a young child and such

ministry in the fast lane, Bucharest was where the Wurmbrands were going to stay. In

1940 the Nazis entered Romania, and soon after the murderous persecution of the

Jews began.

Even though Bucharest was spared the worst, Richard and Sabina were arrested three

times, and at one trial they were greatly helped by a priest in the Orthodox church, a

German Baptist pastor, and the Swedish ambassador. Sabina did all she could to save

other Jews, especially children. They also organised relief for the Jews in Hungary, and

the Gypsies

The horror lasted till 1944. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed, including

Sabina’s own parents and her brother and three sisters. This is how Richard

Wurmbrand describes what happened:

When Romania entered the war on Germany's side, a pogrom began in which many

thousands of Jews were killed or deported. At Iasi alone 11,000 were massacred in a

day. My wife, who shares my Protestant faith, is also of Jewish origin. We lived in

Bucharest, from which the Jews were not deported, but her parents, one of her

brothers, three sisters, and other relatives who lived in Bucovine were taken to

Transmistria, a wild border province that the Romanians had captured from Russia.

Jews who were not murdered at the end of this journey were left to starve, and there

Sabina's family died.

Months later, after hearing this terrible news, a Romanian soldier was on leave from the

army and came to stay with the Wurmbrands’ landlord. And this soldier boasted to the

landlord about how he had volunteered to shoot hundreds of Jews – in exactly the same

area where Sabina had lost her family. The landlord came down and told Richard, who

went up to see the man. Sabina was sleeping. The soldier, whose name was Borila, 

continued his boasting, but Richard also found out that he liked traditional folk songs.

Richard invited him downstairs to hear him play some of these tunes on the piano.

Borila came down to the Wurmbrands’ flat, and was touched by the music.

Then Richard spoke:

I stopped and turned to Borila. “I've something very important to say to you,” I told him.

“Please speak,” he said.

“If you look through that curtain you can see someone is asleep in the next room. It's my

wife, Sabina. Her parents, her sisters, and her twelve-year-old brother have been killed

with the rest of the family. You told me that you had killed hundreds of Jews near Golta,

and that is where they were taken.” Looking into his eyes, I added, “You yourself don't

know who you have shot, so we can assume that you are the murderer of her family.”

He jumped up, his eyes blazing, looking as if he were about to strangle me.

I held up my hand and said, “Now—let's try an experiment. I shall wake my wife and tell

her who you are, and what you have done. I can tell you what will happen. My wife will

not speak one word of reproach! She'll embrace you as if you were her brother. She'll

bring you supper, the best things she has in the house.'

Borila broke down, and started crying out for forgiveness. He knew no prayers, but he

knew he needed forgiveness. Richard commanded the spirit of hatred to leave the man,

and eventually he calmed down. God had had mercy. What happened next was out of

the ordinary, and this alone points to what an exceptional lady Sabina was. Richard

woke her up and explained that a man who had probably been involved in the killing of

her family was in the living room; and he had now become a Christian. He was now her

brother. Sabina got up, and greeted her ‘brother’ with an embrace. And then, as Richard

expected, she went into the kitchen to prepare Borila some food.

After the Nazis, the Russians came to Romania. They came in September 1944.

Richard and Sabina did two extraordinary things when the Russians came. First of all

they went out to meet the tanks with Scriptures. They were determined to share the

Gospel with these so called atheists. When the first tank arrived, a young Russian

sergeant caught Sabina’s eye and asked, ‘Well, sweetheart. And what have you got to

offer?’ Without hesitation Sabina said, ‘I’ve brought to a copy of the Holy Bible’, and she

handed it to him. With the arrival of the Russians, the Wurmbrands printed thousands of

Gospels in Russians to use for evangelism.

The Russians were everywhere; and the Germans who had not managed to escape,

went on the run. This is the second extraordinary thing Sabina did. She helped these

German soldiers. One of them was flabbergasted. He told Sabina, ‘You know that it is

death to shelter a German soldier. Yet you do it – and you are Jews!’ Sabina tried to

explain how Jesus taught his followers to love our enemies. They did not understand,

but they respected her.

The Wurmbrands house was always overflowing with guests. And Sabina was the

hostess. She said that they never sat down to lunch on Sunday with less than a dozen

people around the table. And there were more than dinner guests. At this time

thousands were coming back from the concentration camps and had no family. Sabina

took in six Jewish orphans.

For a short period there was some freedom to worship; but then the control of Moscow

tightened. Every religious group was asked to send a delegation to a ‘Congress of Cults’

to be held in the parliament. 4,000 came. There were endless speeches about how the

church was the friend of the communists, and the communists were friends of the

church. For Sabina it was sickening. Everyone knew what these communists had done

to Christians in Russia. Eventually Sabina said to Richard, ‘Will you not wash this

shame from the face of Christ?’ He replied, ‘If I speak, you will lose a husband.’ Sabina

– believing the Holy Spirit strengthened her at that moment – immediately replied, ‘I

don’t need a coward for a husband.’ So Richard spoke – to the congress, and through

the radio, to the whole country. And he spoke of how Christ is above every human

government. Enraged, the officials cut the microphone, but he had said enough. Sabina

was very proud of him.

Despite now being a marked couple, Richard and Sabina continued their street

evangelism. Sabina often preached and sometimes large crowds gathered. As more

and more of their friends were arrested, both Richard and Sabina knew it was only a

matter of time till the knock came on their door. And they both knew how horrific the

labour camps were. Still they could leave the country, and Richard even thought that

God was telling them to escape. Sabina was not convinced. And when she sent to pray

about this it was the words of Jesus that spoke: ‘Whoever desires to save his life will

lost it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.’ She told Richard – if we leave,

we cannot preach from this text. He agreed. This was confirmed a few days later at an

intense prayer meeting. Around midnight, a lady was on her knees and cried out, ‘And

you who thinks of leaving! Remember that the good shepherd did not desert his flock.

He stayed to the last.’

Richard was kidnapped walking to church on February 29th 1948. Sabina did not see her

husband again till September 1956 – eight and a half years. And she could not find out

which prison he was in. When asked by a foreign diplomat, the government lied, saying

that according to their records Richard Wurmbrand had left the country with a suitcase

full of dollars. Eventually a prison guard came to her house offering to bring news of

Richard, for a very high price. Sabina paid, and shortly after she received a note in

Richard’s hand-writing – ‘My dearest wife – I thank you for your sweetness. I’m well –

Richard.’

Two years later it was her turn. At 5 o’clock on the morning of August 23 rd 1959 there

was loud knocking on her door. Six police men barged in and ransacked the flat. They

then shouted at Sabina and a guest who was staying with her to get dressed and come

with them. Sabina said she would, but first said they would pray. She was then blind-

folded, pushed into the back of a truck and taken to a nearby police-station and put in a

room with several hundred other women. Two days later she was moved to another

police station and put in a smaller cell. And then it was solitary confinement. ‘My cell

contained only an iron cot. No bucket – the first thing a prisoner looks for. How I

mourned the missing bucket…You were let out at 5 a.m., 3 p.m., and 10 p.m.’

When called for interrogation, Sabina was expected to know what her crime was. She

did not; so she wrote nothing and was sent back to her cell. The next day the

interrogators wanted to discover what Richard’s political views were. Sabina said they

never discussed politics. They asked her to denounce ‘counter-revolutionaries’. She

refused. She felt God’s help, and later that night, she wrote, ‘I had a strong feeling of the

divine presence in my solitary cell.’ The next day another interrogator wanted to know

all of Sabina’s sexual history. She refused, and the interrogator threatened: ‘You won’t

leave this place without telling us the facts about your sex life.’ And so the questioning

continued; and Sabina refused to answer. After another session – when she was being

asked to identity different people – she was threatened with torture. Thankfully, that did

not happen.

Sabina was sentenced to two years in a labour camp; but before going to the camp she

was sent Romania’s most feared prison: Jilava. Here there were four underground,

airless cells, for about two hundred women. The food was usually soup made from

rotten carrots that turned people’s skin yellow. The prisoners had to lap their food from

the bowls. There were no spoons. It was soon discovered that Sabina was the wife of

the Richard Wurmbrand who had dared to challenge the communists at the Congress of

the Cults, and for that she was given some respect. She was also liked because she

gave French and German lessons.

