Doubt your doubts

[the rolling landscape of South Lanarkshire near Wiston Lodge]

A colleague of mine sent me this link to a fascinating article in the Times by Matthew Parris.
There's a refreshing honesty about it, and it seems to me to be a perfect example of why it is always useful, from time to time, to question your certainties and to doubt your doubts.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Oh... I know... it's already the sixth day of 2009 and this is the first time I've blogged this year. Just as well, I didn't make any New Year resolution to post a blog every day.
Do people seriously make New Year resolutions these days?
I know myself too well even to kid myself on about it.
New Year means very little to me... except that is when I get to go away for a couple of nights to the Fiddle Force Winter School, held for the last 9 or 10 years at Wiston Lodge. [the photograph above shows the low afternoon sunlight casting shadows through some of Wiston's woodland]
It has been a busy end to 2008 and start to 2009 for me with lots of funerals to conduct, so the chance to go away and forget things for a day or two is virtually irresistible.


Highlights of Fiddle Force 2009?

• some excellent tunes, great advice and good laughs from tutor Alasdair White

• improvising to some great old-time stuff from some of the Wiston folk, a mixture of blues, skiffle, American folk and who-knows-what-else

• playing tunes till 3.30am

• catching up with friends, many of whom I only see once a year

• some great conversations

• good food and plenty of it

Lowlights?

• it was cold!!! And I mean, cold!! (Outside and inside the house, in spite of the log fires.)

• leaving on the Sunday afternoon I managed to reverse my car into a big block of sandstone that was just too low to be visible in my wing mirrors... crunch!! So it turned out to be a pretty expensive weekend after all.

Anyway, I still think it is good to start the year with music.

If anybody still reads this stuff, may I wish you a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Behold the duck

Talking of symbols...Manchester seems to have decided to celebrate Christmas without too much reference to Christ.

I apologize for the slightly fuzzy picture above. Maybe I was still shaking with laughter at the giant Santa - or perhaps it is a giant duck in a red coat? Who knows?

Gaudeamus Igitur

When I first started writing this erratic, and often irrelevant blog, I made up my mind that my starting point for any "reflection" would be a photograph I had taken.
One problem that has arisen periodically is that on occasion I have been too busy to take any photographs and so I've had nothing to say. Another problem is that I had made up my mind, as far as possible, not to include pictures of people - especially if I had not sought their permission first.
But today I am going to break my second 'rule' by posting a picture of one of my daughters, who has just received her Masters Degree - because these are the latest photographs I have taken.
Like all of the other relatives present at the graduation ceremony, I was really only interested in one of the people receiving an award, and therefore almost all of my photographs were of her. However, there was one point in the proceedings (which, incidentally, began at the interestingly original scheduled time of 4.45pm yesterday evening) when I wished I'd had my camera ready.. but sadly I didn't.
So you will have to make do with my verbal description.
What I'm referring to is the entry procession of all the academics.
Depending on how you view these things it was either impressively dignified or ridiculously pompous (often there is only a very thin dividing line between the two... as anyone involved with church things ought to realise!)
I'm afraid my warped way of seeing things ended up in my personal assessment veering toward the latter... i.e. rather ridiculous.
You see, at the beginning of the procession there were two colourfully-robed individuals each carrying, with solemn perpendicularity, what looked to me like a silver plated fish-slice with an extra-long handle.
Bringing up the rear of the procession were two similarly robed individuals. They must have been less important, I suppose, because neither of them had been entrusted with a silver fish slice. Instead they each carried a snooker cue. Well... that's what it looked like to me. What else it might have been I do not know.
Nor have I the slightest clue what these objects represented or symbolised, although I have no doubt that there was some symbolic meaning to all of it- just as once upon a time there must have been some practical purpose for the 'mortar-board' hat. (An easily transported and readily available picnic table perhaps?)
That's the trouble with symbols... if you are not in on the secret they are meaningless.
And yet, for those who do know their meaning, symbols are a very powerful form of shorthand.
Most of my parishioners know that (quite long ago) I stopped wearing clerical robes. Part of the reason for that is that I no longer know what they are supposed to represent... and they often make me feel rather ridiculous, especially if I am playing the guitar.
But at least no one has ever asked me to process into church with a fish slice or a snooker cue...

