Walk on the wild side...

The fog rolled across the Clyde and wrapped itself around Cowal today: from a bright blue morning in Toward to a gorgeously foggy & sunny afternoon in Bishop's Glen. I was squeezing in a quick walk of the dog, grabbed my (very ancient) iPod for company as I walked and off I went.

The range of music on the iPod was rather random (both what it contains and how I chose to play it) - and I was buzzing with the business of the day: change of headteacher at Toward school, what to do with the cadets at my padre's hour later, the massive and complex list of actions to be shared out for our building restoration project. Buzz, buzz, buzz. It all goes on...

As the view above swept into sight, the iPod randomly chose 'At the foot of the cross...'

Where all can be laid down, and where it all makes sense.

Amen.

Skeletal trees

Winter has stripped the leaves from the lime trees that surround the house, up on this hill, above the West Bay.

We can see other houses, and the sea (a bit better) - it all feels a bit less green-wrapped - it can almost feel a little claustrophobic in summertime, especially when the wind through the lime trees dominates the senses.

Winter stripping away the leaves, the cushioning barrier. Advent (thinking about John the Baptist last week) stripping away an old way of being.

The metaphor of our spiritual life and the seasonal shifts, here in an alien (to our Lord) northern Europe.

Works for me.

Lent - but Easter Experienced!

The last two days (well, last few weeks) have been an odd mixture of the start of Lent and ramping up for a local schools project - Experience Easter!

People from local churches took a set of stations into Dunoon Grammar School for the first year to experience interactively the Holy Week and Easter story. I've done it quite a few times down south, generally in primary rather than secondary schools - so this was a challenge to get it running in a new context, in a secondary school and in much shorter, packaged periods.

I'm sure I'll blog or reflect more on the event itself, the press coverage, the start of an ecumenical flavour in pulling it together, the plans for repeats in the future (and other similar projects for other seasons). But for tonight, I want to record one of the most profound incidents.

When we came in just before 9 this morning to start the second day, the gym was in complete darkness, except for the light inside the empty tomb. I was surprised, as I thought we had switched it off the night before. But it was busy, things are easily overlooked.

In the mid morning break, one of the school cleaners popped in, and apologised for having switched the light on - when they came into the gym early in the morning they had felt the urge to switch the light on inside Jesus' empty tomb, and to spend a quite ten minutes or so, surrounded by the Holy Week stations, just quietly reflecting.

The flows of people around us and our churches, and the ways that ripples set out in ways that we can anticipate - these never cease to amaze me.

Two perspectives

The evening of the day before the First Sunday of Advent is an 'official' title for this evening. Advent is almost upon us... How is the world preparing?

Above is (part) of the decoration on MV Saturn, the Calmac ferry that plies between Dunoon and Gourock whilst MV Jupiter, the summer boat, has its annual maintenance period.

There are two perspectives on this tableau.

1) One could be negative - it's only the 27th of November, not even into Advent. The infant Jesus and the wise men are already there (getting a bit particular now). The hoover, ramp and cleaning signs are an interesting complement to the nativity.

2) One could be positive - this is a visual retelling of the Christmas story in a secular, public place. It has been squeezed in where it could be all too easy to have nothing. It has been placed in a busy, living, untidy context where all is not neat and sterile and aesthetically pleasing. Someone has cared enough to do it.

How can we be anything but positive? The God-child has appeared in a modern stable - a place where respectable church-goers might tut a little, and people would not expect anything profound to occur. The God-child has appeared where and when not expected. The God-child has appeared where people can see him, respond to him, wonder about him.

I dread to think how many free child crossings between Dunoon and Gourock that Jesus will have had by the time Epiphany comes.

Scottish Spirituality

This week we celebrated St Margaret of Scotland's day (a home communion on the day, eucharist on Bute the day after, eucharist in Dunoon the day after that - rural dispersed ministry!)




This particular saint's day has set me thinking about the nature of Scottish spirituality, as opposed to British, celtic, western or other forms of spirituality. Trying to define spirituality per se is a risky business, as it becomes very, very hard to define boundaries between spiritual, cultural, contextual (if that is different to cultural), traditional etc. etc.


But it is an interesting subject, for an Anglican priest, trained in England, brought up in Scotland and now returned home to an episcopal church, pejoratively referred to as 'The English Church' by many. And it IS an 'English' church*, compared to the Church of Scotland or the Irish-rooted catholic church. The history of the episcopal church is wrapped together with English government and church politics. Our liturgy is recognisably Anglican, while peculiarly Scottish.


Where to go with all this? I have spotted some work by Ian Bradley at St Andrew's (I await a book or two via Amazon) and some activity in the Scottish Baptist College, which looks a wee bit like nationalistic spirituality rather than Scottish, but that's from a cursory glance. There are yards of books on celtic spirituality, Iona and so forth. Future posts about what all that stuff looks like. I also note with great interest the primus of my own denomination blogging about an interest in the Scottish Episcopal spirituality that preceded the English dominated Oxford movement (well, really Cambridge Camden Society driven) revival in Scotland. The Oxford movement was really about authority in the English/Irish state churches, Cambridge drove the liturgical changes that are associated with the revival. I digress.


But what about ordinary, everyday, SNP-government lead, supermarket-shopping, soap-opera-watching Scottish spirituality? The nation that produced Hume must have some defining sense of the spiritual. Following Hume's empirical lead, I can share my own observations from my short time back north of the border. St Margaret is a useful aide memoire.


She was eminently practical, working for the well-being of the subjects of her nation, establishing education, charitable support, even a ferry to let people get to the capital city, Dunfermline. She is regarded as a philanthropist in a time when royal power was absolute and often self-serving. But she was also prayerful and pious, founding churches and monasteries. She reformed the church of her time. She exemplified a balance of the practical and the pious, a balance of maintaining tradition and reforming for the good of all.


That seems a good starting point for a contemporary Scottish spirituality. It must be practically rooted, because as a nation we stand for little or no nonsense (with the possible exception of the design of the Scottish Parliament). Words without actions will not impress a Scot or an incomer hardy enough to settle here. We are also inclined to change that which needs changing - hence why Scots led most of the technological and philosophical innovations that created the modern world (challenge that!). But we are also a people who can connect to God in a profound and deep way, finding divinity in the beauty of the landscape, the wonder of natural life, the excitement of the arts, the sacramental encounter of God in everyday things. Like bread and wine.


I'll leave it there - and I'm sure people of other ethnic/national roots might argue that the above applies to their own characteristics. To be honest, the real search here may be to discern what it is to be Scottish in the first place.

*I am ever conscious of the very large proportion of folk from south of the border that form part of our congregations, as well as the 18th century settlements with the English establishment that allowed this Scottish protestant church to be free. As well as the English driven worship innovation in the 19th century. And so on. Added 23 Nov 2010.