After Jilava, Sabina was sent with hundreds of others to the labour camp simply known

as the ‘Canal’. The conditions were grim, the overcrowded huts were full of rats, and the

work, building an embankment, was exhausting. Sabina had to keep filling a

wheelbarrow with earth for another prisoner to take up a sharp incline. On Sundays they

had to endure indoctrination classes or presentations about atheism and communism.

At one of these, it was noticed that Sabina did not applause the songs for communism.

For this, she was put in ‘The Carcer’. ‘It was a narrow built cupboard built into the wall in

which you could just stand. The iron door had a few holes to admit air.’ This was terrible

torture. Her mind blacked out, but she kept on praying, unknown words to God. Sabina

survived this ordeal. On another occasion, out of pure spite because it became known 

that Sabina believed in purity, a guard threw her into the Danube, and at least two of her

ribs were broken. She still had to work the next day.

In the midst of all this suffering, Sabina drew near to other prisoners to hear their stories,

and to share. Sometimes prisoners would seek her out to hear Bible verses, and to

confess dark secrets. For her witnessing to Christ she was brought in front of the deputy

camp commandant who told her she had to stop talking about God. Sabina said that

this would be impossible. The woman was furious, but Sabina told her that she could

see how she used to be in her eyes; and if the commandant looked into her eyes, she

would see how she could be. This cut to the commandant’s heart, ‘She seemed to turn

to stone’.

After ‘The Camp’ Sabina was sent on a long, crowded, train journey to another prison:

Tirgusor. Here Sabina was sent to work twelve hour shifts in the sewing shop. Again,

Sabina’s Christian witness gently came to the fore. Once she was asked to lead the

prayers in the cell, and she insisted on reconciliation, according to Matthew 5:23. After

this prison, Sabina was taken to a pig farm. Here she fell seriously ill and was taken to

hospital. And here she also witnessed. One evening a political officer visited the ward

and gave a speech on how wonderful communism was, and asked who needed God

when there were such fine hospitals? Sabina interrupted him. ‘Lieutenant, as long as

there will be people on earth, we will need God.’ The next day Sabina was sent back to

the pig farm. The conditions were so disgusting, Sabina accepted that she was probably

going to die. But then, unexpectantly, she was moved to a transit camp where there

were hundreds of other women. The officials were holding interviews. When it came to

Sabina’s turn the officer told her that he had power over her life, ‘Had she understood

the sham that religion was?’ This is how Sabina replied: ‘I see that you are powerful.

And probably you have papers and documents there about me that I’ve never seen and

can decide my fate. But God keeps records, too, and neither you nor I would have life

without Him. So whether He keeps me here or sets me free, I’ll accept that as best for

me’. The officer banged his fists on the desk and sent Sabina away. It seemed his

power would keep her in prison. ‘But three days later my name was read out. Higher authorities than the

 major were, indeed, deciding my future.’

Sabina was dropped off on the outskirts of Bucharest. She took a tram to the city centre,

and when she asked other passengers to pay her fare, a dozen people immediately

offered. They were able to recognise a woman who had endured the injustice of the

communist prison system.

Sabina was re-united with her son, Mihai, now fourteen, who had been looked after by a

church friend. But there was no Richard. And their old home had been taken. She and

Mihai had to move into a small attic with two rooms. Even with such small space,

Sabina took in a permanent guest, a young lady called Marietta who suffered from

epilepsy. And then Marietta fell in love with Peter, who was virtually a cripple. They

married, and so Peter moved into the attic as well. Financially they survived from any

money Mihai could earn, and odd jobs Sabina did like sewing, or teaching.

Sabina again got fully involved with Bucharest’s underground church. Church life was

not easy. There were many informers. The secret meetings had to be planned very

carefully. Radically, Sabina with another church leader resolved that as the communists

infiltrated the church, so the church needed to infiltrate the communists. One of the first

to take on this dangerous mission was recruited by Sabina. Her name was Trudi, and

she got a job working in the house of a colonel who worked for the Secret Police. In her

post Trudi was able to let Sabina know about who the informers were, and when the

colonel’s family were away, she was able to host church meetings in his house.

Thankfully Sabina was not re-arrested and imprisoned. But on more than one occasion

officials tried to get her to divorce Richard. She refused. And Sabina did all she could to

stop other women divorcing their husbands who were in prison. 

She was not always successful, and she herself admitted to the temptations that come: ‘More than once I

was tempted during Richard’s fourteen years in prison.’ The most serious happened just

after she was released from prison. A man who came to the underground church

meetings fell in love with Sabina (who was then 43 years old), and she was attracted to

his solid and steady nature. Sometimes when talking he would take hold of her hand;

and she didn’t take it away. Later she saw that in God’s eyes, this was adultery. Another

Christian leader, Brother Grecu, saw what was going on and intervened. He challenged

Sabina, ‘How is it between you and Paul (the other man)?’ After she admitted that she

had feelings for Paul, Brother Grecu told her to take her feelings to be examined by

reason, and then he said, ‘’Don’t see this man again.’ There were other temptations.

Sabina was realistic about the power of sex. She wrote: ‘Sexuality is a remorseless

driving force and we must, at times, not accuse ourselves too harshly. We can

remember to have understanding for our own weaknesses as we as for those of others.’

After Stalin’s death in 1953, very slowly a thawing began in the Soviet prison system.

And so Sabina received a post-card from Richard, inviting her to visit him. The police

did not let Sabina go, but Mihai went, and saw his father. Sabina put the post-card in

her Bible. And waited. In 1956 it was clear things were changing, not least because

more and more prisoners were being released. And so after a visit to friends in June

1956, Sabina returned home and: ‘…there he was. He put his arms around me…it was

an evening of laughter and tears and greetings to friends who came from all over

Bucharest.’ Soon, the fearless Richard was preaching, with Sabina’s full support. But

she battled fear that she again would lose her husband.

The post Stalin thaw in Romania ended in 1958. It was replaced by even more intense

oppression, and the communist war against religion was renewed. And so on January 

15th again the police raided the Wurmbrands’ home and arrested Richard. Sabina was

utterly devastated. She ran down the icy street after the police van calling out her

husband’s name. Sabina saw Richard again at a trial where he was sentenced to twenty

five years imprisonment. She did not see him again for another six years. And it seems

likely that Sabina would be arrested again. One night, when she was warned to stay

away, the police ransacked their flat. She wasn’t arrested, but she had to deal with a

terrible bitterness towards those in the church who had informed on them: ‘I fought with

myself, feeling hatred enter me toward those who had taken my husband. And so many

husbands. I prayed, but could not find peace.’

As well as the prison sentence, the court had ordered that the Wurmbrands pay a huge

fine. If it wasn’t paid, the bailiffs would come and take the little they had. Sabina had to

cope with this pressure. She eventually was able to meet with an official, but he had no

sympathy. She had to pay or the bailiffs would come. She left those offices with tears

pouring down her face. She was followed by an unknown man – and he gave her some

money. And every month he sent a small amount of money so the bailiffs never came.

The government harassed Sabina in other ways. Again she was asked to divorce

Richard, to help Mihai’s education. And twice she was told that Richard had died.

In early 1964 there was talk of an amnesty for political prisoners, and Sabina’s hopes

soared. They were not dashed. Sabina was peeling potatoes when her neighbour who

had a telephone knocked on her door: ‘It’s someone calling you from out of town’

Sabina went down, picked up the phone – and then when she heard Richard’s voice,

she could not speak. She fainted. The next day she went to the station to meet the train:

‘I saw Richard before he saw me. He was leaning from a carriage window. Thin and

pale, with a shaven head. God had given him back to me.’

As soon as his health permitted, the preaching ministry in the underground church

began for Richard. Hundreds came to faith in Christ. Many years before Richard had

seriously considered a move to the West. Now, after fourteen years of brutal

imprisonment, and the possibility of re-arrest, other church leaders encouraged him to

leave Romania. But they wanted him to see this a mission: to warn the West of the evils

of communism.

And so on Christmas eve, 1965 the Wurmbrands left Romania – first for Norway, then

the UK, and they finally settled in the USA. Here they worked tirelessly to share the

story of the persecuted church under communism. While Richard was very much the

famous one, known through his books throughout Christendom, Sabina faithfully shared

this work with him. They were successful. After their arrival in the West, no Christian

was in any doubt as to how cruel communism was towards believers.

