The charge of the white brigade

I wonder if any of my readers knows anything about the behaviour of sheep?

Behind today's photograph lies a strange tale. Well, perhaps it isn't strange to those who understand the minds of sheep - but to me it seemed more than a little weird.

The incident I am talking about took place a couple of years ago. Every year in early September a number of the ministers in our Presbytery take off for a day retreat somewhere. Occasionally this has been in the form of a spiritual retreat. (On one occasion we even spent most of the day in total silence - no mean feat for a bunch of Church of Scotland ministers!) but on other occasions it has been little more than a day out exploring some part of the country.

In September 2004, I suggested that we take a trip down to the north of England to a part of Westmoreland where a friend of mine had a hotel. We enjoyed a lovely lunch in the hotel then set out for a walk in the rolling hills and dales of this beautiful part of the countryside. It is is criss-crossed with stone walls and you have to climb over many stiles to make your way through the fields.

In one particular field a flock of sheep grazed quietly. But as we approached their end of the field, the sheep started, one by one, to move over to our right and to line themselves up on the brow of the hill, as if they were playing the part of some Native American Indians in an old-fashioned Western. I don't know who the leader was, or what the signal might have been, but suddenly the sheep started to charge over the hill towards us at full speed. [Had it been cattle rather than sheep I would not have stood there taking a photograph!]

The charging sheep swept in front of us then round our left hand side and behind us again until they were back on our right hand side where they stopped.... and simply stared.

What was that all about?

Perhaps the strangest thing of all is that the sheep platoon re-formed at the top of the hill and then repeated the whole episode a second time.

I am sure there is an explanation for it, but, to me, who knows very little about sheep, it was simply bizarre.
But I have to confess that the teamwork was amazing! How did they decide as a group what they were going to do? Who gave the orders? How did they know when to turn?

A little bit of dust

Last of the sunsets for just now. This one was taken from a slightly different location and about 30 minutes later, but again, it is playing around with the exposure that produces a different effect.

That... and dust!

The British naturalist, Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, who was a pioneer of evolutionary theory, along with Darwin, wrote a chapter in one of his books entitled “The Importance of Dust."
He pointed out that the beautiful colours in the sky, both the blue of a bright summer day, and the reds, golds and lilacs of sunset, are all due to the presence of dust. Without dust the sky would appear absolutely black and the stars would be visible all day.
What's more, it is because of the dust that we get mist and cloud and rain, without which life on earth would be impossible. Come to think of it, we ourselves come from the dust of the earth, do we not?
Amazing what God can do with a little bit of dirt.

Reminds me of an old joke...There was a group of scientists and they were all sitting around discussing which one of them was going to God and tell Him that they didn't need him anymore.
One of the scientists volunteered and went to tell God that he was no longer needed.
The scientist says to God - "God, you know, a group of us have been thinking and I've come to tell you that we really don't need you anymore. I mean, we've been coming up with great theories and ideas, we've cloned sheep, and we're on the verge of cloning humans. So as you can see, we really don't need you."
God nods understandingly and says. "I see. Well, no hard feelings. But before you go let's have a contest. What do you think?"
The scientist says, "Sure. What kind of contest?"
God: "A man-making contest."
The scientist: "Sure! No problem".
The scientist bends down and picks up a handful of dirt and says, "Okay, I'm ready!"
God replies, "No, no, no... You go and get your own dirt."

More than one way

"The camera doesn't lie!"

Here's another photograph taken from exactly the same location and precisely three minutes later than the one posted yesterday.

It's not that the scene actually changed all that much in those three minutes: it's just that there is always more than one way to take a photograph.

In the same way, there is usually more than one way to see, and express, reality and truth.

A different light

I have not been out of the house much in the past week but last night I took the camera and the car and went up behind Carluke to watch the sun going down.
Alongside more conventional 'sunset' photographs showing the sun as a bright red ball in the sky, and lighting up the few clouds that were around, I took this one.
It is meant to be a bit like a watercolour. Gentle and serene. I love it when the low sun can make hills and fields, which you know are solid, seem like semi-transparent tissue-paper.
If I ever do get back to painting I'll maybe do a little watercolour of this scene.
Did you realise that even Lanarkshire could look so lovely?
In a similar way, I think one of the things that the Spirit of Jesus Christ can do is enable you to see other people in a different light.

Yew wouldn't believe it

You don't have to travel half way round the world to find interesting places. There's probably something interesting just on your doorstep. [There often is for us if the cat has been out all night! :-) ]

Seriously, though, many people (no matter where they live) are often blissfully unaware of what is in their own neighbourhood. It is especially true of people who live near to so-called tourist attractions. Although thousands, even millions may flock to see these attractions, the locals often have never visited them for themselves.

The picture above is not exactly on my doorstep. To be totally accurate it is 100 miles from my door. But in the grand scheme of things that is not far. Nor does it seem a particularly special place from the photograph. However, there is a story attached.

The location is Perthshire, and what you see is the so-called 'Fortingall Yew' reputed to be the oldest tree in Europe and dated at around 5000 years old. I reckon that is pretty special, even for a tree.

But it is also a special tree for one particular young couple who asked for my help when arranging their wedding a couple of years back. The bride-to-be was the daughter of very close friends of ours. I'm a kind of adopted uncle. The place was special to them because that's where the proposal of marriage was first put- in the shade of this ancient tree. Aaaw... how romantic, you say! And it is.

How was I to help? To conduct the wedding? No- her uncle, who is also a minister, would be doing that. I was asked to paint a picture of the tree that could be used on the Wedding Invitations and Orders of Service. A great honour and privilege, although I hadn't lifted a paintbrush for many years and actually had to go out and buy some new watercolours. (Somewhere in the intervening years my watercolours seemed to have been used up by one or more of my daughters.)

Although I had heard of this tree, I had never seen the Fortingall Yew before, so it meant a day trip to Perthshire with the camera. Fortunately, although it was bitterly cold, it was a cloudless Saturday afternoon. I couldn't complain about the weather, but when I saw the tree it looked to me like a half-chewed stick of broccoli and not exactly picturesque. Furthermore, I was under strict instructions not to include any gravestones in the painting. After all, they were not likely to set the right tone for a wedding.

It was, at every level, a major challenge to me, and since the people concerned were much more special to me than the place I was seriously worried that I might let them down. However, as a friend once said to me 'deadlines are lifelines' and the looming deadline of the date for printing of the invitations spurred me into life.