Nature's Royal Variety Performance

[A frozen, frost-covered Braidwood Loch]

Winter has definitely come to Carluke! Today's sub-zero temperatures would not have stopped me playing tennis (outdoor) this morning [several times in the past we've shovelled snow off the court to allow us to play] but my playing partner had another commitment this morning [or so he said] so the tennis was off.
Instead, I dug out the camera.
[I had to dig it out; it was buried under a pile of papers, folders and books on the big chair in my study!]
I set out on a cool (very cool) photo-shoot.

Braidwood Loch... (in reality it's just a village duckpond, but don't tell the residents of Braidwood I said that. It is, in any case, a very attractive duckpond in all seasons) ...
Braidwood Loch was frozen over and had a fresh layer of frost covering the frozen surface, like a dusting of icing sugar on a cake.

I just love the many different textures that a hard frost is able to create on trees, grass, plants, spiders' webs etc. In some ways, I think frost can sometimes do an even more spectacular transformation-job than snow.


On Wednesday evening the team of volunteers will put up the Christmas tree and decorations in the church, but now matter how creative and artistic they may be (and they usually do a brilliant job) they are not going to be able to compete with Nature's exterior decoration skills.

To top off a spectacular Natural Variety Performance, late this afternoon there was a lunar eclipse of Venus (or more accurately an occultation of Venus.)
Unfortunately, while my camera can do a pretty good job of capturing 'The Frost Show,' it struggles with the night sky and objects as far as away as Venus. This is the best I could do at capturing Venus as she re-appeared from behind the moon.


And all of this is free... no need to pay for a television licence to see the show!

[Readers from outside of the UK might wonder what this is. We pay a licence fee which funds the BBC.]

From a bridge to a wall

The Great Wall of China at Badeling

I'm grateful to Peter about his comments on my photographs from Olympic Park Seoul and, of course, I have no objection to him (or anyone) using them as a desktop wallpaper. As long as no one tries to make any money out of them - though that's pretty unlikely.
The photograph I am currently using on my own desktop is the one above of the Great Wall of China. It's quite a contrast to the serenity of Olympic Park, with its the lone walker striding into the distance. There were so many people crammed into this particular section of the Great Wall that it was more jostling than walking.
And yet... for me there was something serene and awe-inspiring about this location too.
As I stopped and looked out at the Wall, seeing it snake across the countryside in bizarrely random directions as it clings impossibly to the contours of the hills and mountains, and knowing that it continues like this for over 2500 miles, I felt a sense of awe and amazement at what had been constructed here.
Much of it, I suppose, is in ruins and the Chinese authorities have been quite clever to concentrate visitors on particular restored sections like this one (nearest to Beijing.)
Looking at all the people going up and down various sections of the wall reminded me of watching ants at work, except that ants seem to have a much greater sense of purpose about what they are doing.
If we are being watched from outer space (and whether we are, or are not, makes absolutely no difference to me...) but if we are, I wonder what our extra-terrestrial observers would make of our crowded highways and even of that scene above?
...And back down here, with all the gloomy news of recession and Credit Crunch (possible name for a new breakfast cereal perhaps...?) do any of us really know where we are going?