Sabina left this world on 20 th August, 2000. She was 87 years old. Six months later,

Richard joined her. Without doubt she is a great hero of the Christian faith, and her

voice, still speaks to us.

It is a brave voice. She spoke of Christ despite the risks; and she spoke of Him in the

prisons and at the labour camps. She even told the deputy commandant that it would be

impossible to stop talking about God. When freed, she bravely continued to serve the

underground church.

It is a generous voice. There were always guests around her table; once she took in six

orphans. And even when she and her son just had a two room attic flat, still she

welcomed a young lady and later her new husband.

It is a forgiving voice. She forgave the man who had probably gunned down her parents

and siblings. She forgave many others, including church informers.

It is an honest voice. Sabina never made any pretence about how difficult it was for her,

a Jewess, to become a Christian. Nor did she ever tried to hide the fact that she battled

with sexual temptation when her husband was in prison, and with bitterness.

May we all continue to hear the voice of Sabina Wurmbrand.

Tom Hawksley

October 2026

Is Climate Change The Main Thing? No

Climate change is happening and it is fearsome. Mankind, as stewards of God’s good creation have a responsibility to do all that is possible to preserve the environment.

Nevertheless, is dealing with climate change the main thing? The Christian must answer, 'No'.

For many ferocious climate warriors their answer is a violent, ‘Yes’. They unnervingly remind us of the medieval millenarians who would terrify whole cities with their proclamations about the end of the world. For more on these connections see here:

  https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2020/01/climate-extinction-rebels-heirs-to.html

And hovering over some of this territory is a vague, mist-like, ‘environmental spirituality’, which has close connections with pagan groups like the Druids. Here trees and rivers have souls. Clearing litter from a river is an act of devotion. So, being environmentally sensitive is somehow spiritual. This has found its way, especially via the Green Party, into main-stream politics. So, in September 2026 the Lewes Council, run by the Green and the Labour party, have adopted ‘The Rights of Trees Charter’.

There is no doubt that for the Green Party, these climate activists, and millions of others are rightly concerned about the environment – climate change is absolutely the main thing. Politicians and celebrities are in their number: Ed Milliband, Al Gore, Bernie Sanders, David Attenborough, Jane Fonda, Leonardo DiCaprio – the list is long.

One can question the methods of the ‘climate millenarians’, and raise an eyebrow at spending tax payer’s money on producing a ‘Rights of Trees Charter’, but to object to the essential push to halt climate change and its devastating impacts – that would be obtuse.

Especially for Christians who believe that God’s creation, though marred by sin, is nevertheless good, and that mankind has a responsibility to be its steward. And that is clearly reflected in some of the church pronouncements: The Pope has declared there is such a thing as ‘ecological sin’; the Anglican and Methodist churches are committed to net zero emissions by 2030; and the World Council of Churches has said we are in the ‘Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action’.

You could easily get the impression that halting climate change is just as much the main thing for the church as it is for Greta Thunberg.

And that takes us to the central question. Yes, halting climate change is important – but is it the main thing for the church? Should it even be a major emphasis?

The answer has to be no.

And not only no, but if the church puts too much emphasis on the importance of halting climate change is it in danger of flirting with heresy and blasphemy.

The answer has to be no because the major emphasis on the Bible story is not on the survival of this earth, but on the re-creation of the earth. This is where Christian hope is. The evidence for this emphasis in the New Testament is relentless. The Second Coming of Christ will usher in ‘new heavens and the new earth’, when this present earth is destroyed. This is what Christ says – ‘heaven and earth will pass away’; this is what Peter says, ‘the heavens will pass away with the roar’; and in Revelation, ‘heaven and earth flee from his presence’. Whatever the detail, there can be no doubt that when Christ returns the impact on this earth is going to be a lot more dramatic than a few icebergs melting.

And the Second Coming of Christ is not a minor doctrine in the New Testament. It is taught in 23 of the New Testament’s 24 books. If you put all the verses together, one in every thirty speak about Christ’s return. While there certainly is a Biblical teaching on man’s responsibility for the environment, it pales in significance when set beside Christ’s return.

This is why a Christian can never say that halting climate change for them is the ‘main thing’; rather, with their Master, they pray, ‘Thy Kingdom Come.’ For while the Second Coming and the destruction of this present earth is truly terrifying, entailing God’s righteous judgement on a rebellious, cruel, and contaminated planet, the story continues. And that is where the Christian focus must be. For in in parable after parable, the Kingdom of God is coming, and in Revelation we read of a life where all tears are wiped away and death is no more.

This is the great Christian hope. This is our main emphasis. That repentance and faith in Christ averts the wrath of God and brings us into the Kingdom of God. But when the church makes climate action the main concern, so the heart of the Christian story is dulled. Sin is no longer the source of our troubles, Christ's death and resurrection no longer our hope. So, rather than urging sinners to flee to Christ the Saviour to be delivered from the wrath of a holy God, people are encouraged to do their bit for the planet. Instead of being asked to choose between the broad and the narrow path, between heaven and hell, between God and Satan – we get asked to choose between plastic and reusable coffee cups.

But there is sadly more going on here than just taking the sportlight away from the main Christian hope. There is blasphemy and heresy.

The blasphemy is that it is not God who is centre stage, in fact He is not even on the stage. He is ignored. Operating within the enlightenment paradigm, it is assumed, ironically, that God the creator cares not a jot for His creation. So in this climate action faith it is man who is centre stage.

As man has spewed out the carbon dioxide, now man must being in ‘net zero’. This is salvation by works in neon lights, or rather massive conferences that cause a lot of emissions. Yes, the criminal is man, but so too the hero will be men working in unity to save the planet. The truth is that God controls the planet, every atom, but in the climate action faith, it’s all about man. That’s blasphemy.

And here’s the heresy: there is no recognition of the fall of man. The Bible is relentless in its diagnosis of the human predicament, Jesus especially so. It is out of the heart that all the mess comes (see Mark 7: 21 – 23). Human nature is embedded with evil. It runs through all of us. So the whole idea that we fallen creatures are going to selflessly and heroically save the planet is pie in the sky sentimentalism.

The norm for human beings is not getting together to sort out problems like climate change. Often the norm is war. As I write four major wars are in full swing: Russia and Ukraine; Iran and the USA; the Saudis and the Houthis; and Israel and Hamas. Each war means drones and missiles – and so a massive amount of emissions, and massive damage to the environment. Has the scientific reality of the danger of climate change brought about peace? No. The correct science about climate change has not changed Jesus’ correct diagnosis about human nature.

I have no idea who said that the good is the enemy of the best, but it is startlingly true here. Looking after the environment is good, but it becomes an enemy when it diverts Christians from seeking the best: the Kingdom of God.

The Edge Of The Circus

I came to the edge of the circus

When the sun was sinking low

And the kiosk man was nervous

When I walked into the show

The painted clown swirled round,

Cackled and stumbled to the floor

A snake crawling on the dirty ground

His eyes sly and impure

A rasping growl, the proud lion

The ringmaster’s whip held high

It snapped down, a staccato sign

And his eyes, fiercely, caught mine

Falling machine-like into a hard hand

The juggler’s balls queued in the air

His face circled mine, willing me to understand

The reason he was there

The lights blazed on, interval time

Innocent queues for ice-creams

But shadows sat, dark signs

Backstage, the shredding of dreams

Lights off again, and we all looked high

At the swim-suited girl swaying alone

She swept down and round and shook at my eye

To pull back to the black of the dome

The horses rushed in, sweat and speed on their skin

Men in red cloaks aloft on their backs

Thundering hooves, sawdust in the wind

A sudden stop, swords held high for the final act

Silence and unease, every heart cowed

Terrible thuds before the trumpet blare

Then the trunks crashed into the crowd

Descendants of Leviathan, stripping all bare

The chaos swept on with reptiles in the dust

Bats in the cracks, clicking, a swishing of wings

Pharaoh’s frogs croaking, covered in slime and puss

Bulldog ants, concocting venomous stings

Voluptuous earth, panic and pandemonium

The centre cannot hold

The hyenas laugh and the Joker waves his gun

His painted grin knows every life has been sold

Trembling hands, but with a flint face

I climbed over the aisles and into the ring

The red riders scuttled to the back-stage space

The thrashing trunks slowed to an angry swing

I walked to take the shaking pole

Lion tamers, horse riders, acrobats and clowns

Men on stilts, dwarfs, the nameless with no role

Whistled and jeered, as they pushed me down

The whips for the lions now fell on my back

The elephants tossed me side to side

The riders used their horses like a medieval rack

Till the Joker asked the priest what God would decide.

