That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Scotland (Page 4 of 4)

Considering God’s Works in the Scottish Hills

July 2, 2011 / / 0 Comments

My first full, relatively well rested day in Scotland and England begins. Yesterday, my first day here, was spent handling necessary tasks of arrival pretty much in a mental fog. Does anyone really sleep on those overnight flights across the Atlantic?

We arrived slightly ahead of schedule and eventually got off the Boeing 757. The walk from plane to immigration is typical of British, Irish and European airports – a long walk down a plain corridor with many turns, down a flight of stairs, and finally into a big room with Disneyland style crowd control fences. UK/EU citizens were directed to one set of officers; all others to another. There were six agents checking through the UK/EU group … one handling everyone else. There might have been more but apparently some public employee union in the UK was having an “industrial action” (i.e., a strike) so several stations were unstaffed. Then after about 80% of the UK/EU group and about 10% of the rest of us were through, the computers went down – so we all stood around for 30-40 minutes while this was repaired. Eventually things got worked out and (once the UK/EU citizens were through) all opened stations started handling everyone.

I got through that with no other hassle and claimed my bags – Edinburgh has free luggage carts so that simplified things. The car rental agencies are housed in a separate pavilion a long walk from the main terminal on the other side of the car park – and it’s not made obvious that that’s where you go. But after asking a couple of people, I figured it out and claimed my car. It’s some sort of four seater Peugeot, about the same size as the cars Evelyn and I drove in Ireland.

My rental PeugeotDriving on the left side of the road is something that pretty much comes back to you quickly after having done it before. Scottish roads are nearly identical to the Irish, though their country lanes are wider. I made a fool of myself getting into a place in the rental yard where I had to back up and couldn’t figure out for several minutes how to get the darned thing into reverse, but eventually figured that out.

Without using the GPS (which I brought with me from the States equipped with European maps and pre-programmed for all the places I hope to visit and all the hotels or B&Bs at which I’ve made reservations), I found my way to the Gyle Shops mall (looks exactly like an American mall with the addition of a supermarket) and the Vodafone store. I bought a small, inexpensive Nokia mobile phone on a pay-as-you-go plan (you buy a voucher and top it off, or do it on the internet, or at a special phone number using credit card); in Ireland I can purchase just an inexpensive SIM chip for the phone and be on a local system there.

I figured out how to call the US – the Vodafone guy gave me the wrong country code, but the T-Mobile down the mall girl had the right one – and called my wife. Then I went to the supermarket (a Morrison’s Store), bought a diet Coke, went out to my car, set up the GPS, and hit the road for Galashiels.

The Scottish countryside here is lovely! High rolling hills, pine and oak forests, fields set off by hedges or stone walls just as in Ireland, but the fields are much, much larger. Lots of black-faced sheep. As I said, roads similar to Ireland, though somewhat wider in the country.

Today (Saturday, 2 July 2011) I am driving a short distance to Melrose to visit the abbey. I’m told there’s some sort of county fair or “ride out” going on there and that I shouldn’t expect to get through the town quickly. That’s fine; I’m in no hurry.

After Melrose, my plan is to cross the border into England (not really a border since this is all the UK – more a cultural, historical artifact than an actual border) and visit Jedburgh, then make my way to Lindisfarne for the next two nights.

Today’s psalm for the Daily Office was one of my favorites and though it really has nothing to do with my plans for the day, I thought I would share it with you:

Blessed be the LORD my rock! *
who trains my hands to fight and my fingers to battle;
My help and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, *
my shield in whom I trust,
who subdues the peoples under me.
O LORD, what are we that you should care for us? *
mere mortals that you should think of us? (Psalm 144:1-3)

I’m certain that those images of rock and fortress and stronghold resonated with the Gaelic folk of Ireland and Scotland (especially rocky Scotland with its granite mountains). A few days ago I shared Donnchad Mór Ó Dálaigh’s 13th Century poem An Aluinn Dún (“The Beautiful Fortress” or “The Heavenly Habitation”) – see Translating Hymns (Part 3), a hymn that builds on those metaphors.

My favorite answer to the question in verse three, however, comes not from Gaels, but from another of the Psalms in which the question is asked in different form:

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies,
that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet:
All sheep and oxen, yea,
and the beasts of the field;
The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea,
and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
O LORD our Lord,
how excellent is thy name in all the earth! (Psalm 8 – KJV)

Today I go off to drive through the Scottish and English countrysides to consider the works of God’s fingers and those of humankind under whose feet God has put all things.

Summer and Sabbath

June 30, 2011 / / 1 Comment

In about two hours I will be headed for Cleveland-Hopkins Airport to get on a flight to Newark and thence to Edinburgh. Checking email, Facebook, etc. before packing up the laptop, I found that a friend forwarded me an email from a United Methodist board of some sort containing two delightful quotations about summer and sabbath. The summer thought is from John Lubbock:

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.”