The result is no masterpiece but I was pleased enough with how it looked when printed up and I was able to give the original as an extra little wedding gift.

But that is not the interesting part of the story.

If you follow the link above you will see that the location of this tree is also associated with the birth of the notorious Pontius Pilate who, as Roman Governor of Judaea, washed his hands of his responsibility in ordering the execution of Jesus.

The article says: "Nowhere else in Scotland, or for that matter in the British Isles, has an oral tradition and association with the birth of Pontius Pilate; so why should the tiny and obscure hamlet of Fortingall lay claim to this tradition, unless there is an intrinsic element of truth in what would otherwise be deemed as an audacious presupposition."

Well, don't tell anyone this... no, I mean it, keep this a secret, please....
a friend of mine who lives in the city of Perth (and whom I trust implicitly) recently told me that she knows the man who, in her words 'invented the Fortingall Pontius Pilate legend.' According to her, this man at the time worked for the local tourist authority (whatever its title was in those days) and he was looking for a way to get people interested in visiting this part of Perthshire. Now, given that the Romans were stationed in many parts of this country more than 2000 years ago, it is not at all impossible that someone like Pontius Pilate might have born in such a far-flung corner of the Empire. (Just his recurring bad luck, then, that as an adult he got posted to another obscure outpost called Judaea.) There is, of course, no independent evidence either way. It remains "a local oral tradition."

But I wonder, could it be, after all, only 'an audacious presupposition'?

Just a pity the man himself was no Dan Brown. He might have made a fortune writing a book about it.

Name dropping

OK, so I like to place-name drop. :-)

I can't really name drop because I don't really know anyone who is famous.

But, actually, one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place was to share some of my favourite photographs of places I have visited over the years and share some of my thoughts about these places. That's because I think life itself is pretty much a journey and I like to pause now and again to reflect on various places of interest I have arrived at on my life-journey.
Of course, the problem is that this can end up being pretty boring for other people.
I remember once falling asleep while someone was showing us slides of their trip to a foreign country. It's more than a little bit embarrassing when you waken up again, not knowing how much you've missed, or whether you were snoring! But you, dear reader, can fall asleep if you wish, and I won't notice, and I won't hear you snoring, wherever you might be.
This picture you can see here is of the Nubble Lighthouse at Cape Neddick, Maine, USA.
We visited it in 2003.
If I have a thing about bridges, I also like lighthouses a lot. I used to wonder what kind of people had the guts to live the life of a lighthouse keeper. All that isolation and potential danger - like being winched across angry seas, as the lighthouse keeper once would have been here at the Nubble. A bit sad, therefore, that most lighthouses are now fully automated. All the romance and drama have been taken out of the business.
The spiritual metaphors are fairly obvious too - the lighthouse warning of the dangers, guiding ships through hazardous seas to safety, Jesus as Light of the World etc. (One reason that part of our church's youth programme is called the Lighthouse Club.)
But the reason I like this particular photograph is because the light you see doesn't come from the lighthouse itself. The only light here is the reflection of the setting sun in the windows. I had to wait quite a while until this moment came for me to capture.
It's a reminder to me that I have no light of my own: only that which is given to me and which I may then reflect back to others.
Which brings me to the second picture - a banner hanging up in the Guest Hostel of PCEA Kikuyu Hospital in Kenya.

Keeps you humble.

Ten Thousand Buddhas

Healthwise, this has been for me the worst start to a year that I have ever had and at the moment I am on sick leave, which is a relatively new experience for me. Hence the reason I haven't posted anything here for the last few days.
But, I guess this just comes with the territory when you get to a certain age.

Anyway, not being able to sleep much last night I ended up watching a movie - Infernal Affairs (recently remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed.) It's a great story, well told, dealing with complex moral questions of right and wrong, good and bad etc. but (and how sad is this?) one of the things I liked most about it was spotting all the locations in the film that I had visited while I was in Hong Kong.

The film begins in the Monastery of the Ten Thousand Buddhas.

This is a totally fascinating place and, to my Western Judeao-Christian eyes, almost bizarre.

There are in fact many more than ten thousand statues of the Buddha in the temple and its precincts, and they come in all shapes and sizes and poses.

One of the biggest challenges, though, is simply climbing up the four or five hundred steps to reach the monastery- but you can always stop at any point and pretend you are studying one of the statues, when in truth you are just trying to get some oxygen into your lungs.

I think my favourite was this 'surfing Buddha.' Obviously that was not his proper title, but he reminded me of a surfer or skateboarder.

The monastery of the ten thousand Buddhas is one of the places that I visited on my own, taking the train to Sha Tin and following the signs up the hill.

Being entirely on my own made it an even more 'alien' experience, and, for me, an even more rewarding one. There were so many sights I simply could not understand. Why is there a Buddha sitting on top of a huge blue dog? What is the significance of the nine-storey pagoda?

What do all the symbols represent?

In one way I was glad that there was no one with me who might have been able to answer these questions, because it meant I was free just to 'experience' it as a sort of visual feast.

Sometimes I think experiences without explanation are worth it for their own sake.

Passion Week

What do YOU feel like when you make a new (good) discovery?

For me, there is usually a sense of excitement and delight. But just occasionally, alongside that pleasant buzz, there's a strange feeling of frustration and annoyance. How is it that I didn't know this already? How did it escape me thus far? Have I been going around with my eyes and ears closed? Why did nobody tell me...?

I had one of those moments very recently.

I listen to all kinds of music. And I mean all kinds. But I've been listening to so-called 'classical music' since I was about 14 years old. I first discovered Anton Bruckner 35 years ago when it wasn't easy to buy recordings of his music!

So how is it that I'd never heard of Alexander Tikhonovich Grechaninov until last week? It's not as if he is a newcomer to the music scene. He was born in Russia in 1864 and died in the USA in 1956. In between he wrote a lot of music. And some of it is simply wonderful, including this recording of his Opus 58 - "Passion Week" which I just bought.

It is sung in Slavonic. I don't understand a word of it.

And I don't CARE.

There are some things that need to be understood in a different way. All I do know is that this music touches me really deep down. Some of it is based on traditional Orthodox chants used in Holy Week services. It is unaccompanied choral singing at its very best.

You can listen to an extract for yourself. Not everybody's kind of music. But I love it.