All was quiet, then a slow scratchy voice

‘Guilty of illegal entry and magic power’

Disco lights and drums for the old wooden hoist.

I was lifted up high for hour upon hour

The lights went on, the music blared, it was time to go

With candy floss for the children on their journey home

My eyes were dim, my breathing slow

Soon to be alone in that white dome

The tigers came at night to drag my body down

The man who bought the world, bundled into the boot of a car

Taken to the desert, food for the hungry hounds

But the centre pole of the circus, safe as the North Star

Tom Hawksley

All Rights Reserved

January 2025

Old School (John Bailey looks back at his days at St Lawrence College)

 John Bailey, an old friend from St Lawrence College, sent me this essay looking back at his school days. I asked him if I could post it on my blog, and he replied, 'Post away'. You will enjoy his writing. You can read my thoughts about the closure of the school here - https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-bankruptcy-of-st-lawrence-college.html 

Tom Hawksley

OLD SCHOOL

Old school cinema was an early, and remains, an enduring personal passion, as much for it’s clunky delivery as for the product. The projectionist, scaling up from my father’s super-8, would hand engage the magic acetate to a background hum of subdued anticipation that stilled at the call of ‘lights’. We were plunged into darkness for a nanosecond, an expectant sensory-deprived birth canal, before the burst of bright white light on the big screen and the simultaneous whirring and clacking of the projector’s sprockets and reels. We grew up in a time when cinema was theatre.

Old schools are as much constructed from memories as from bricks and mortar, and which last the longer depends on the human lifespan (and any relevant intergenerational family legacies) and the durability of building materials. Or a sudden cataclysmic event can wipe the whole record, put a full stop to future histories, draw a line under the collective memory bank, and reduce bricks to dust.

My old school, tucked quietly away in a south coast backwater, suffered such a tsunami in the spring of ‘26. A little shy of its 150^th anniversary the majestic red brick buildings, with adjacent acres of green grounds , fell ignomiously into bankruptcy. A salient reminder that what seems solid can melt into air. My father’s name will soon be bulldozed off the house honours board.

For myself the intersection of personal story, schooling, and cinema has to be Lindsay Anderson’s 1968 award winning ‘If’, which claimed the Palme D’or at Cannes just two years prior to my entry, aged thirteen, to the Senior School after 5 years at the adjacent Prep (junior school). In many aspects a typical small scale, minor Public School, St Lawrence mirrored many of the satirised elements of Anderson’s film including religion, deference to authority, militarism, keeping a ‘stiff upper lip’, and outright absurdity. I suspect, however, that in one feature the school stood out from its contemporaries. Due to the passion and idiosyncrasy of one teacher we were gifted an eye-opening and mind broadening film club. We watched French New Wave (Lelouch’s ‘Un Homme et une Femme’), Third World Cinema in Satjt Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’, and Hollywood classics such as Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’, and Kubrick’s ‘Dr Strangelove’.

We were not shown ‘If’. Despite which Anderson’s riff on Kipling-esque values still achieved mythic status in the common rooms, dormitories, and smoking dens. This elevation of the unseen to icon status was surprisingly common. Kubrick himself withdrew ‘Clockwork Orange’ from circulation but that didn’t stop us donning Doc Marten’s and headgear in imitation of Malcolm McDowell and his droogs. I listened to the soundtrack of ‘Cabaret’ years before I saw the actual film. Ditto, I sang along to Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be Wild’ for years before I caught ‘Easy Rider’. The Zeitgeist was so powerful it penetrated the school walls, ignited our imaginations and enthused our conversations.

We talked endlessly, discussing anything and everything ... as well as nothing of consequence, usually to an accompanying cigarette, or ten. More often than not we just shot the breeze, chilled, and talked nonsense (including a lot of nonsense about girls). But often books, films and music would hold the floor, with politics and ‘the meaning of life’ topping the agenda in later years. I’m aware that I’m probably overplaying the ‘bohemian intellectual chic’ a tad, after all we were not at the Sorbonne, nor on the Left Bank cadging Gitanes from Satre and De Beauvoir, but just silly kids sharing Players’ No.7 in the communal toilets.

The school’s establishment values and ethos were battling strong headwinds in the modernising western society outside its walls. The anti-Vietnam war protests and Civil Rights movement in America, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the student protests of 1968 were all harbingers of discord and potential change – as a rule the establishment, by definition, does not like change. But the young, and admittedly sometimes naive, often do. The ‘counter-culture’ that sprung up in parallel to the challenging times found willing ears and minds among our generation. Our study-rooms were festooned with anti-war and Jimi Hendrix posters, reeked of joss sticks and patchouli, rocked to the sounds of The Who’s ‘My Generation’, to The Stones’ ‘Street Fighting Man’, to Bob Dylan and David Bowie.

The school clung on to ancient rites of passage like ‘tick off’ – an institutionalised humiliation and initiation process conducted by house prefects. After two weeks’ grace in which new boys had to learn school lore, slang, nomenclature and geography, they were then tested individually by a group of prefects. The ‘fag’, as first years were known, entered a darkened study, was groped on his way to the centre of the room, made to stand in a waste bin while a desklamp was shone in his face. In the course of the test he was shouted at, insulted, sworn at and generally humiliated. Following graduation from tick-off, the fag performed basic chores for a year, such as delivering milk to senior boys’ studies in the early morning.

On promotion to the prefecture in my fourth year at Senior School, my first act was to ban ‘tick-off’.

Daily chapel services, weekly full church service, weekly square-bashing in the Combined Cadet Force, weekly speeches by the House Master, periodic sermons at Assembly from the Head Master failed to make the institution remotely relevant to the rapidly changing world outside. Many pupils, maybe most, had no issue with this, but for me personally I found the place absurd.

I can recall very few ‘life lessons’ learned in the classroom or via the more general educational environment. I did derive benefit from some of the extra-curricular activities such as contributing to debates, but nothing to compare with the tidal wave of multi-sensory influences washing over us via TV, contemporary music, books, world events, counter cultural responses, theatre and, of course, films.

I was an autodidact when it came to literature; I had read most of Steinbeck by the age of 14, a lot of Orwell and Graham Greene, a smattering of Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn, some Austen, some Lawrence soon followed. Complete autodidact is not strictly true in that I enjoyed reading what others read including Tolkein and one-offs like ‘Zen and the Art of Motor-Cycle Maintenance ‘. These literary forays were extracurricular, I had no direction in reading material from the school whatsoever, apart from O Level set texts (two books?). My own curiosity and my peers were my guides and my teachers.

I found the books I read to be entertaining and informative but it was the films that I consumed during those school years that grabbed me emotionally and left me feeling enlightened. It was ‘The Graduate’ that taught the younger generation to take our own path, ‘Cabaret’ taught me not only history, politics and empathy but also a lesson in how art can reflect life, even with distorted mirrors. ‘Oh What a Lovely War’ brought home the insanity of WW1, the brutal crassness of the British class system, with a closing shot that still haunts me. ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ taught the importance of being free in your mind as well as physically free.

So we arrive at the final reel. I believe my personal views and values of egalitarianism, the importance of being free and thinking freely, and empathy for fellow humans were forged during my St Lawrence years, not from the curriculum but from the books and films consumed and the countless conversations about them with my school friends. My peers were my teachers.

I feel saddened that my school, and long term home, has closed, that the theatre has gone dark, that our conversations will no longer have physical walls to echo around. But the show must go on. We keep calm and carry on. Keep a stiff upper lip. Because, after all ... we are, inescapably, old school.

John Bailey. August 2026.

The bankruptcy of St Lawrence College, so much more than a school closing down

 In April 2026 St Lawrence College in Ramsgate, Kent, went bankrupt. It is a cause for sadness. 