Bridging the Gap

I've always been fascinated by bridges.
I once had the "brilliant" idea of photographing all the bridges over the River Clyde, from source to estuary and writing an illustrated book telling the story of each bridge. (Some of them are pretty old, it has to be said.)
I gave up the idea when I realised that it is almost impossible to say which of the small tributaries that come together near Abington is the real source of the Clyde and also when I realised I couldn't be bothered doing all the research that would be necessary.
There are plenty of bridges in South Korea. It is, after all, a very mountainous country. Seoul itself has something like 27 bridges spanning the Han River- some of them quite impressive feats of engineering.
We came across the construction of a new bridge on our journey towards the border with North Korea and I managed to snap a few pictures from the window of our fairly fast-moving bus. (Hence the blurring in the foreground.)
I wanted the pictures because it seemed to me that this unfinished bridge was a symbol of our developing partnership.
In so many areas of life - not least in the Christian Church - there is a desperate need to tear down dividing walls and at the same time to build connecting bridges.

Olympic Park

Talking of exercise... the favourite form of exercise in Korea is also one of the least expensive... walking! Every morning, hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of the citizens of Seoul religiously set out for a walk. It's the same in the evening. And, not surprisingly, one of the favourite places to walk is Olympic Park - a real oasis in the midst of the busy city, full of measured pathways so that you know exactly how many kilometres you have covered. And (of course) beautifully kept!
Given the number of people who were in Olympic Park on the morning I took these photographs, it was quite an achievement to make it look so deserted.

And on a lighter note...

Just to prove that newspapers are not completely full of bad news... there is a little snippet in today's Herald (not in the electronic version) which says that "songs that make our hearts soar can make them stronger too." Apparently even just listening to 'heart-warming' songs can be good for your heart, and this very non-aerobic form of exercise has a similar effect to that of recently-lauded medications, such as statins and ACE inhibitors.
I would just want to add that singing such songs yourself (including inspiring hymns) is even better.
It has long been known that singing has positive health benefits for everybody (except occasionally for those who may be in earshot??)

Thoughts on a depressingly rainy Monday morning

At the North Korean border

Since yesterday was the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church* and also the start of Prisoners' Week, our evening service last night focused entirely on the plight of Christians in various parts of the world who are oppressed, imprisoned and persecuted because of their faith.
Following on from my recent visit to South Korea, we included a special focus on North Korea.
North Korea is, as most people will know, a very closed society out of which it is very difficult to get accurate impartial information but the estimates are that there are about 400,000 Christians in North Korea and anything up to a quarter of them are currently imprisoned, many of them subjected to torture and some to execution.
Religious persecution is, of course, nothing new, and down through the centuries the Christian Church itself has often been guilty of horrendous abuses of power, especially in relation to Jews, and to Muslims at the time of the Crusades.
There is something very dark and dangerous in our human nature that is able to pervert the thoroughly wholesome desire for a sense of belonging and togetherness into the brutally destructive impulse to cast out those who seem to be different, or to attack those who do not belong to your tribe.
The attitude of Jesus himself was directly opposed to this sectarianism and he deliberately, and provocatively, stepped over boundaries in the company he kept and in his willingness to embrace the stranger. Of course, we know where that led him.
It has never been easy to stand up for the truth.
I was disturbed this morning to read a number of articles in the Herald that indicated that all is not well even within our so-called 'free' world.
In the first of them is the shocking statistic that one in four children have been bullied because of their faith.
Another article reported on the intolerant attitude of many adults in our society to children in general. (Apparently, half the population believes children are dangerous and behave like animals!)
In a third is reported the sadly predictable reaction of some people in the USA to the election of Barack Obama in a wave of racially-motivated crimes all over the States.
As well as praying for those (of all faiths) being persecuted around the world simply because of what they believe, and praying for those who persecute them, we also have to be constantly vigilant about what is happening in our own back yards. Somehow we have to 'stamp out' the small fires of intolerance that could easily be whipped up into the wildfires of outright hatred.


*in some places Sunday 9th November was observed as the Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church

New Horizon

Another picture of the sun rising over the East Sea near Sokcho.

