Over the Hill to Scargill
Working, praying, eating and laughing with Scargill Movement.
**If you are a young adult interested in experiencing community living, check out the below-footnoted 1 week1 and 1 year2 opportunities**
The Tuesday after Easter Monday, I had the delight of setting off to middle-of-nowhere Yorkshire to join Scargill Movement for their ‘Working Holiday’. You can find some of my learnings and reflections below, starting with more practical details, moving onto more reflective stuff, and peppered with pictures and bold bits if you’re wanting a quick skim 😊.
Scargill Movement is an ecumenical Christian Community set in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. As a community, they welcome guests for retreats, holidays and conferences “refreshing and equipping churches, groups and individuals, of all faiths and none”. Together they strive to build a place of hospitality, creativity, fun and food summarised by the motto “lives shared, lives transformed, with Jesus at the centre”.
For a speedy yet comprehensive overview of the structure and rhythms of Scargill listen to this 15min interview with longtime community member Helen.
In summary, however, the residential community is comprised of an intergenerational mix of 20-30 individuals, including couples and families. Community members take up roles in the various work teams (e.g. estate, kitchen, pastoral, house) and commit to being a part of the Scargill Community for anywhere between a couple of months to 5+ years.
Supplementing the residential community, and instrumental to the running of Scargill, are its ‘Working Friends’; people who know Scargill well, and whilst not residential members, come back to volunteer in the various work teams for short periods of time (e.g. a weekend/week at a time).
Community members, working friends and guests are all invited to share in the below daily rhythms:
8.00am Morning Prayer
8.15am Breakfast
9.00am Community Meeting
11am Tea Break
1pm Lunch
1.45pm Midday/Intercessory Prayer
4.00pm Tea & Cake
4.30pm Evening Prayer/Praying with a Psalm
6.30pm Dinner
(8.00pm Communion Service on the eve of guest departures)
A few extra practical notes…
Guest rooms are located in the main house/site with community members being housed in other areas of the site, providing a healthy delineation between community work and personal space.
In addition to shorter daily community meetings, the community meets once a week in the director’s house for a more extensive meeting.
Due to financial difficulty, Scargill closed in July 2008, before being resurrected in February 2009 (more on their story here). In its first ‘era’ the community had ~6 salaried positions, however, it was decided that its second ‘era’ would feature no salaried positions. All community members (including the director) are instead on a monthly allowance ranging from ~£170-£350/month (tiered in accordance with length of stay) with these allowances being fully covered by the fees paid by visiting guests.
Now for some reflections…
As mentioned above, I had the joy of immersing myself in Scargillian life from Tuesday 11th to Friday 14th April.During this time I worked alongside community members, working friends and guests (like myself)3 to spruce up the greenhouse (weeding, enriching the soil, labelling plants, stringing up wire for climbing plants), whilst sharing in the community rhythms of eating, tea-breaking, and praying together.
In my 3ish days there, the below things left a particularly strong impression on me…
Relationship before the Task
There are a few Scargillian phrases which float around the place, one of which is “relationship before the task”. I have often felt the tension between relationship and task, with our work-centric world and my conscientious nature telling me to prioritise the task, but my heart and faith telling me to prioritise relationship. How refreshing to be in an environment which very actively promotes human relationship over the completion of tasks (partly enforced by the religious observance of tea breaks!). Scargill consequently has a very special ‘spaciousness’ to it4…
Pews & Faces
In participating in community morning and evening prayer, I was trying to pin down why it felt like a less intimate space than other community prayers I had participated in. The Chapel is beautiful, the liturgy equally so… so what was it that didn’t feel quite right? In an “Aha!” moment, I realised it was because I couldn’t see the faces of those I was praying with!
It made me realise just how significant and unifying it is to see the faces of those we are praying with, and got me reflecting on perhaps why more classic congregational worship often doesn’t feel like community prayer - we’ve always got our backs to each other!Celebrating Eucharist
How I was touched by our true celebration of Eucharist together!!! There’s a lot I could write about what marked it out as a special celebration of communion which I will bullet point to spare you an essay!We were an intimate group of ~20 who had been working together in different capacities. Whilst I didn’t know everyone well, I knew everyone’s faces which contributed to a sense of celebrating as a family.