However, what I am most grateful for with this recording is the reminder that I actually know so very little about anything and that there are so many more things in the world that so far I don't know anything about at all.

But it is all out there just waiting to be discovered by those with eyes to see and ears to hear and minds open to new things.

going...going...

Talk about the foundations being destroyed? Someone has been vandalising our gateposts. It happened once before. We got it repaired. Now it is happening all over again. It is being gradually dismantled!

First they scrape out the mortar, then, using some sort of lever, they prise the stones apart.

It's bad enough that my birthplace, my first church (and perhaps one day my first school) should be demolished after I've gone. But not the house I'm living in while I'm still here!! That is a bit too much.

All gone...

The house in which I was born..... USED TO BE HERE!

The hall of the Church where I was baptised was recently demolished. Maybe the church will soon be knocked down too?

Behind it lies my first school. How long before it is also bulldozed?

Clearly I am never going to be famous, as there is nowhere left to put up a plaque!

It is sad, though, that so many places which were so much a part of my early life are now no more. But this is life, is it not? Important though certain places often are to us, they rarely remain unchanged forever.

Of course, there are many occasions when all sorts of familiar landmarks may be swept away from our lives and we are left feeling lost and bewildered. What do we do then?

I remember many years ago when I was a teenager and our church was without a minister an old retired minister was preaching. He preached on a text from Psalm 11. (verse 3)

"If the foundations be destroyed, what then can the righteous do?"

His answer? 'They can go on being righteous.'

It's an answer which has stuck with me ever since, but I don't think it only means 'go on doing the right thing.' I think righteousness is as much about right relationships as it is about right behaviour, and, in particular it is about our relationship to God. So to 'go on being righteous' is about hanging in there with God even, and especially, when everything else has been swept away.

Who says spelling doesn't matter?

First of all let me say I know it is not a great photograph, but it is the only one in my collection taken near to the place I want to tell you about. The river, by the way, is the River Clyde. I was born way down stream from here in the town of Port Glasgow. This photograph was taken much nearer to the source of the river, just outside the village of Abington.

Let me tell you why I was thinking about this village tonight.

I was chairing a meeting earlier this evening when one of the members of the committee shared with us a little tragi-comic tale. He was in this little village of Abington when a very large French truck drew up to a halt beside him and the driver leaned out of the cab and, showing him an address on a slip of paper, asked the man how he might find that address.

My friend looked at the slip of paper and, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, had to point out to him that the place he was looking for was in Abingdon in Oxfordshire, not Abington. It was only one small letter, but it meant he had driven 328 miles further north than he should have. Ooops.

I wonder what his boss had to say when he finally got back to France?

Who says little things are unimportant?

And who says spelling doesn't matter?

Blogging without the use of a Net

I found a new use for my blog yesterday but also missed an opportunity.

Yesterday I was speaking at a local club for senior citizens, known as the "Care Club" and, rather than prepare a talk, I decided to read extracts from my blog, projecting the images on to a screen using the data projector, and illustrating some of the stories with songs and a couple of fiddle solos. The only thing is I forgot to take my camera with me, so I didn't get to take a picture of the audience. That's a pity because a number of the people in the audience said they were going to try and find my blog on the net, even though most of them had never accessed the internet before.

As my childhood hero, the Lone Ranger, might have said "Hi-yo, Silver-Surfers Away!"

Too close for comfort

Just in case Tess happens to be watching over my shoulder, I thought I would post a picture of an elephant, because I know she is fascinated by them.

This particularly magnificent creature was coming towards our vehicle on the Masai Mara in 2002. In the end it decided not to come too close.

Later on, though, a young, but still pretty large, bull elephant came striding up the track towards our 'bus' and refused to stand aside. It came right alonsgide the bus and was about to push its considerable weight around, and could easily have flipped us over. However, our alert and experienced driver 'growled' the engine at him a few times until he reluctantly moved away. Actually (like Tess perhaps) I was too fascinated by this strange but magnificent beast to feel afraid at the time. Only afterwards did I realise that we were perhaps a little bit too close for comfort.

Screen play

I have never really approved of the practice adopted by some parents of sitting their small children down in front of a TV screen and putting on a video/DVD to keep them quiet.
Recent scientific research has suggested it may be a possible factor in the rising prevalence of autism and other disorders. I think it may be a bit early to reach fully definitive conclusions on this, but I'm sure there's something in it.
However, I may have to temper my disapproval of the TV Babysitter after recent experiences.
Not with my children, I hasten to add - as they are all fully-grown and well-rounded adults.... but with our cat, Tess!
I should explain.
We rescued Tess from the local pet rescue service. She was still a kitten, maybe six months old, but it was clear even then that she had been badly treated and at times could become quite frightened.
Nevertheless, with a lot of tender loving care, good feeding, and a great wild garden to play and hunt in, she has become more or less a happy and playful cat.
Most of the time.
But every so often she takes a strange turn. Her eyes suddenly change colour and she goes in for the kill. Being a very athletic, agile and fearless hunter- with delusions of grandeur (she is convinced she is a lioness) she can pounce on you from anywhere and you don't know what's hit you till the teeth and claws sink in.
Maybe it's related to the phases of the moon, or her hormones, or something in her diet, but she has these little bouts of bad-tempered madness every so often.
Recently she was having a particularly manic day. It wasn't safe to move around the house. It was even less safe to sit still.
Something needed to be done.
And it was.
It is our policy of last resort for specially bad 'psycho-Tess days'.

One of my daughters fetched a DVD from the study. It was a Discovery Channel documentary about Mountain Lions. It was duly placed in the DVD Player and Tess was sat down in front of the screen. And, would you believe it, she remained there, watching the screen, absolutely still, absorbed, engrossed, calmed.... for nearly 30 minutes.

The only worrying thing is that she actually likes elephants on the TV even more than she likes big cats. Explain that one to me...

*This is Tess, pretending to be a Mountain Lion. Incidentally, the picture of the lioness above was taken in the Masai Mara in Kenya in 2005.

Energy matters

I can't remember if I have posted this photograph before but I thought I'd like to return to the theme of 'light on the water.'
It's where I started with this blog, and it's often where I start with photographs.
This particular photograph was taken in 2003 when we visited the USA. We managed to see a number of places in our three week tour, which took in a number of states, including Massachusetts, Maine, Florida, New York and Connecticut. This is Perkins Cove in Maine.
It reminded me of Cabot Cove in the old TV series 'Murder She Wrote.' Thankfully no one was murdered while we were there as far as I know, and Jessica Fletcher never turned up.