I have just returned home from a "reunion."
To be honest I wasn't really looking forward to it... though as things turned out I am very glad that I went.
I think my apprehension was related to another reunion that I had attended in 1988 to mark the 400th anniversary of my secondary school (Hamilton Academy.) That event had taken place in the old school building itself and I found the whole experience a little bit disorientating - not because everything had changed, but on the contrary because most things seemed to be still the same as they had been more than 20 years previously.
Of course, many of the people had changed... outwardly at least.
The trouble is - I found the whole school reunion thing so superficial and even artificial- and I kept asking myself why I was there? What did I really have in common with all these other people?
A few years ago I also attended a reunion of my Final Year group from University (Divinity Faculty) and I found it equally strange. Just another poignant reminder of how quickly time passes.
But tonight's reunion somehow was quite different.
The purpose of the evening was to mark the 35th anniversary of a Christian singing group that I used to be in and of which, for a while, I was one of the leaders. The group was called "New Horizon" and it was formed in 1973. I had to leave the group in 1978 when I began work as an assistant minister in Castlehill Church in Ayr.
After I left, the group continued for another 17 years, performing and recording under the excellent musical leadership of Ian Watson. Since New Horizon continued long after my departure many of the newer members of the group were people I did not know, and had never known, and I think part of my apprehension (apart from my previous 'reunion' experiences) arose out of the feeling that since I had only been in the group at the very start of its life, I wasn't really a very significant part of its whole story. In the event that feeling quickly disappeared on entering the hall.
It was just a big family reunion.
But what made tonight special was that I met some people I hadn't expected to meet (and, to be honest, had always thought I might never meet again) and found that in spite of all the intervening years we could easily talk with each other as if we'd last met on Tuesday!
It's as if things that really matter to you never change and yet are always new.

Take my breath away

The standard of driving in Seoul is not quite as hair-raising as that of Beijing (where taxi drivers seem to be on a perpetual mission to drive people to pray - well every taxi journey I took certainly drove me to pray... for safety!!)
But the driving style of Seoulites can still leave you a bit breathless when you are but a passenger, especially if your driver has a habit of accelerating as fast as possible towards clearly-red traffic lights and the obviously stationary vehicles up front, or when he/she chooses to career violently from one lane to another through seemingly impossible/invisible spaces.
(It reminded me a little of the Rockin' Roller Coaster at Disney's MGM Studios... but maybe even hairier! Although I remember as we went round the first 'bend' of that particular ride my specs flew sideways off my face. Amazingly, I caught them in my right hand.)
Anyway, back to car journeys through Seoul...
Worst experience of all was when my taxi driver decided to do a high speed illegal U-turn against a red-light into 6 lanes of oncoming traffic, then (in the space of a few yards) dart from the outside lane right across to the pavement in order to stop outside my hotel!!
As a guest, of course, you feel that you can say nothing- you just quietly grip the edge of your seat and try to take in the scenery as you are propelled along.
Having said that, much of the time that you spend on Seoul's roads you are going nowhere!
Since Seoul is the second most populated metropolitan area in the world (Tokyo having the dubious privilege of topping the list) one thing the city is rarely short of is the traffic jam!
But even the ironically-named "rush hour" can have its compensations.
I was stuck in one such traffic jam and my eye was drawn upwards to the elegant street lamps bathed in the late afternoon sunshine. They seemed to me to be like a flock of migrating geese (albeit the ones on the left only seem have one wing!)


Sometimes in our everyday lives we may feel we are being propelled at breakneck speed by events beyond our control, but occasionally you get the chance to stop... and look up and find beauty in everyday things.
Try it some time.
It might take your breath away in a different way altogether.

Land of the Morning Calm

Talking of the new dawn... early morning is one of my favourite times for taking photographs. (Well, sometimes it is.)
The picture above was taken during the Korean trip, looking out on the East Sea from Sokcho, or at least near to Sokcho.
Before the sun had come up, the waters opposite our hotel were buzzing with little cuttlefish boats plying backwards and forwards, but despite all the activity there was a wonderful sense of calm and tranquillity, perhaps enhanced by the way in which the rising sun had transformed the sea into what looked like a vast lake of molten gold.
Perhaps not every new dawn is quite so spectacular but when one does come along, wherever it may be, it is worth taking the time to stop and stare and drink it in.
Even seeing the photograph full-screen on the pc rekindles something of the sense of calm of that morning.
Easy to see why Korea is called "Land of the Morning Calm"

(In fact 'Land of the Morning Calm' is apparently an English language nickname loosely derived from the hanja characters for Joseon, the name derived from the Joseon Dynasty and the earlier Gojoseon.)