We sat in a semi-circle around the altar so I could see most people’s faces!
Fr. Mike presided with such a genuine gladness and enthusiasm, which was impossible not to be carried by, and I’ve never heard a priest sing the ‘Holy holy’ with such joy and gusto!
Whilst my takeaway sentiment was pure joy, Fr. Mike led us on a powerfully communicated spiritual journey, with everything - from more reverential moments, to more energetically joyful moments - being deeply heartfelt.
It was an evening (8pm) service. Evenings always seem to add an extra level of intimacy. Perhaps due to the night, and consequently our vision, closing in?
I had never really appreciated the significance of the Peace (‘Peace be with you’) as much as I did in that service. Hearty handshakes and hugs were exchanged with everyone present - people I had known for but 2 days. And there was real meaningfulness to it, with time being taken to truly behold each other, even if but for a wee while.
For the first time, I felt the Peace as a genuine space for healing and reconciliation, especially in the context of community life where misunderstandings can run rife! Had I happened to have developed a distance with someone, I feel this moment of peace would have provided the perfect space to step into the divide through a forgiving/asking-for-pardon embrace and a “Peace be with you”.
There was a rusticness and authenticity which ran through the whole celebration with ‘oops’ moments and laughter being thoroughly welcomed. We were a family celebrating together so of course laughing at ‘oops’ moments was allowed! Consequently, a space was created in which we could enter as our unpolished, human selves and present ourselves honestly to God - including the lighthearted bits!
Uncontained joy!! To top off the Easter celebration (it was the week after Easter Sunday), we ended on a spontaneously harmonised rendition of Siyahamba/We Are Marching with a once again very enthusiastic lead from Fr. Mike who was even encouraging us to dance! Whilst white middle-classness seemed to hold most back, the invitation was at least there to fully express joy.
It really was a very special service and emphasised to me the gift and opportunity faith leaders have in shaping spaces of deep prayerful connection with God and through each other.
Humility & Joy
Compared to other places I’ve been to, Scargill isn’t the most polished: ‘Avocado green’ bathrooms (as one of the guests put it!) have survived the epidemic of clinical white, things are sometimes 5mins late or so, there are occasional ‘oops’ moments, kids are allowed to run free through the corridors5 … and there’s something deeply refreshing about it all! It’s humble. It’s authentic. It's simple. It’s Scargill.And what a joy permeates the place! Community members are frequently found to be joking, laughter is commonplace, and despite the intense demands of running a community of hospitality, members hold a lightness of spirit and heart. The contrast between Scargill and the people flocking Leeds train station (on the way back home) was incredibly stark…
Intensity of Community Rhythms/Life
I was struck by the intensity of the Scargillian schedule, with weekday and weekend programmes near-constantly running back-to-back. Longer-term community members often made reference to the intensity and relentlessness of the rhythms, and whilst Scargill is set up for transient community membership (usually between 2 months and 5 years), it once again got me thinking about how is it that one can create sustainable community rhythms?
Rhythm & Variation of Prayer
I very much enjoyed Scargill’s rhythms of praying three times a day, as led by different community members (on rotation):
- Morning prayer (8.00am) includes time to reflect on scripture but otherwise varies in structure and style depending on who's leading. It was wonderful to experience the variety in people’s invitations to prayer, and discovering new music6 and prayerful resources7 as a result.
- Post-lunch prayer (1.45pm) is prayed in an intimate circle, and mostly a space of silence to speak intercessory prayers into, as framed by a simple yet beautiful liturgy, accompanied by prayer points for that particular day.
- Evening prayer (4.30pm) is a period of silent prayer and reflection on a Psalm, once again held by a simple liturgy.