In September 1968 my mother and father left me at Cameron House, a junior house for St Lawrence College. I was ten. Fifty-eight years later I can still remember waving good bye to them as they drove away, passed the head-master’s house on the left, and the tennis courts on the right.

I walked back into Cameron, where a bevy of boys, all suited, and wearing ties, were jostling around the snooker table. And so my days at St Lawrence began. I was there till I was eighteen.

The days were dominated by bells. Bells to get you up, bells to send you to meals, bells for chapel, bells for lessons, bells for prep (home-work).

And rules. There were the usual ones - about the uniform, hair length, bed times, smoking - but there were others, about character. In Cameron, there was a sheet pinned up in both the two main class-rooms. This was the report sheet where a prefect or a school master could write your name, and next to it the misdemeanour. There were two words that always risked a caning from the house-master, Mr Lilley: cheek and disobedience.

There was a lot of physical exercise. In Cameron, the first thing Mr Lilley made us do when we got up was to go on a ten minute run. On three days of the week there were organised games in the afternoon for at least two hours: rugby in the Michaelmas Term; hockey in the Lent Term, cricket in the Summer Term. There were PE classes two or three times a week.

And prefects. You immediately knew who they were. These older boys sat at the end of the meal table, they presided over prep, they were there to put the lights out at bed-time. They had some power and needed to be handled carefully. It was the prefects who checked the ‘fagging’, a strange word only used in public schools. In your first year in the senior school, after two weeks of grace, you were then a fag, and had to do menial tasks like taking round the milk, or sweeping the common room floor.

And there was the CCF (Combined Cadet Force). Every Wednesday afternoon we all changed out of our school suits and put on military uniforms – army, navy, or RAF. Then classes about military matters, or marching around the quad being shouted at. And once a year there was a full parade with a band. We were inspected by some senior military figure, watched by our parents.

And Christianity¹. There was a shortish chapel service every week-day before the morning classes, a longer one on Sunday. Attendance was compulsory. Mid-week there were house prayers. We all gathered with our particular house, (after Cameron, mine was Grange) and there would be a reading and prayers, led by the house-master. There were confirmation classes, RE classes, and Christian Union meetings. The school motto, was ‘In Bono Vince’, overcome evil with good, which comes directly from the Bible. And many of the teachers were committed Christians. At least five, when I was there, were ordained: Rev Canon-Perfect, Rev Peter Goodwin-Hudson, Rev Martin Harvey, Rev Bridges, and Rev David Blackwell. And my old Grange house-master, Robin Garden, was later ordained.

This was St Lawrence College – a school. But the bells, rules, sport, prefects, the fagging system, the CCF and the chapel, they had nothing directly to do with what a school is actually for – learning things in a classroom. This of course happened, but only as a part of a this much larger context.

That larger context was our own world for our teenage years. It was our home. And if our actual family-life was messy, which it was for some, then St Lawrence with its bells and rules, gave us stability. And credit should go to the teachers, who were always simply there, most of them engaging and kind-hearted. Of course we all had difficult days, there was sometimes some roughness, but at St Lawrence we made life-long friends, turned from being children into young adults, and often had our first experiences of the good and not so good things of life.

Till April 2026 this old home had always been there to visit. There is nothing logical about this pull to go back and see somewhere you used to live, but it’s real. I remember when one of my best friends from school, John Vernon*, was diagnosed with the disease that would kill him, John was determined to go back to visit St Lawrence. He wanted to see his old home again. So we went together for one of those OL. Dinners. And of course, the memories flowed. Now there is no St Lawrence to visit, no St Lawrence to show our children or grand-children. That is sad.

*You can read more about John here - https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-friend-john-vernon.html

And then when we were there, St Lawrence was so vibrant and strong. The dining room loud, the chapel full, the corridors heaving between lessons, sport everywhere. And those big events – the school play, speech day, the summer concert, the carol service. The thought never crossed anyone’s mind that such a place could ever close. But it has. This is what an old friend, John Bailey, wrote to me: ‘What seemed rock solid and permanent, if flawed, has proven to be sand, escaping from a broken hourglass.’**

** You can read John's own musings about St Lawrence here - https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2026/08/old-school-john-baillie-looks-back-at.html

And that sand was money, millions of pounds of debt. That makes the pain worse. Of course St Lawrence was always a sort of business, but when there the school was somehow beyond mere money.

The college stood for something greater and grander, literally. The solid North Gate, the imposing main building, the chapel – they did not speak of elitist luxury (OL s will remember the very basic changing alleys), but of an invitation to a particular way of life. That is also what the bells, the rules, the prefects, the CCF, the Christianity were all about. Enter North Gate, and wherever you turned there was this regimented world saying that young lives could be shaped to make the world a better place. That was the vision. And whatever you think about this vision, it is painful that now, in Ramsgate, it is buried under a tacky tombstone with the one word epithet, ‘Bankrupt.’

This vision is closely connected to what happened at Rugby School in the early part of the 19^th C. The school was reformed by the pioneering head-master Thomas Arnold. He came there in 1828, when the school was full of drunkenness, bullying and appalling teaching. By the time he left in 1841, the school was a beacon of orderliness and the public school ethos had been born.

This ethos put great emphasis on the spiritual and moral development of students, indeed, in Arnold’s mind this was much more important than intellectual ability. So, the centrality of Christianity. Pupils at Rugby were to be future leaders. So, Arnold brought in the prefect system, where the older boys took on some of the responsibility for running the school. Later there was a strong emphasis on team sports, which was not just about a game, but about building character, and playing fairly. Soon too there was a strong connection to the armed forces. So in1869, Rugby had the Volunteer Rifle Corps, a forerunner to the CCF.

St Lawrence, founded in 1879, was one of scores of public schools in the 19^th C which followed the example set by Arnold at Rugby. And with Britain’s ever-growing economy in the 19th C. and vast overseas empire there were plenty of families who could afford the fees of these schools, and plenty of demand for the sort of leaders these schools were moulding.

You would think that by 1968 when I went to St Lawrence that ethos should have withered away, like the empire and Britain’s economy. But that world of bells and rules and sport and the CCF and the prefects and the Christianity, the pillars of the public school ethos had not withered away at all. Moreover, I think that most of the teachers there in 1968 believed in the Arnold vision of what a public school was for. No doubt Britain’s victory in the war had bolstered their belief in the vision, because the majority of officers had come from the public schools. Some, like Mr Wheeler, then came to teach us. The ethos had been severely tested, and held firm. And while Suez had shown how limited Britain’s actual power was, nevertheless it was surely difficult for that generation of teachers to shake off the idea that Britain had a special role in the world that needed the public school ethos.

Belief in the ethos was weakening even while I was there in the 1970s, attacked by films like ‘If’, and all the other anti establishment fervour of that decade. No doubt it weakened further. Now, in Ramsgate  it has gone. As a university friend wrote, ‘With this closure this conception of life has disappeared, not just the buildings.’

Some might say good riddance to this public school ethos. It was always bankrupt. Just a respectable veneer over a system that manipulated young lives to fit in to the establishment. And worse: it gave pupils a poisonous sense of entitlement, and strengthened class divisions. That might be true for some public schools, but not St Lawrence. With no heating in some of our dormitories, things were  too spartan at St Lawrence to give us any sense of entitlement: an ability to survive is what it gave us. And  there is no way St Lawrence was snobby.  On helping pupils get ahead though, the figures have been stubborn for many years: 7% go to public schools, but that 7% take 40% of the best jobs. There’s an argument that a robust government which believed in the equality of opportunity should have nationalised these schools decades ago.

There can be discussion over the impact of the private school system on our wider society; but there should be none over the public school ethos. In essence it is good and honourable.The bells for punctuality, the rules for orderliness, the sport for physical fitness, the prefect system to learn responsibility, the CCF for military discipline, and the daily reminder of God's existence and Christ’s salvation and moral code, none of this is bankrupt.

So, the closing of St Lawrence is much more than the closing down of a school. It is the end of place that was our home, a place that was full of vibrancy, and it is the ending – in Ramsgate – of this grander cause of preparing young lives to make a difference in the world, of asking them to fight for - ‘In Bono Vince’.