I think one of the reasons why I like the combination of light and water is that you get unexpected and interesting distortions of the sky, or whatever is on or beside the water. But, even more importantly, both light and water are such elemental things- the very stuff of life itself. Energy and Matter.
The fact that these two things are interchangeable (and that a very small amount of matter equates to a huge amount of energy) is something that always causes me to marvel. I pity those who see life only in terms of the material: they miss so much.

All the little things...

Yet another update on the release of "The Sega Method" by Drive by Argument.

It IS available on iTunes but only if you search under "Drive by Arguement"

Somebody made a small typo somewhere.

You see, little things do matter (including spelling.)

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu once observed, "if you think you are too small to make a difference, you've never been in bed with a mosquito."

Another favourite place

A few weeks ago I spoke about a place that was special to me - Venice.
Of course, we probably all have a number of places that are special to us for different reasons. Our family, for example, has a favourite Italian restaurant. This is where we go to celebrate family occasions - birthdays, anniversaries, graduations etc. It's called "Prego" and it is in Lanark.
Fortunately we've had a number of special birthdays and family reunions of late, so we've had some good excuses to take a trip to Prego.

The food is always really good, though maybe not spectacular. The decor is pleasing and comfortable but maybe not amazing. For an Italian restaurant, the espresso could be a bit better. But it is a wonderful place as far as we are concerned, and the first place we think of going to if we have any excuse at all for eating out. What makes it a special place for us is the staff who serve you. You get the feeling that you've been invited to a friend's house for dinner.

It's the gift of hospitality. And it's what makes the place special.

Of course, you don't have to run a restaurant to exercise this gift. All you have to do is treat other people as if they matter to you (and to do it because they do matter to you- since any falseness is easily picked up) and then you can make space for that person, or people, to be themselves and have a good time.

Apart from genuine hospitality, something else that is always on the menu is the 'prego stick' a mouth-watering pastry that you can have as a starter with a savoury tomato/chilli dipping sauce, or as a dessert with a rich caramel sauce.
For the 21st birthday of one of my daughters, a couple of weeks ago, they made one into a ring for her with candles and sang 'Happy Birthday' to her as they handed it over. Nice touch. Nice taste.



In a couple of months time we're going to have our very own Prego just round the corner from our house. So we can walk there. How good is that? (Well, I'll let you know. But if you're ever in Lanark or Carluke, why not try it out for yourself?)

"L" Plates for Life

Learners of Slough, 2, originally uploaded by Chubby Bat.

It had not occurred to me that some folk might not know what an "L" plate is. But that's the beauty of the internet - that we can learn customs and cultures from around the world.
For anyone who doesn't know, or hasn't guessed, the "L" plate is used by learner drivers, who have not yet passed their driving test to warn other drivers of that fact!
When you've been learning to drive, it's a great feeling when you pass your test and you can rip up the "L" plates and go solo.
Although that was about 30 years ago for me, I still remember the feeling, the sense of liberation, and the scary excitement of getting into the driver's seat with no one else in the car and knowing that this time I was ultimately responsible myself.
Mind you, in terms of being a Christian 'disciple' (learner) I am afraid the "L" plates are still very much in place. And there is no way that I could ever pass the test. Jesus once told his learners to "take my yoke upon you."
I think nowadays he might say - 'put the "L" plates on and let me sit with you. We're going out for a driving lesson.'
You see, until you've passed the test, the car is ultimately under the control of the driving instructor not the learner, and yet the learner is the one who has to work the controls and try to guide the car safely around any obstacles. It's a kind of shared responsibility.
In life we are not mean to be mere passengers being carried along and just watching the view through the window. We have to take responsibility. But the disciple knows that he/she is not yet capable of going solo and needs the reassurance, guidance and much greater experience of the instructor alongside.

(Since it is such a long time since I passed my driving test and since all my children have now also done the same, I couldn't find any 'L' plates in the house, so I am grateful for this photo from Flickr.com)

Duel at dawn

Now here's a strange thing! I took my camera with me to the conference at Aviemore - nothing unusual about that - but the thing is - I didn't use it. (Apart from this one photograph taken from my hotel room window.)
The weather was great, with lots of blue sky and clear air. My contribution to the conference was not too demanding - leading the worship band - so I had time on my hands. There was snow on the mountains and I could have snapped any number of picture-postcard scenes.
But for some reason I just didn't want to.
I had thought I might actually use the camera indoors too - take some shots of the conference itself. But again, for some reason that I can't explain, I chose not to.
I've been trying to think what that reason might be, and the only thing I can come up with is this. Photography, by its very nature, involves the photographer in some way standing outside of the subject and looking in or looking at it. On this occasion, though, I didn't want to be an onlooker: I wanted to be a participant. I wanted to be on the inside of the experience, not observing it from the outside. So I just left my camera in my hotel room the whole time.

Actually I think some people go through most of their lives looking on from the outside, never really living inside their own experience- never really letting go. Observing not participating.
It's certainly true of some Christians in this part of the world when it comes to worship. They become observers, onlookers, an audience, rather than participants who have 'let go' and allowed themselves to become immersed or caught up in the experience.
Thankfully, at last night's closing worship of the Re-Energise Conference this was not the case. The singing was marvellous and it was really great, and humbling, to be involved in making the music. All worship (whatever style it employs, and whatever size the congregation may be) ought to be like this, I think.

As for the picture above, I have no idea what the motor-cyclists were doing. The most obvious explanation is that these were new riders learning how to handle the bike. (In fact, at least one of the bikes does have an 'L' plate. )

But I have another explanation - given that this photograph was taken early in the morning. This was a DUEL! One of the riders had thrown his gauntlet - or at least his motorcycle glove - and challenged the other to a joust. On a given signal the two riders would set off across the tarmac away from each other, turn, and then accelerate towards each other at tope speed, and as they came side by side each would try to knock over his opponent from his bike...

The only thing is... it didn't happen. They never got above 5mph.
So, maybe the first explanation was the right one after all.