The dawn of Hope

(Sunrise on the Indian River, Florida, Feb 2008)

Am I imagining this (or perhaps projecting my own feelings on to those of others) but isn't most of the world heaving a sigh of relief at the result of the US Presidential Elections? Well, I am at least. Congratulations, Barack Obama! Naturally, we in Scotland are trying to claim him as one of our own! With slightly more justification the Kenyans too are excited and proud.
I was particularly heartened by the obvious desire of the American electorate to embrace change.
I am old enough to remember the 1960's - a time when black people in some parts of the States were not even allowed to vote. And now...?
Love them or loathe them, there is no doubt that Americans know how to 'do optimism.' (A little linguistic nod there to the way in which they are also skilled at 'doing in' the English language!)
The American Dream has been resurrected and I for one rejoice in that.
Living as I do in a much older nation, with an often tired and cynical attitude to democracy and to politics in general, I find it refreshing to witness the audacity of hope.
One 'scary' thing about Election 2008, though, is how closely reality seemed to mirror the fictional storyline of The West Wing. I think someone should check Obama's name. Maybe it is really Matt Santos?

Salted shrimp, anyone?

On a visit to Ganghwa Island with my host and friend, Rev. Chang Bin, we found ourselves at the annual salted shrimp festival. It was a very colourful sight, especially the market stalls, but no photograph can capture the sounds or smells of such a marketplace. Nor can any of my words describe just HOW salted these tiny shrimps were!! Wow! Even thinking about it makes me thirsty! Not my favourite I have to say.

Actually, during our Korean trip I tasted all sorts of dishes that you are not likely to find in the average Scottish diet. Most of them (including seaweed, stuffed octopus, tofu soup, cold noodle soup, and even stuffed pigs intestines..) I could eat... and enjoy. And some, especially kimchi, I absolutely love!

But there was one dish I was happy to steer well clear of... hot, roasted bugs. I can't remember exactly what kind of larvae they were (perhaps even silkworm) but the smell of them roasting on a stall near the Seoul Tower at Namsan ensured that I gave that particular stall a very wide bodyswerve.

On the whole, though, I am a pretty adventurous eater. I can't understand people who travel to far off places then insist on eating exactly the same things they would at home. What's the point of that?

But sometimes even I have to draw the line.

When you think of all the strange things that human beings do eat in various places around the world it makes you wonder who first decided to try eating some of these things. It also makes you wonder how many people learned the hard way what NOT to eat.

What's the strangest dish you've ever eaten?

Answer me...

As the weather turns very much colder here, and the first falls of snow being reported around the country, memories of warm Autumn days in Korea and China begin to fade very quickly.
Thankfully the hundreds of photographs I took confirm to me that it wasn't just a dream. I did actually return to Korea a couple of weeks ago.
While visiting the Korean Folk Village near Yongin, south of Seoul, we stumbled upon a film shoot for some Korean costume drama. The picture above shows some of the actors waiting on the call to go on set. If you look closely, you'll see that at least three of them are busy with their mobile phones while they wait.
I wonder if any of them have had their phones ring in the middle of a take?
These days there seems to be no place to escape the cell-phone.
During a service of worship in Korea, where I was preaching, a cell-phone started ringing very loudly. It wasn't too difficult to see who was the owner of the phone was as a red-faced member of the choir struggled to get into her handbag to switch it off!
It's a wonderful invention, and one I use myself from time to time, but maybe the mobile phone has made many of us even less patient than before. We expect to be able to reach people at any time and we get disappointed, frustrated, and even annoyed if they don't answer. (Well that is certainly how I have felt when trying to get hold of someone recently.)
How different from the old days when missionaries, or other travellers, went to far off lands are were never heard of for years at a time.
Maybe it also affects the attitude of some of us Christians to the business of prayer. If we don't get the answer we want straight away then we give up all too easily, forgetting that the primary point and purpose of prayer is not about getting what we want but about building a relationship of trust with God.
If I was God I think there would be times when I would put my phone to 'silent' or even switch it off altogether... there's always the answering machine, after all. (Now there's another device with an ironic name, since it never gives you an answer to your question!)