I had no idea who John Lubbock was, although I now know that I certainly should have. He was a Victoria era banker with many side interests, and the First Baron Avebury. He also was a good friend of Charles Darwin, whose hometown of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, I will be visiting in just under two weeks. Wikipedia has an extensive article about John Lubbock which includes this information:

In 1865 Lubbock published what was possibly the most influential archaeological text book of the 19th century, Pre-historic times, as illustrated by ancient remains, and the manners and customs of modern savages. He invented the terms Palaeolithic and Neolithic to denote the Old and New Stone Ages respectively. More notably, he introduced a Darwinian view of human nature and development. “What was new was Lubbock’s… insistence that, as a result of natural selection, human groups had become different from each other, not only culturally, but also in their biological capacities to utilize culture.”

Lubbock complained in the preface about Charles Lyell:

“Note.—In his celebrated work on the Antiquity of Man, Sir Charles Lyell has made much use of my earlier articles in the Natural History Review, frequently, indeed, extracting whole sentences verbatim, or nearly so. But as he has in these cases omitted to mention the source from which his quotations were derived, my readers might naturally think that I had taken very unjustifiable liberties with the work of the eminent geologist. A reference to the respective dates will, however, protect me from any such inference. The statement made by Sir Charles Lyell, in a note to page 11 of his work, that my article on the Danish Shell-mounds was published after Ms sheets were written, is an inadvertence, regretted, I have reason to believe, as much by its author as it is by me.” Preface to Pre-historic times.

Lubbock was also an amateur biologist of some distinction, writing books on hymenoptera (Ants, Bees and Wasps: a record of observations on the habits of the social hymenoptera. Kegan Paul, London; New York: Appleton, 1884.), on insect sense organs and development, on the intelligence of animals, and on other natural history topics. He was a member of the famous X Club founded by T.H. Huxley to promote the growth of science in Britain. He discovered that ants were sensitive to the ultraviolet range of the spectrum. The Punch verse of 1882 captured him perfectly:

How doth the Banking Busy Bee
Improve his shining Hours?
By studying on Bank Holidays
Strange insects and Wild Flowers!

Apparently, Mr. Lubbock’s time spent lying on the summer grass was not wasted. I hope that mine spent, in part, walking through the summer hills of Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland will likewise not be a waste of time. And in that vein is the second quotation in my friend’s United Methodist email, a prayer for sabbath:

Sabbath God, in this season of long days and long daylight, we are grateful to be alive. Give us the wisdom to pause from our hectic routines and enjoy the simple things of this time of year. Let us live easily for a time, putting away watches and looking away from clocks, ignoring all the things that need to be moved, fixed or cleaned. Let us lose ourselves in the bounty of the earth you created. May this be a time of rest, refreshment and renewal. May we be calm enough and quiet enough to perceive your presence. Let us not fill all our time with endless activity.

The email says that this is prayer is “based on a prayer composed by Ted Loder in his book, My Heart in My Mouth.” I also didn’t know who Ted Loder is. It turns out he is another blogging clergy person. The profile on his blog says, “The Reverend Dr. Loder is a retired United Methodist minister who served as Senior Pastor for 38 years at Philadelphia, PA’s First United Methodist Church of Germantown (FUMCOG), which became well known around the country for its dynamic worship and preaching as well as its urban involvement and prophetic social action. He was named one of America’s most creative preachers. He has published several books of prayers, sermons and commentary including Guerrillas of Grace and Loaves, Fishes and Leftovers.” The header on his blog reads, “Stay Watchful – God is Sneaky.” I shall have to read this fellow….

As I fold up this laptop, stow it in my backpack, and start loading my bags into the car for the trip to the airport, my prayer is one petition in particular in the Rev. Dr. Loder’s prayer, “May this be a time of rest, refreshment and renewal.” Amen!

Leaving the Fireflies

June 27, 2011 / / 0 Comments

On June 30, 2011, I’ll load my rolling dufflebag filled with clothing and such, my backpack filled with computer and books, and my CPAP machine (its bag crammed with anything else I can fit into it) into the car, head for Cleveland-Hopkins Airport, and fly to Newark where I will wait for five hours and then take another plane to Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

Last evening as I walked the dog after sunset, the sky still a fairly bright blue with plenty of light to see, I looked into the darkness of the woods behind our house and saw that the fireflies were beginning to flash their mating signals. I realized that I’m leaving Ohio at one of my favorite times of the year – firefly time! I love fireflies!

I was born and raised mostly in the little-known southern Nevada community of Las Vegas, but my summers from age 5 to age 13 were spent mostly in the southeastern Kansas town of Winfield. That area of Kansas has a lot of fireflies; my mother was born there and both of my parents were reared there. Those summers were spent living with my paternal grandparents and with my cousins, the children of my father’s only brother, who lived next door to them. A nearly daily activity during June and July was catching fireflies in the early evening so we could watch them flash on our dresser all night long.