Tom Hawksley, OL 1968 - 1976

1 People often call Christianity, ‘religion’. Christianity is a religion, but to say Christianity is religion puts it out of focus. At St Lawrence College we were not taught religion; we were taught Christianity.

Brother Edward Hovsepian-Mehr, 'A great oak has fallen'

 Brother Edward 1950 – 2026

‘A great oak has fallen’

Perhaps the first impression most people had when they met Brother Edward was his warmth, humour and a voice that always asked how you were with genuine interest.

And then in conversation, there was a quality that marked him out: gentleness. This was not a gentleness that swayed in whatever direction the wind was blowing, this was a strong, purposeful gentleness, anchored in the convictions that Jesus Christ was the Lord and Saviour, the Bible was inspired Scripture, and people should be loved.

These convictions were easily sensed when he preached. There was authority, rooted in Brother Edward’s exceptional knowledge of the Scriptures. He knew the verses, he knew where the verses were, and he knew how to use them to speak to people’s hearts. From the pulpit he seemed very natural, almost as if he were talking spontaneously, but his sermons were in fact very well prepared. He always had written notes with him to develop a well thought through proposition from the Scriptures.

Brother Edward was certainly one of Iran’s church’s greatest preachers; but he was also one of her greatest pastors. He loved people. He gave them time. He gave clear advice. He had a special concern for marriage, mentoring couples through the engagement, the wedding and beyond. Such was his concern for married couples that he wrote one of the first books in Persian on the subject. It is still selling. He also wrote a book about pastoral work. It too is still selling. Brother Edward did not just write out of his own experience. He was an avid reader, probably one of the best read pastors in Iran’s church.

As well as his preaching and pastoral work there was a keen understanding of the church, and church administration. For Brother Edward was a church man to his finger-tips. At the centre of the growth of the Assemblies of God Churches in Iran, Brother Edward learnt all about the role of committees and church meetings. Before he came to the UK it was perhaps Brother Edward, more than any other, who saw that the future of Christianity in Iran lay in the house churches. He saw the day was coming when the government would not allow ‘building’ churches to flourish, and so he shifted the whole focus to the homes. He offered supervision, first in Iran, and then from the UK. The movement has flourished.

When he later came to the UK this same commitment to sound protocol in the church was soon felt, and so it was he who was the main inspiration behind Ham Gaam, a grouping of Diaspora Churches. And later he was a great supporter of Iran’s first world-wide alliance of Christians.

If one had to choose one word to describe Brother Edward’s character, gentleness is a good one. For his ministry, the word should be courage. This was consistent. 

He showed courage during his first pastorate in the north of Iran when the church was threatened; he showed courage when his brother was brutally murdered in 1994 and he took over the leadership of the church; he showed courage when his first wife, Anahita, was tragically taken from him by cancer – he kept on serving. 

 In Iran Brother Edward was constantly threatened by the authorities, but he refused to bow to their pressure to exclude Muslim background believers or to stop evangelism. His preparation for questioning was to pray and fast and enter the interrogation room filled with the Holy Spirit. On one occasion the officer showed that he had a gun. Brother Edward was not fazed. He had the Holy Spirit.

Ministry was busy, very; but Brother Edward was always the family man. Today our hearts grieve with Sister Nasi and all his children and grand-children.

In Africa when a revered and much loved leader dies, people say, ‘A great oak has fallen’

Truly, for all Iran’s church, ‘A great oak has fallen’.

The start of a concert - St Ulrich Church, Vienna on Sunday 10th May, 2026

The student musicians came from the back of the church to just in front of the pews. They came in groups. The strings, the wind, the brass, and, once in position, they started tuning their instruments.

It’s hard not to love the atmosphere created by that mix of seemingly unconnected sounds. Here the lack of melody is pleasing, because it signals the certainty of the music to come. And that was J. S. Bach: the Orchestral Suite No 3, a Brandenburg concerto, the Easter Oratorio.

The tuning had finished, and there was an uneasy quiet. One of the percussionists was not in position. Eyes flitted towards the back. The professor in the pew shrugged. Then he came, hardly a young man, probably still a teenager, awkward in his concert clothes, but no apology on his face. He went to the large concert bass drums, tested them quickly and looked up.

The Bach began.

Down the central aisle of the church there were upright wooden chairs at the end of each pew. Extra seats. On the right hand side, in the second chair from the front was a smartly dressed older lady, sitting upright; behind her, an older gentleman in a suit.

As the first bars of the Orchestral Suite were played, the gentleman gave the lady a gentle, but definite, push on her back. It was celebratory, a raising of a glass.

And it was unexpected. That’s why I noticed it. The Bach flowed and I wondered about that little push on the back.

Were these grand-parents who had come to see a grand-child? Was their grand-son the percussionist who had held everyone up? Was he a difficult character and had it been a family battle getting him to study, and now play in the orchestra? Or the grand-child was another player, and the road to the concert had been hard. So, the little push was a family pat on the back.

Or perhaps they had no grand-children in the orchestra. Perhaps the Bach took them back to one of their own playing days, perhaps this Orchestral Suite was the music that had launched the lady’s career, and the man was giving her a ‘Well done’.

Or maybe their romance had begun at a Bach concert, with this Suite, and and as the music began, so the husband had to touch the one he had loved for so many years. This was their music. It had brought them together. And it had kept them together, and so here they were in the church, listening and remembering.

I will never know¹, but that is what happened at the start of the concert.

1What I do know, if you have read this far, that there is a feast of free music in Vienna in May. For this is when students of Vienna University’s Department of Early Music perform, presumably as a part of their course. The standard is incredibly high. Each venue with its own beauty.

Pilgrimage from the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit to the Basilica of the Holy Family (third leg)

When I first saw the Sagrada Familia I stopped in my tracks; but our children were young. It was not the season for seeing cathedrals. I knew the day would come for savouring this extraordinary building. Back home in Surrey, an idea began to form. Bike to Barcelona – from the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Guildford to the Basilica of the Holy Family. A pilgrimage to celebrate how the Holy Spirit leads to Holy Family.

I shared this with a good friend, Donald Hirsch, who said the thousand miles plus was too much to do in one go. He suggested three rides over three years – and he would come with me. Perfect.

In 2024 we cycled from the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Guildford to Poitiers, the account of our journey is here.

https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-pilgrimage-from-cathedral-of-holy.html

In 2025 we cycled from Poitiers to Toulouse, the account of our journey is here.

https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2025/05/pilgrimage-from-cathedral-of-holy.html

And in 2026, we cycled from Toulouse to the Cathedral of the Holy Family (Sagrada Familia) in Barcelona, the end of our journey.

You can see a map of the entire route here, many thanks to Donald for this...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yjfThnCka4mnjsjIk9vf4KrmDOVR2vFO/view?usp=sharing

This is the account of that final stage.

Day One, Friday April 10^th

Toulouse to Alzonne (55 miles)

The evening before we had arrived at Paul Seabright’s home in Toulouse where we had ended our second leg. We were welcomed by Paul and his partner Charlotte, and there was plenty of conversation over a very fine dinner – Paul’s latest book, The Divine Economy¹, his next project, about when politicians should retire. And there was plenty of conversation over breakfast in Paul’s courtyard garden, but it had to come to an end. We had over fifty miles before us. We set off at about 8.30 and soon found the path by the Canal du Midi, which we had used in 2025. After negotiating the Toulouse cycling rush hour, we were speeding along on the flat excellent surface in near perfect weather. An easy start.

And it remained easy. By the afternoon we had left the canal path and were on fairly quiet French roads, or reasonable farm tracks. In the late afternoon we stopped to rest in a park in Bram. Here there was an art centre, with an exhibition all about rugby balls. I was the only visitor, and I learned how the balls are shaped. First a wooden model is made, then the leather is stretched over it. That’s the randomness of a long bike ride.

At our campsite we could see the snow capped Pyrenees in the far distance. We thought they would be our challenge. They weren’t. It would be something else. We were able to eat a good meal at the campsite restaurant, and then, as is usual, Donald beat me at chess.

Day Two, Saturday April 11^th.

Our wedding anniversary. Thirty nine years. I was in France, Mojdeh in the north of Turkey, speaking at a Christian women’s seminar. She was the first to text, and then I managed to call. She was walking on the beach with another lady. We talked briefly, I then sent her a text.