Chalk and cheese

This is the congregation of PCEA Kiambaa in Kenya singing in their usual energetic way. That's what I like - energy! That's why I am here at Aviemore for a Church Without Walls conference called Re-Energise. We've just been to morning worship led by the Moderator of the Church of Scotland. He was telling us about his recent trip to Ghana which was interesting enough but he was also trying to get us to sing some songs from Ghana - unaccompanied. (Good in one sense that it means those of us who are in the band could have a morning off.) However... compared to African singing, ours was 'Mogadon Praise!" United in lethargy. Sleepers awake! Actually our singing to African singing was like chalk to cheese. Oh no- there's the cheese again! In fact, as someone actually said to me the singing was dreich! Thankfully the weather is not and the skies are blue.

Foosty

I love my cheese!

But I've been disappointed recently.

The last couple of times we have bought mature cheddar from the supermarket I've opened it and found that instead of the rich, mature, piquant flavour I was expecting, it just tasted mouldy, or as we would say in Scotland "foosty!"

(there's that fungus motif springing up again like dry rot)

Actually, I'm pretty drained at the moment. In two consecutive days I have conducted the funerals of two quite special people who were very dear to me. It was a great privilege to be able to do this in both cases, for both people were the most gracious, humble and gentle folk you could ever have met. They were both in their eighties. But why is it that not everyone grows more gracious with age? Some just get more grumpy.

I fear that as for myself (if I ever survive that long) instead of maturing in Christ-likeness, I will probably just go 'foosty' like some badly-kept cheese.

[Oh, by the way, the picture is of St. Cuthbert's Church in Edinburgh. It's looking good for its age, especially against a clear blue sky.]

Driving by again

You are right - you have seen this picture before. I just want to clear up a bit of confusion I may have caused with some people I have spoken to. It is proof that I am neither 'up with the times' nor 'down with the kids.'
Drive by Argument are not at this stage releasing an album.
The single 'The Sega Method' will be available on Monday, either as a download, or as 7 inch single. The tour begins this weekend.
There - that's cleared up that one - and given them another wee plug at the same time.
Make sure you download your copy. It's good.

A load of rot...

HEY! How did March get here so soon?
It 'snuck' up on me when I wasn't looking!

A bit like the St. Johnstone team that just knocked Motherwell out of the Cup tonight. (i.e. Wednesday 28th... before March snuck up on me)
Against my better judgment (but I have to say with very little resistance from me) I went with my brother to the match tonight.
I had one of those premonitions that we would lose. What I had not foreseen was how badly we would play, especially in the first half.
I say 'we' but of course I was just sitting down most of the time. (Although, so it seems were most of my team.)
But that is the good thing about following a team in any sport. You share the experience vicariously. You identify with it like Jewish people every Passover who talk as if they had been there on the night it happened.
But what about the accompanying picture?
I'll explain. I've seen fungus moving faster than our midfield did tonight. I think the Motherwell team may have given up football for Lent!
All I can say is I'm glad they reduced the ticket price for that match.
Maybe that's why my team reduced their performance?

The white angels of Springtime

I've never been much of a gardener, although there was a time when I knew all the Latin names of every plant in our garden and most of the ones in the plant nurseries. Maybe that's because I was more interested in reading books about plants and gardens than I was in getting my hands dirty and my muscles sore actually doing the work.

That last statement is not quite the whole truth because, to be honest, the bits of gardening I enjoyed most were building walls and fences, laying paths and erecting greenhouses. (All of which I have done at one time or another.)

Nowadays, though, the best bits in my garden are the bits where things happen without human intervention and where the absolute minimum of human effort is required to clear away the weeds. That means especially under the trees. And right now it means... SNOWDROPS!

They were getting a bit of a battering today with the strong winds and lashing rain so I couldn't zoom in too closely. It wouldn't have been fair on them. They are models of simple perfection and we shouldn't take too much notice of their momentarily ruffled appearance and temporary blemishes. They will bounce back to normal when the weather improves.

To me snowdrops are the most amazing flowers because of their combination of delicate fragility and dogged tenacity. To all of us in Scotland they are now always associated with Dunblane. But even here they were a symbol of hope and a sign of a future that refuses to lie down to anything that the past or the present might heap upon it.

Perhaps the thing I like most about snowdrops is that in some ways they can be incredibly difficult for gardeners to grow from scratch. But if they appear by themselves, and look after themselves, they flourish year after year with carefree abandon. That's my kind of gardening now.

Now you see it... now you don't

Question: How long does it take to grow a beech tree?
Answer: It takes about 120 years to reach its full height.
Question: How long does it take to destroy a beech tree?
Answer: About 3 or 4 minutes, if you have the right equipment.

The beech trees next to us were at least 120 and probably nearer 200 years old but in the space of a few minutes they were gone. All of them.
As far as I know the developers had not been given planning permission to remove them, but the one thing you can't do is put them back again once they have been felled.
It's like the toothpaste that has been squeezed out of the tube and can't be put back in again, or the words that have been spoken and heard but cannot then be unspoken. (We've all uttered a few of these, I'm sure.) Or the misplaced kick or pass in a game of rugby that is intercepted by the opposition. (Ask the Scotland rugby team about that one after this weekend!)

On the other side of the coin are the things that are easily started but not so easily stopped.
I remember telling the children in the church once about a petrol hovermower we used to have. Unlike many such mowers this one actually started quite easily, but one day it just refused to stop. I even tried some not very clever moves, like jumping on top of it - to no great effect. Since I had only just filled the petrol tank and it was likely to go on churning away for a good couple of hours, I eventually had to do the even sillier thing of yanking out the lead to the spark plug. It worked. Deprived of its vital spark it finally admitted defeat.
As we enter the season of Lent it is worth reflecting again on some of the things in life that are much easier started than stopped.

A special place

I started off this blog with it's cumbersome title, intending to use it simply to share some of my favourite photographs of reflections but I think the word random has overtaken the word reflections in recent days. Time, then, for another photograph from my favourite place. Venice.

Actually, I think I am simply getting withdrawal symptoms and needing another intoxicating 'fix' of the sights of this unique city. So I am planning to go back later this year with one of my daughters.