I was delighted when we moved to Ohio to find fireflies here … not as many as there were in Kansas, but enough. An informational website maintained by Ohio State University has this to say about firefly habitat:

If you live in the United States, west of about the middle of Kansas, you are not apt to have the flashing type of fireflies in your area. Although some isolated sightings of luminous fireflies have been reported from time to time from regions of the western U.S., fireflies that glow are typically not found west of Kansas. The reason for this phenomenon is not known.

I can guarantee you that I never saw a firefly in Las Vegas! But those summers in Kansas there were plenty.

Fireflies are called different things in different parts of the country. I’m pretty certain that firefly was the most common term in Winfield, although occasionally someone might call them lightning-bugs. I know that some people also call them “glow worms” but the only time I ever heard them called that was when my mother would sing a song with that title popular back in those days. Whenever I would talk about catching fireflies, she start humming or singing that song. Here’s a YouTube video of the Mills Brothers singing it (it brings back a lot of memories!):

My cousins and I would catch the fireflies and keep them in mason jars. We’d grab a handful of the grass growing along the fence of our granddad’s garden (this was in the days long before “weed whackers” and no one ever seemed to feel like trimming that grass by hand, so it was always good and long, perfect for a mason-jar firefly habitat) and shove it in the jar, then run through the yard after the flashing bugs trying to trap them between jar and lid. The lid, of course, was a mayonnaise jar lid (Grammy wouldn’t let us use her good canning lids) that we had pounded a nail through several times to give the bugs air. We’d usually get five or six bugs in each jar and that would be enough for the night.

We’d put the jars on the dresser next to our beds in our grandparents’ basement or at my cousins’ house, wherever we were going to sleep that night, and then do something else for the rest of the evening. Eventually, though, bedtime would roll around and off we’d go, to lay awake as long as we could watching the fireflies flash. Come morning, Grammy would encourage us to set them free and we would dutifully dump out the contents of the jar, wilted grass, fireflies (dead or alive, who knew?), and all.

There are no fireflies in Ireland (though I’m told there’s a Klezmer band there called The Fireflies) so I am leaving one of my favorite sights of summer, the evening flashes of the lightning bugs. There are no fireflies in Ireland, but there is in the ancient verse and the Celtic spirituality of the Irish people a deep appreciation of nature and of nature’s God. In the early 20th Century, Dr. Douglas Hyde collected many bits of folk poetry reflecting that appreciation, including this one found in Dánta Dé. It is described as “ceol na ndaoine, as Albain, tré Lachlann MacBeathain” (“folk song from Scotland by Lachlann MacBeathain”); the notes in the hymnal indicate that Dr. Hyde collected it in 1924:

Áluinn fairrge spéir-ghlas
Áluinn uisgeacha ciúin,
Áluinn taithneamh na gréine
Ar na tonntaibh tá fúinn;
Faoileáin ‘g eiteal ‘s na spéarthaibh,
Teas le h-éirghe an lae;
Ó! nach áluinn, a Dhe!
Siúd uait amharc na sléibhte,
Bárra a bhfolach fá cheó,
Caoirigh ciúin ar a dtaobhaibh,
Síot a’s sonas a’s sógh.
Tógfad suas mo chroidhe-se
Tógfad suas mo ghlór,
Molfad Eisean a-choidhche
Fá gach iongantas mór;
Árdaigh feasta mo smaointe
Mar na sléibhte ‘san aéir,
Ciúnaigh feasta mo chroidhe-se
Mar an t-uisge soiléir;
Éist le m’athchuingh’, a Thigh’rna,
Tar a’s cómhnaigh im’ chléibh,
Réidhtigh m’anam: ‘s im’ inntinn
Déan-sa t’-árus, a Dhé.

The direct, non-metrical, prose interpretation:

Lovely is the sky-grey ocean,
Lovely the quiet waters,
Lovely the shining of the sun
On the waters below;
Seagulls flying in the skies,
Warmth with the rising of day, –
O how delightful is Thy world!
O how delightful, my God!
See in the distance the mountains,
Summits hidden in the mist;
Quiet sheep on their slopes,
Peace and pleasure and bliss.
I will lift up my own heart,
I will lift up my voice,
I will praise Him for ever
For each wonder great.
Lift Thou upwards my thoughts
Like to the mountains above,
Calm Thou henceforth my heart
Like the waters clear;
Hear, O Lord, my prayer,
Come, abide in my breast,
Quiet my soul, and within my mind
Make Thy dwelling, O God.

There are no fireflies in Ireland, but I’m sure if there ever had been they would have found there way into the religious songs of the Irish people. Fireflies spark our imaginations and light up our souls on summer nights. In a way, I’m sorry to be leaving the fireflies.

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