Update: An exposé in The Observer  accused  The Salt Path’s author of lying about debts, homelessness and even terminal illness. The power of this story has been undermined.

As we walk alongside others, we're conscious of the profound impact we may have on their lives. We also know that none of us is without sin, and people like Zacchaeus set a precedent for salvation stories that begin with riches gained by moral poverty.

That’s why we call ourselves ‘alongsiders’. We walk beside people, both looking at Jesus, who is himself ‘the way, the truth and the life’, for he came ‘to seek and to save the lost’ (John 14:6, Luke 19:10).

The lights went out. Ruth and I heard waves thrashing, gusts whistling, a couple crying out. As they attempted to salvage their tent from the incoming tide, I sunk into the comfort of my cinema seat and our friendship.

At our book group, we had discussed the best-seller that inspired this film, our conversation ranging from fun camping holidays to the fear of bereavement. Ruth and I share a church family and many mutual friends; for a long while we saw each other daily at school pick-up and for a short while we shared a home (more on that later).

Just walking together

Gillian Anderson and Jason Issacs give quietly brilliant performances as Raynor and Moth Winn, who lose their farm in a court battle and Moth is diagnosed with CBD, a terminal, degenerative condition. Whilst cowering from bailiffs, Ray’s eyes fall on a guidebook for the South West Coast Path.

In the book, Ray describes their starting point: ‘Excited, afraid, homeless, fat, dying, but at least if we made that first step we had somewhere to go, we had a purpose. And we really didn’t have anything better to do at half past three on a Thursday afternoon than to start a 630-mile walk.’

‘Paddy said it wasn’t steep,’ Ray assures Moth, as he limps along, suddenly dwarfed at the foot of a cliff. Beautiful birdsong is often anchored by Moth’s pained groaning and loud snoring. There are some point-of-view shots of Ray putting one foot resolutely in front of the other, be it along the coast or along a hospital-wing corridor. Yet these are not solitary steps.

Film critic Mark Kermode confessed, ‘I have a particular weakness for tales of ordinary devotion… Two people in the worst of times finding the best of themselves… For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health’ (Kermode and Mayo’s Take).

When Jesus, after his own coastal hill-climb, first coined the phrase ‘salt of the earth’, it identified a community: ‘You are the salt of the earth’ (Matthew 5:13). In Philippians 3, Paul says, ‘Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do’ (v 17).

When life feels unnaturally harsh, there is great comfort in limping along together, in seeking each others point of view and gently drawing our gaze to the vista beyond our feet and the footsteps of those who’ve gone before us. Someone who stays by our side is a gift!

Salted

Ray and Moth appear to be typical ‘salt of the earth’ type of people by the dictionary definition: they’re ‘good, honest, and reliable … with a down-to-earth and unpretentious nature’ (OED). But the film and the Bible draw out deeper meanings.

Their losses (and the Great British weather) humble them greatly. Strangers assume they’re on holiday or a writing retreat, but they are homeless and hungry, sharing teabags and begging hot water. If their young-adult children need rescuing, they cannot send money – or be relied upon for a phone call.

They can no more control their fate than the tide, and yet this journey leaves them changed or ‘salted’. There is a freedom in letting go of material things we cling to, in letting the situation be what it is, in letting others help us.

In Philippians 3, Paul tearfully describes a people whose ‘mind is set on earthly things’, whose ‘god is their stomach’, whose ‘glory is in their shame’ (v 19). It is into this landscape that God sprinkles us, like salt or rays of sunshine. We, whose lives were once blown about by earthly worries, desires and shame, can now walk with God, bringing out the flavours of heaven on earth, preserving what is good, and carrying the very presence of Jesus.

When life strips away other sources of security, our identity shifts – from what we own and what we do, to who we are and who we trust. The salt path, a key character in itself, whispers of something far more glorious.

Edgelanders

In the book, Ray describes Salt Path pilgrims like this:

‘Perhaps we were all looking for something… Drawn to the edge, a strip of wilderness where we could be free to let the answers come, or not, to find a way of accepting life… Searching this narrow margin between the land and the sea for another way of being, becoming edgelanders along the way. Stuck between one world and the next. Walking a thin line between tame and wild, lost and found, life and death.’

This is the terrain we walk as alongsiders: a margin where people are free to bring their questions, stories, pain; the in-between place where we can invite people to dive into the magnificent, deep waters of knowing God.

Yet we are not stuck or teetering on the edge. We’re looking forward to heaven, whilst being at home in Jesus now, as if the water is always lapping around our ankles. And other edgelanders experience the influence of this home as we walk or swim alongside them.

‘Our citizenship is in heaven,’ says Paul. ‘And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!’ (3:20-4:1).

Going back to Ruth… In 2022, we had to move out of our house for four months due to a collapsed foul-drain. Ruth’s was one of the families who put us up. Our boys started a new school year and one was struggling with his mental health. I felt every bit an edgelander, unable to provide the certainty my boy needed, worrying where we’d live for the next fortnight, emotions oscillating constantly. Ruth walked alongside me there. The experience salted my family, teaching us to rely on others, to notice God’s good gifts (this toilet flushes!) and to remember that Jesus is our home.

Who is your edgelander? Who is in the seat beside you? How might you invite them into deeper waters?