We had got up at six and were ready to set off by seven-thirty. We had breakfast in Carcassonne with its medieval castle perched above the River Aude, and then things were not so easy. There were long hills, and the wind was often in our faces, . By lunchtime I felt drained. 

We stopped in the quiet town of Lezignan-Corbieres and settled into a boulangerie for sandwiches and a rest. We were revived and enjoyed our afternoon ride through the expansive space between the Massif Central to the north, and the Pyrenees, in the south. Our campsite was a few kilometres outside Narbonne, so while I put up the tent, Donald kindly took off again to get our supper. We heated this up in the site microwave; ate; crouched into our tent, and so to sleep. I was exhausted.

Day Three, Sunday April 12^th

Up again at six, and out of the campsite by seven thirty. We then had two hours of magnificent cycling along another canal path. After about half an hour, there was a large lagoon on our left signalling that the Mediterranean wasn’t far away, and beyond the canal on our right, another one. And in the far distance, the Pyrenees. We didn’t see a soul, but in one of the lagoons there was a group of birds standing in the shallows, either egrets or flamingoes. All was at peace.

Our path led to a port, and then a road heading towards the sea; but I needed re-fuelling. So we swung into the town of La Palme and found a small boulangerie that was open. With our bikes parked outside, the camping gear easily visible, and my Brexit Union Jack helmet², both the staff and the few customers were curious.

One old lady stopped by our table and told us she was ninety-one. I asked her if she had had a good life. She paused. Then said that her first husband had been no good; the second, ‘Okay’. I found it interesting that she defined her life by her husbands. It makes sense. And it made sense of this long journey to the Cathedral of the Holy Family. What makes a good life? Our family, or extend that, our close relationships. I talked with Donald about this. He had another angle. His father, the economist Fred Hirsch³, had loved his family, but if had been asked about what makes a ‘good life’, he would have started with his intellectual work. Family though would still have been in the mix.

After this breakfast, we were soon by the Mediterranean; but it wasn’t a smooth blue under a sunny sky. All was grey and windy. The forecast was rain in the evening, and winds of up to fifty miles, starting in the night, and continuing the next day. Donald, being a great planner, already knew about these forecasts and we had decided not to camp in the rain. He also had ideas about dealing with tomorrow’s wind when we were meant to cross the Pyrenees.

When we arrived in St Cyprien Donald headed off to try and book a room in a hotel. I was meant to follow, but fell into conversation with an Irish couple who were having a drink outside a bar. This was an important encounter. Almost randomly they told me that cycling the coastal route round the Pyrenees, known as the ‘Corniche’, would be fine. They sometimes went to Spain and back in a day. I knew that Donald had ruled this route out for the sensible reasons that being scenic there would be a lot of traffic, there was no promise of a safe cycle lane, and there were a lot of hills to climb.

When I got to the hotel, it was fully booked, but the receptionist allowed us to sit in the lobby and Donald expertly negotiated with booking.com. We soon had an apartment and as we arrived, the rain started. I mentioned my conversation with the Irish couple, but Donald was not overly impressed. All his research – and he had spent a lot of time on this – showed that this coastal route would not just be harder physically, but possibly dangerous. His route was to go about ten miles inland and climb over one of the first foothills. The problem was the wind. Coming down a steep hill with fifty mile winds coming in any direction would not be wise. Donald did not want to abandon this route; his preference was to ride just five or six miles the next day, and book into a hotel, wait for the wind to subside, and so get going on Tuesday. We would have to put in a some extra miles in Spain, but it should be fine.

Day Four, Monday April 13^th

We woke up to the news that there was no guarantee that the fifty mile winds were going to ease off tomorrow. That would mean two days of hanging around this side of the Pyrenees. The conversation about the coastal route with the Irish couple came more into focus. I decided to broach the subject again over our coffee and croissant after our five mile ride to Argeles. Thankfully as I began, the wind was not particularly ferocious. So I suggested we try this coastal route and if the traffic and the wind was horrific we would turn back and wait to do Donald’s original route. If our experiment worked, then that would save us having to wait in France and then having to have two days of seventy mile rides in Spain.

Donald listened carefully, but needed to check things out on the internet which was patchy where we were. We found a better cafe and the map was spread out on the table. Donald’s hesitation was that if we started, then we would be adding a lot to our ride if we then had to come back for his route. And now the wind was beginning to pick up a bit. My hunch was to give it a go, and then came the clincher. There was a train line all the way along this coastal route. Donald had it confirmed from both the waiter and the internet that the trains were running. Here was the safety back up. If the coastal route was a nightmare, we could catch a train back.

So, much later than usual, our cycling began. And my appreciation for Donald’s graciousness increased. He had put a lot of work into planning the Pyrenees route, and now it had been discarded.

The Irish couple were correct. The road was safe, indeed there were good cycle paths all the time. And, not surprisingly given the weather, it wasn’t very busy. But the howling wind was something. I don’t think I have ever cycled in such conditions. Sometimes it was so strong that it almost lifted you up a hill; and then you turned a sharp corner and it attacked you. The only option was to get off the bike and walk; and sometimes just to stand still till that particular gust eased. However we were never in danger. The route worked. And on more than one occasion Donald told me how he appreciated my pushing for this coastal route, rather than waiting one or two days in France.

The scenery was very dramatic. Sheer cliffs, the sea, the winding road down to a small town in a bay, and then up again. All these towns were very much ‘out of season’. Hardly anyone was in the street. At one where we had a brief rest there was a young Swedish couple and their two small children playing nearby. The husband was a teacher, so he and Donald has an animated conversation about education. I decided to talk to the wife who was looking after the toddlers. I explained about the pilgrimage, and then asked if she was a Christian. She said she was, and that she had been confirmed. However she admitted her faith was faint. She had not read the Gospel of John, so I gave her a copy, and encouraged her to enjoy her faith. I hope this random encounter helped her.

Entering Spain was a little depressing. The old checkpoint offices at the top of a hill had been vandalised and were covered in graffiti. But the views of the sea on the descent down were truly magnificent. We had only cycled twenty five miles today, but it had been hard going and we were ready to rest. So we stopped at the first seaside town, Portbou, and had a beer in a dingy bar with a fruit machine and an unfriendly barman. Here Donald presented me with a ‘Certificate of Pedalling Achievement’ for cycling through France. He is well acquainted with my thinking on some subjects. There was a line of exclamation marks, all crossed out. I loathe exclamation marks. The noisy, vulgar, and intrusive louts of the punctuation family. Donald also knows of my disdain for the French Revolution and its vacuous  slogan of ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity’. So he complimented me with : ‘Liberality, Equanimity, and Felicity’. This was kind, thoughtful and humorous.

Again because of the wind, we blanked camping and again got accommodation through booking.com. It all happened very easily.

Day Five, Tuesday April 14^th

We planned to leave around eight thirty, so I was able to have some time for prayer and reading the Bible. My Old Testament reading for the day was Psalm 104. Not surprisingly I was very struck by the mention of wind in verses 3 and 4:

He rides on the wings of the wind

he makes his messengers winds...

Was God riding on the wind that sometimes pushed us, sometimes forced us off our bikes? And what was the message of these winds? These questions were in my mind for most of the day.

It was a long hill out of Portbou. We climbed and climbed.  But then it was time to leave this more difficult road and we disappeared down a small country road. It felt like the time of stress and effort and dealing with the wind and the hills all suddenly finished. There we were on an empty lane, on the flat, with a blue sky above us, hardly a breath of wind, and in the distance, beyond a green wheat field, the snow capped Pyrenees. The view of the mountains from the Spanish side, the south side, is more magnificent. They appear clearer, more in focus.

In the afternoon we started to use a special bike route for the Pyrenees area. It was called the Pryanexus. It was fine when it was sign-posted; but more than once the signs petered out and we were left to work things out from Google or Koomoot. It was a stop and start sort of ride – but no hills, no wind. We were on the plains.

Our campsite was a little eerie. It was a vast out of season holiday park. There were hundreds of static caravans, a huge pool, restaurants, bars, an entertainment stage – and hardly a soul around. Just one watchman who let us in, and one other camper.