I loved the experience of having distinct, different types of prayer throughout the day (scripture, intercessory, Psalm), and deeply appreciated how each of these moments of prayer always created well-held, quality moments of shared silence. Combined with more adaptable morning prayer, and more structured lunch and evening prayer, I feel the community strikes the balance of consistency and variation in prayer beautifully8.I will remark that it never seemed like the whole community was ever present at times of prayer, or perhaps this was an illusion as I couldn’t see people’s faces? Either way, it made me realise in myself that there is something meaningful about (nearly) all being gathered together in prayer.
Prayerful Weight
I am increasingly realising that I’m rather sensitive to space, and as I travel around various places, I am noticing how they evoke different spiritual responses.
I absolutely love the chapel at Scargill, and how it brings the outdoors indoors with huge windows onto woodlands on one end, and the Dales on the other, and creaking in the wind … however for some reason it didn’t feel as spiritually weighty as other places I’ve been to, and I’ve been wondering why… Is it because it’s a newer building and hasn’t been as worn down in prayer (e.g. in comparison to a historic site such as Iona Abbey)? Is it because it has never known the real presence/ been home to the blessed sacrament (I’m still exploring my relationship to the real presence so this question has been an interesting one to sit with)? Or is it just me, and me being more tired and less spiritually sensitive? Who knows…but it’s been interesting to reflect on!
Further musings on some of the above points are explored in this gentle and wise walking interview with Scargill director, Phil Stone.
Substack is informing that I’ve already exceeded the length limit to fit into an email 😅 so I should definitely wrap up now! This time I leave you with a poem I stumbled across in the greenhouse which I felt spoke to discernment so well…
When the time is ripe,
the vision will come.
When the heart is ready,
the fruit will appear,
when the soul is mature,
the harvest will happen.
Not to worry
about all the unspoken,
the unnamed, the undelivered.
not to hurry
the sprouts out of seeds,
the weeds out of garden.
Let it all grow.
Wait for the ripening.
Yearn for the yielding
if you must,
but be patient,
trust the process.
Talk to the restlessness,
sit with confusion,
dance with the paradoxes,
and sip tea
with the angel of life.
Smile while you wait,
empty basket in hand,
all too eager
to snatch the produce
of your spiritual path.
~ Joyce Rupp
Peace,
Lakshmi 😊🌻
P.S. And don’t forget to check out the below young adult opportunities to experience community life! Please do share widely!
From the Bruderhof: “We are inviting young people (ages 20 – 30) to come spend the week of 25 – 30 July at Darvell to experience community living. The idea is that participants could experience working in a number of different places around the community as well as having time for group discussions and of course taking part in all community events. There is more information and a place to sign up here, we would love to have a big group!”
From Lyn’s House: Are you a graduate student, recent graduate or a young professional looking for a place to live and belong? Live in Cambridge as part of a small, praying, ecumenical Christian community and share in a ministry of friendship centred on adults with intellectual disabilities, supported by volunteers and trustees in the wider Lyn’s House community.
Places are available in a shared, 3-bedroom house with a communal lounge, a large orchard and gardens on Grange Road, a quiet street close to the city centre. Monthly rents are tbc for 2023-4 but will most likely range from £540 to £620. More details are available on ‘Christian Flatshare’. For more information, or an informal conversation, contact Carole Irwin from the Lyn’s House Steering Group: irwin.carole@yahoo.co.uk
Well, sort of… out of the 8 of us on the working holiday, I was the only one who was sub-60 and unmarried and for whom it was the first time at Scargill!
I noticed the director, Phil, consistently hanging around after morning prayer in such a way that very much felt like an invitation to chat should you need it. I was also touched by Phil making space to go on a 1.5hr walk with me to interview him and learn from his stories and wisdom. What a beautiful, spacious, gentle and relaxed model of leadership…
A group from/with RefugeeAction Bradford were also at Scargill at the same time as the working holiday group, complete with many kids revelling in playful freedom!
I really appreciated track 14 “We have come to seek you” as a lead into grounded prayer. (Unfortunately, the sample track doesn’t quite go far enough to bathe one in the layered harmony and voices which I found so prayerfully carrying.)
Tom Rosenthal’s “You might find yours” as a reflection on ‘every day is a miracle’.
The liturgy booklets also seem to be on rotation offering both consistency and variation.