I first fell in love with Venice in 1974 when I was travelling round Europe as a student. At this point in our meandering journey we had visited what was then known as Yugoslavia. In fact, we had gone to the city of Llubljana in Slovenia. It was, however, the lowest point in our journey. We found the communist Yugoslavia very dull, grey and oppressive - not helped by the fact that a couple of us had taken ill with a tummy bug. Although it was late September the temperature was in the 90's. One of the girls in our group was stung by a wasp. And we couldn't find anyone who spoke English. (Fortunately another of the girls in our group spoke excellent German, which helped a little.) We decided to take the first train out of Llubljana, rather than look for a campsite. But this meant we had about four or five hours to kill. We went for something to eat. I remember eating some goulash but not enjoying it much. Then we decided to go to the cinema. The film being shown... (no multiplex cinemas in those days) ... was, wait for it... The Sound of Music! In English, with Slovenian? subtitles. I hadn't realised the film had one or two jokes in it. But because we were the only ones who could understand the dialogue, the six of us sitting at the back of the cinema would laugh first, and then a few seconds later (once they had read the subtitles) the rest of the audience would laugh. It was the most surreal experience. Unfortunately, by this time, it was my turn to host the tummy bug (or maybe it was the goulash?) and my viewing experience was interrupted by a number of hurried exits to the loo.

All in all, the six of us just couldn't wait to get out of Yugoslavia and in the evening we caught the overnight train to Venice. (We always travelled overnight as it meant we didn't have to find, or pay for, somewhere to sleep or camp.) The train, however, was totally crowded, with quite a few armed soldiers on board, and we had to crouch down in the corridor between carriages. Not a very comfortable night.

But at 9 am the following morning we emerged from the Stazione Ferroviaria Santa Lucia (i.e. the station - but it sounds better in Italian) and looked out on the Grand Canal. It was like heaven. I remember having a cup of tea (something I never drank in those days) and some toast. That was when I decided this was the most wonderful place on earth. I promised myself that I would be back.

It was another 29 years before I returned but, to my own amazement, I felt the very same feelings on my return.

Being physical beings, we all need special places - usually places that hold particular personal memories. For me, Venice is such a place, though not for the memories, more for its unique faded elegance and beauty. There is such a visual integrity about the place, perhaps simply a factor of age - but (once you have left the ugly modernism of the Piazalle Roma) there is very little in the city that looks out of place.

I'll be back...

I feel the earth move...

I blame global warming!

A few nights ago I was wakened about 3am by the sound of a bird singing outside the window. They are so confused these days. They think it is Spring already. Maybe I should sell our radio-alarm on eBay because we don't need it any more - what with the birds singing while it is still dark and.... the diggers and earth-movers next door causing the whole house to vibrate from about 8.30am every morning!

The area next to our garden is being cleared for the building of new houses. Plans for the construction were agreed some time ago but the work only began in earnest a week ago. In fact it only took them a day to convert what had been the grounds of a children's home into something that resembled the Somme in 1916. Actually it is scary how quickly these big machines can transform the landscape. Then again, it is scary how easily (and carelessly) we human beings in general are able to shape the environment to suit us rather than allow it to shape us and our behaviour.

Show me the way to the Armadillo...

I had a meeting today in the SECC in Glasgow, which will be the venue for Nexus, later this year.

My particular reponsibility is to organise the Saturday evening worship event which will take place in the Clyde Auditorium (pictured here) known locally (and much more graphically) as 'The Armadillo.'

You'll be hearing much more about it in later posts - that is, once I have something to say!

For the moment, I am in the rather worrying situation of having very few of the plans, and people, fully confirmed. But there is plenty of time....

Isn't there?...

I am happy to say that the rest of the planning team are much further on than me and that the whole event is shaping up to be a really exciting and dynamic three days.

One thing I have really enjoyed about working with anything to do with our 'Church without Walls' process is that the meetings have always been lively, creative, energising.... and enjoyable and that is not something that can often be said about meeting associated with church business!

Light in the cathedral

The sun was shining and the sky was blue over Edinburgh today as I undertook to show Nancy our capital city.

Having had a whole week of training in how to operate a video camera, Nancy herself was not slow to gather some footage of her own. It may take her some time to edit the diverse clips she must have captured including the long slow pans across the Edinburgh skyline from the esplanade of the Castle and the bumpy action shots from inside the car as we drove along some of Edinburgh's cobbled streets.

What impressed Nancy most was the age of so many of the buildings, especially the churches. Of course, one thing Scotland has plenty of is its past... though sometimes I'm not so sure about its future! Especially when it comes to the church.

One place we visited was St. Giles Cathedral in the Royal Mile.
(As the Church's own website says: "There is record of a parish church in Edinburgh by the year 854, served by a vicar from a monastic house, probably in England. It is possible that the first church, a modest affair, was in use for several centuries before it was formally dedicated by the bishop of St Andrews on 6 October 1243. The parish church of Edinburgh was subsequently reconsecrated and named in honour of the patron saint of the town, St Giles, whose feast day is celebrated on 1 September.")

There is within the cathedral a pleasing balance between the old and the new. While we were there the organist was giving an organ recital, which just added to the atmosphere - more "music coming from the chapel" but what caught my eye was the way in which the light, filtering through the stained glass, fell on the backs of some of the chairs. I could not resist taking a photograph of it. Pity the photograph didn't manage to capture the organ playing too. But, then, maybe Nancy will have it on video?

No entry

Well, Wilson didn't get his visa. :-(

We have yet to hear the official reason but it is very sad none the less.

As I have said before it is incredibly difficult for a single, male Kenyan to be allowed entry into the UK.

I should point out that Wilson is not in this picture. This is a group of young guys at Muguga that I played 'football' with. As you can see from the picture, they were a lively and happy bunch. The ball was home-made from a number of supermarket carrier bags, all layered on top of each other and held together by rubber bands. It makes for a surprisingly bouncy ball. However, I don't think FIFA are ready to endorse it as an official match ball.

Drive by argument

Perhaps I should have come clean and owned up to my particular interest in the fortunes of "Drive by Argument." It has something to do with the fact that one of the members of the band is the boyfriend of one of my daughters. Not that this has influenced me in any way, of course. :-)

All that aside, they are definitely worth a listen.

The Sega Method

I'm also looking forward to the release of the single "The Sega Method" by Drive by Argument.

Check it out on their myspace website.

Amazing Grace

I'm looking forward to the release of this film. I only hope that the film-makers manage to do justice to the story which by any standards is an 'amazing' one.