By now the wind in Psalm 104 was coming into focus. Wind, of course, is the Holy Spirit. We know that from Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, we know it from the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. God absolutely rides on the wind of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is His constant messenger. Our journey started at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, it is due to end at the Cathedral (actually Basilica) of the Holy Family. The Holy Spirit brings about Holy Family. But why the ferocious speed, the howling, the gusts that pushed us of our bikes? And why on hills? Why was the wind sometimes with us, sometimes against us. Unpredictable, even wild.

That’s family.

There are times of free-wheeling down hills with the wind on your back; but there are plenty of hills. On this bike ride, most of the time the wind was helping us up those hills. That is a picture that stays with me. Our family, like all families, have climbed some hills: but we were helped. And at times that same wind has stopped me in my tracks. Thank you.

The drama of the wind and the hills as we neared the Sagrada Familia made perfect sense. God is family, God is for family. The good life is nearly always a life of good relationships, often in an actual family, or with a close set of friends. And so the Holy Spirit is there to help us as we faithfully climb the hill of staying together, and sometimes there has to be frightening strength. And then, as happened today, there are no more hills, the wind is gentle and the road is kind. That is also family.

Day Six, Wednesday April 15^th

Apart from a minor drama with Donald’s phone, which was dealt with by a kind work colleague, the morning’s ride was easy going. Some of it was along the coast, some on quiet country lanes or tracks, and a few busy roads. We felt we deserved a proper cooked meal – we had not had one for perhaps two days – so we headed for the plaza in a town called Llagostora in search of a decent looking restaurant. We found ‘The Casino’ which with its vast interior and exceptionally high ceilings was very atmospheric.

The afternoon ride to Sills was also easy, and mainly car free. Our campsite was in the middle of nowhere, and, again was virtually deserted. Reception was shut, but outside sat a young Swedish lady. She had just started a biking expedition in the opposite direction to ours. She was cycling the Euro Velo Route 8 from Barcelona to Montenegro. Well north of two thousand miles. On her own. We talked quite a bit, but still no receptionist, so I went and found a spot and put up our tent. A friendly lady came round later and I went up to give our passport details and pay. She hadn’t been on time because her father had just had an operation in the hospital. 

Knowing we would be miles from any shops we had bought some food earlier which we now ate in a deserted restaurant area which overlooked the campsite. We talked about the journey of faith, and the lost sons in Jesus’ parable. Both were lost to the father. One for the pleasures of life, the other for thinking their moral life meant they were owed something. Which were we?

Day Seven, Thursday April 16^th

It was a cold night. I took the tent down wearing gloves. On the next pitch was the young Swedish lady. I asked her what the poetry was behind her trip, the motivation. She said she wanted to test her mental health, to be alone with nature. I didn’t take this to mean that she had mental issues. She was wanting to test her character. On nature I told her about Psalm 19:1 - The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands’. She said she wasn’t religious, but she listened. I told her my own story of being encouraged to seek God with all my heart, and how her life was precious. When we wheeled our bikes away she wasn’t in her tent, but I left a Gospel of John on her bike. I hope God speaks to her.

Today’s ride was fairly easy, just a few hills, and by mid afternoon we were at our last campsite. Our sixteenth over the three years. It was called ‘Barcelona’, and we were just twenty three miles from the city. We had a long and leisurely dinner in the site restaurant, and then played chess. A pleasant change. I won. Over dinner we reflected that this would probably be the last time we would do such a long ride (this leg was over 300 miles). But we were so grateful that we were able to do this in our late sixties.

From this campsite I had written to the clergy of the Sagrada Familia explaining the pilgrimage to them, and that we had been sent off from Guildford Cathedral with prayer from the Acting Dean. It would be wonderful if we could be met by prayer. I wasn’t expecting a reply, but one came swiftly. A priest would not be able to meet us tomorrow. Given this is one of the busiest Christian sites in the world, that is not so surprising.

The Final Day, Friday April 17^th

We were on our way by seven thirty. Our ride started on a  busy coastal road, but thankfully we were only on it for a couple of kilometres. Then the magic of Google swerved us away from the coast and onto tracks which went between allotments. These tracks then took us round the back of Mataro. The bike paths were good. Going along one there was a young boy, no more than ten, pedalling along, and holding on to his back was a younger girl, probably his sister, on roller skates. A good way to get to school. They will probably talk about this to their grand-children.

After Mataro, Premia de Mar, where my son, Bahram, who lives in Spain, was due to meet us. There had been a bit of a mix up over the name of the cafe, so our rendezvous was a little delayed. It was great to see him. I felt very chuffed that he had taken a day off work to do this. But there was no time to savour the moment. We needed to push on.

The ride into Barcelona was perfect. We were on the flat, right by the sea which was now its proper Mediterranean blue, the sun shining, but not scorching, with the city skyline getting nearer and nearer. And then the Sagrada Famila began to stand out from the other buildings. Over 900 miles of cycling, and now we could see our destination. We entered Barcelona, first through an industrial area, and then the dramatic buildings of the 1992 Olympics. After these, we came to the Diagonal, a wide tree lined avenue that would lead us to the Basilica.

Neither Donald nor Bahram are signed up Christians. They have their own spiritual journeys. But I had told them that when we got there I would like to say a prayer. They were relaxed. When we did get there it was heaving. People everywhere. It was going to be impossible to get to an entrance. No wonder a priest could not meet us. So squeezed by a fence virtually opposite the front entrance I announced we had arrived and said a prayer of thanks, and asked for God’s blessing on our families.

The pilgrimage was over.

The next couple of hours were intense – getting our camping kit packed up and posted to the UK, finding the accommodation I had booked for the family, taking our bikes apart and getting them into their bags for the flight home. And then suddenly Donald was in a taxi heading for the train station to travel to Valencia where his family were coming.

Yes, the original idea was mine; but in a hundred small details, Donald had made it happen. He had chivvied me to do proper practice rides each year before we set off, booked the ferries, the trains with bike spaces, the camp-sites, arranged for us to stay with Paul in Toulouse – and planned and navigated the whole route, from Guildford to Barcelona. A mammoth task. Beyond all these logistics he was an excellent cycling companion and spirited conversationalist. So much to be grateful for.

Epilogue

What is a good life?

For many of us it is a life with a family.

My wife, Mojdeh, and Yasna, my daughter, flew out from England to be with me at the end of my pilgrimage, Bahram had come from Madrid. And so on Saturday we experienced the wonder of the Sagrada Famila as a family. For me it was very emotional. No words can convey how precious family is, or properly describe those times when its beauty is framed for our hearts. And those two hours in the Sagrada Familia, in fact the whole week-end with my family in Barcelona, was such a time.

I had always hoped that I would be able to cycle those 950 miles, I had always hoped that I would enjoy the Sagrada Familia, and I had always hoped that my family would be with me. But I never knew how wonderful it was actually going to be.

Yasna and I spent nearly an hour inching round the outside of the cathedral before our entrance time. The depiction of the Passion on the West side is stark and intense. There is so much pain there. The sleeping disciples in Gethsemane; the traitor’s kiss, Pilate’s cowardice, and in the centre Christ tied to a post for the whipping. Above this, Christ is on the cross – with his mother, family, at its foot. Here is the atonement. God’s love in Christ for every sinner. But above all this pain, there is another cross. It’s empty. And sitting on a beam, almost casually, is the ascended Christ. And behind the empty cross, a descending dove: The Holy Spirit. At the end the story, all is well.

It is not that we left the Holy Spirit to arrive at Holy Family. The Holy Spirit was with us all the way. I remember the storm on our first leg, the black sky, but the white dove flying along side us, the wind on this ride. And here at our destination, behind the cross, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in Guildford, the Holy Spirit in Barcelona.

Physically this was a journey from the cathedral of the Holy Spirit to the cathedral of the Holy Family. Poetically that underlines that being filled with the Holy Spirit must result in family, good relationships. But spiritually there is no such journey. The Holy Spirit and the Holy Family are always together.

1For a review of the book in The Church Times see here -https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/30-august/books-arts/book-reviews/book-review-the-divine-economy-how-religions-compete-for-wealth-power-and-people-by-paul-seabright

2This was a birthday present from my brother, so whatever my own feelings about the flag, loyalty asks me to wear it.

3 For more on Fred Hirsch see, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hirsch_(economist)