Here's what some of the advance publicity has to say about it:

"The film is based on the life of antislavery pioneer William Wilberforce. The film's release also coincides with the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.Amazing Grace stars Ioan Gruffudd (Black Hawk Down), Albert Finney (Erin Brockovich), Michael Gambon (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), Rufus Sewell (Legend of Zorro), and introduces Youssou N'Dour. Gruffudd plays Wilberforce, who, as a Member of Parliament, navigated the world of 18th Century backroom politics to end the slave trade in the British Empire. In 1785 Wilberforce underwent a spiritual encounter which he described as a conversion experience. He resolved to commit his future life and work wholly in the service of God, and one of the people he received advice from was John Newton, a leading evangelical Anglican clergyman played in the film by Albert Finney. Youssou N'Dour plays Olaudah Equiano. Born in Africa and sent as a slave to the Colonies, Equiano bought his freedom and made his home in London, where he wrote a best-selling account of his life and became a leading figure in the fight to end the slavery of his fellow countrymen."

The music coming from the chapel

Recently I was given a gift of one of Paulo Coelho's books-"Like the Flowing River." It is a series of thoughts and reflections, short pieces written between 1998 and 2005. I have enjoyed many of Coelho's novels and was looking forward to dipping into this. I have not been disappointed.

His style is simple but poetic but, much more importantly, his insights are often profound.

One of the pieces entitled "The music coming from the chapel" describes an incident when Coelho come across a hermitage in the middle of a wood near Azereix in southern France. As he enters the usually-closed building he finds a young woman playing guitar and singing. He describes it as "an unforgettable moment in my life, the kind of awareness we often only have once the magic moment has passed." In fact for him it becomes a moment of revelation and deeply-felt worship.

When I read this particular story it reminded me of a very similar feeling which I had on one of my trips to Venice. I cannot remember whether it was in 2003 or 2004. I was with my youngest daughter, Heather, and we were indulging ourselves in a kind of photographic feast, shooting off dozens of rolls of film. One of the places I wanted to visit was the Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli (The Church of the Miracles.) It is a beautiful little marble jewel of a church, built between 1481 and 1489. Unlike St. Mark's and some of the other major tourist attractions it is never swamped by boatloads of day-trippers, partly because it is almost hidden away in a residential part of the Canareggio.

We paid the small entry fee and stepped inside this little marble wonder.

I think there were only a couple of other people inside the building at the time, apart from the person at the entrance desk. There was a hushed and reverent silence.

I was walking slowly up the steep stairs towards the high altar when suddenly this magnificent tenor voice burst out in song: I think it may have been a Monteverdi psalm. I turned round to see the source of this 'music from the chapel' and there stood the slightly bulky figure of a man with a magnificently bushy beard. When he came to the end of the psalm he simply turned and walked out of the building again. I felt exactly the same feelings as Coelho describes in his essay "a state of worship and ecstasy, and gratitude for being alive." Just a fleeting moment, yet it felt timeless. Music has often that had effect on me but in that particular place at that particular time, the effect was almost overwhelming. My own little personal 'miracle,' a sign to me of the spiritual world in the midst of this world.

A short while afterwards when Heather and I left the church we saw the man again, talking to someone else. As we walked past I was surprised to hear him speaking in English and I could not help overhearing him as he told his listener that he was the conductor of a choir from England and he was in the process of organising a tour. He was looking for venues where they might perform. I don't know who he was, or what choir he was talking about, all I know is that in that particular moment, and in that special place, his voice touched something deep inside of me. Coelho has expressed that moment perfectly: "In the simplicity of that small chapel.... in the morning light that filled everything, I understood once again that the greatness of God always reveals itself in the simple things."

Trees in the mist

On the way home from Bo'ness I stopped for a few seconds to take a quick snap of Linlithgow Palace* in the morning mist and rain.
It really was a quick stop!
I had overtaken a tractor at the top of the hill and managed to take the phtoograph and jump back into my car and pull away before the tractor caught up with me.
I must have looked like a real tourist!

* birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots

Getting there...

So here is Nancy beginning the course at World Without Walls. (We still haven't had any snow so I got her to Bo'ness without any problem at all this morning- apart from not being able to lean back in my seat.)
No word yet as to whether Wilson will be able to get his visa or not. He has been told that he will get a decision tomorrow. So keep praying and hoping.
I am hoping to be able to sleep a little tonight. Without going into the messy and unpleasant details I am expecting the doctor's knife will have been more effective than the antibiotics.

Adverse weather conditions

Sorry to go on again about the weather theme, but which century are we living in?

I couldn't believe this section of the leader in yesterday's "Times." [Then again, I don't often buy the Times] But are they seriously saying that a couple of inches of snow managed to prevent the leading article from being written? No, wait a minute, that is exactly what they are saying: "We apologise that this leading article could not be written due to adverse weather conditions." [that's in case you can't read the rather faint scanned picture]

Does this mean that leader writers of The Times don't have computers and email etc.? Maybe they still write everything out long-hand and send it to the typesetters to be set up? Hmmm...

No such excuses from me! Well, for a start we still haven't had any of the snow. But a few inches of the white stuff is hardly going to affect this publication. What has almost prevented me from writing just now, however, is "adverse health conditions." A large cyst on my back has become infected and is giving me a lot of pain. I can't find a comfortable way to sit or lie down, and sleep has been in short supply the last few nights. I'm just hoping the antibiotics begin to take effect soon.

But enough complaining from me! I have some good news at last on the Kenyan-partnership front. Nancy arrived from Kiambaa this morning. Too late to join us at church but in time to meet a few of the congregation who were still having tea or coffee. Tomorrow she begins the World Without Walls training course- provided I get her to Bo'ness in time. Now there's something that "adverse weather conditions" might manage to prevent. Let's hope not.

Half a loaf...

I suppose administration and bureaucracy are necessary - but sometimes they can be very frustrating.

You may remember we have been trying to organise a visit to Scotland by two of our friends from Kiambaa Church (our partners in Kenya.)

[The photograph shows some of the young people of Kiambaa church just before we left in 2005]

In the last few days and weeks there have been many messages (telephone and text) flying across the miles between us and today there was some good news. At last. One of our guests, Nancy, has been granted a travel visa and thanks to the very helpful people at Key Travel, I have just managed to book a flight for Nancy for tomorrow night and she should be with us by Sunday morning which will enable her to begin the World Without Walls Training Course in Bo'ness on Monday morning. Unfortunately, Wilson has been asked to go back to the British High Commission on Monday morning and has not yet been granted a visa. At this stage we have no idea whether he will be successful or not. It is all very frustrating.

Of course, as I probably mentioned in a previous post, if Wilson was married, had lots of money and lived in the city he probably would have had few problems in getting a visa, but clearly the authorities consider that there is a risk that he will choose not to return home and somehow just disappear in this country. It is all very frustrating.

However, I suppose half a loaf is better than no bread... and if we keep on hoping and praying maybe Wilson too can have the privilege of leaving the warmth of equatorial Kenya to come to the sub-zero temperatures of central Scotland.

On that point, I have been getting quite irritated (once more) at all the fuss in the TV news about the weather in England. Honestly....a couple of inches of snow and you'd think the world had come to an end! For goodness sake... it is February. It is winter time. Sometimes in winter it snows in this country! And sometimes (for reasons that didn't seem to apply when I was young) that means schools are closed... oh, and traffic has to move more slowly. So what? There are other more important things happening in the world. Learn to live with it.

Get set... go

The last pantomime picture - for a while anyway. This is more or less the full cast just before 'curtain up' on Saturday night.

Of course, if you were at the panto you'll know that we had no curtain. It meant that our stage crew (Graeme & Derek) had to be very quick, very efficient and very quiet at scene changes. I have to say they managed to be all three and did a superb job and, apart from one little glitch on the Friday night, it went incredibly smoothly.

Not like a performance I attended last year at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. A special treat for my birthday - to go the opera. I know it was a great sacrifice for my wife to take me there because she can't stand opera. But I love it. Now, any of you who are familiar with Glasgow will know that we have a perfectly good opera house - the Theatre Royal. But this was in the concert hall. A large stage, certainly, but no curtains and no facilities for flying scenery quickly offstage. Now, you might think this would be a good time to go for a minimalist approach to the set: let the audience use their imaginations and allow the music to set the scene.

But, no. It was a pretty traditional approach to Rigoletto by The Chisinau National Opera in association with the Ukrainian National Opera. The trouble was it took the stage crew about 25 minutes between acts to disassemble one set and then build the next. It could have been very boring - and almost was - except that I kept hearing the sound of electric screwdrivers buzzing away in the darkness, accompanied by cursing and swearing from the stagehands who clearly weren't sure how everything was supposed to fit together. Admittedly it must have been a bit like building a 3-D jigsaw puzzle in the dark. Quite bizarre.

However, not the most bizarre feature of the show.

The award for that has to go to the moment when a fully-grown golden eagle was brought onto the stage. There seemed to me to be absolutely no dramatic, musical or logical reason for this, though in the publicity for the opera it was being hailed as a particular attraction, along with the fact that there would be some nudity involved in the production.

Maybe I was just too near the back of the concert hall to appreciate either. All I can say is I'm glad the singing was quite good.

All's well that ends well...

A glimpse of the two "baddies" (Haudit and Dropit) from 'Jack and the Beans Talk.'
Of course, they turned out alright in the end.
So did the panto as a whole. Everybody had great fun and, what's more, so far it has raised over £1100 for charity.
We plan to share the proceeds among the Children's Hospice Association Scotland, World Vision, Kiambaa Church (our partner church in Kenya) and Glory Christian Fellowship Orphanage in Kenya (another project we regularly support.)

We are hoping to further strengthen our links with Kiambaa very soon, as long as the visa authorities in Nairobi are on our side. We have invited two of our friends from Kiambaa (Wilson & Nancy) to come over to Scotland and take part in the World Without Walls training course. We tried this last year but Wilson and Nancy were refused travel visas. We are hoping and praying that this time they will be successful.

Good news and bad news

Well, what do you want to hear first: the good news? or the bad news?

The good news was that the pantomime was a great success. A sell-out both nights and two lively, up-for-it, audiences (although I have to say that Friday night's audience was a little bit quicker at getting the jokes! On Saturday the cast had to work a bit harder to get the gags across.)

Talking of the cast... that was the bad news.

My daughter, Ailsa, was due to play the lead role of Jack - a part with quite a lot of lines to learn including a one and a half-page monologue at the start. Being the central character in the story it was a rather important role.

Unfortunately, in the early hours of Thursday morning Ailsa took ill. So ill that she had to be taken by ambulance to hospital. I am happy to say that she is now making an excellent recovery. However... we were left on Thursday with a real dilemma as there was no understudy for the part. (OK - bad planning, I know...)

We felt desperately sorry for Ailsa who had put so much work and practice into preparing for the show, not just in the lead role but also as choreographer and even helping to direct a couple of rehearsals. But since she couldn't even stand up on Thursday, treading the boards on Friday was just out of the question.

So we looked at the various alternative options:

Cancel. Hard to do when we had sold nearly 500 tickets.

Postpone. But for how long? And the set had already been built and was in place. Could we get everybody together again for some future date...?

What if I, or my wife, Dawn, played the part? (Em...No - don't think so...)

ENTER our youngest daughter, Heather!

She volunteered to have a go, even though she had spent the previous week complaining that she didn't even like panto and hadn't even read the script, never mind attend a rehearsal.

And so, with just one day to learn the 40-page script and no time to get the cast together for a full rehearsal, Heather took on the challenge. Now, no doubt I am biased, but I thought she was brilliant. I have no idea how she managed to learn the part in less than 24 hours and then carry it off with such confidence. It was fantastic.

Actually, everyone who took part did a brilliant job, including many who had never acted in their lives before.

Even the beanstalk rose majestically and magically to its full 4.5 metres... although half an hour before the show opened I spotted some fraying on the pulling wire and we had to get the ladder out and fit a second wire just in case.

Of course there were some minor mistakes (mainly technical... and mainly my own responsibility) but all in all it was a fantastic effort from everyone concerned.

Oh, and the picture, by the way, is of the "giant's" mask - magnificently crafted by Rhoda Baxter.

Let me quote from the script:

Jack Mum, that was only some of it! There’s a whole load of treasure up there. But there is something really scary up there as well. That’s why I ran. …..It was huge with bulging staring eyes, and spiky hair, and it had hair all over it’s face like a straggly beard, I bet it had a big fat belly and flat feet too.

Mum You mean just like the minister!

Jack Just like him, but huger!

Maybe you can see the resemblance yourself?