Watching me watching you

I have finally managed to work my way through the many hundreds of photographs I took during my recent trip to South Korea and China. All I can say is 'thank goodness for digital photography!' Otherwise I would have gone through something like 4 dozen rolls of 35mm film (the 36 exposures size) and I would have needed the GDP of a small country to pay for the developing of the prints!
Of course, with digital photography most of the pictures don't get printed at all. And many of them are never looked at again.
The one obvious advantage of the digital photograph is the fact that you can see the picture immediately after you've taken it. (Which also means you can delete it straight away too.)
However, no matter how good the preview window in your camera (and mine is pretty good) you don't see all the details of the shot you've taken until after you view it full size on the computer screen.
Then, occasionally, you get a surprise.
Take a look at the photograph above, for example. Clearly it is a picture of part of the Great Wall of China- a truly awe-inspiring sight I have to admit. You'll see many people walking on that section of the wall.
But take a closer look (click on the picture to enlarge it if necessary) and you may notice someone who wasn't satisfied with taking the same photographs as everyone else but was determined to view things from his own perspective. Do you see him? Just behind the bushes?
I really didn't notice him when I took the picture.
But, then, even though we try to train ourselves to be attentive to the world around us there is still so much that we miss all the time, is there not?

On top of the world

One of many photographs taken at the summit of Seoraksan (Mt. Seorak.)
Clear air, brilliant blue sky... and a Korean poser! [I'm pretty sure he came up most of the mountain in the cable car just as we did!]
But he does look pretty impressive, don't you think?
I wonder if "Visit Korea" would be interested in using the photo?

Across the great divide

I've never been hugged by a General before... but a few days ago that was my experience as we stood on the northern border of South Korea looking across the demilitarized zone and into North Korea. The General himself was our host for lunch, and our guide, as we visited an observation post on the border. That certainly made getting through checkpoints pretty easy. We were treated once more as VIPs.
It was part of a three-day tour around the area including Seoraksan National Park which provided us with some stunning scenery and many unforgettable experiences, as well as hundreds of photographs. But having returned to Seoul a few days ago and being able to reflect on the whole trip it was perhaps that visit to the border which has left the strongest impression on me. Of course, I knew that Korea was a divided country, technically still at war, but I had not really grasped the heartache that this brings to many Koreans whose families have been torn apart for more than a generation.
Not everyone in Korea wants re-unification, though, and there are certainly fierce disagreements about how to go about trying to achieve it, even if it were possible (which it is not at the moment.) But it is as if the Korean people have been caught on a geopolitical fault line where the 'tectonic plates' of opposing ideologies and values are being pushed up against each other.
There are a number of such spots around the world; the most obvious one being in Israel/Palestine.
With the advent of nuclear weapons the fear is that any 'volcanic' eruption in any of these fault zones will prove to be catastrophic for the whole planet.
Our South Korean guests urged us to pray for their divided nation. Our visit to the border has made such urging unnecessary as I could not help but be deeply moved by the whole situation and, as there is little of practical value that I can do in that situation, prayer seems the only option left.
Returning to my encounter with the General, I have to say no one could have been more courteous, gracious, friendly or welcoming... but I wouldn't ever want to be his enemy!

In a pause between meals...

This time I have a good reason for not being able to blog! I've been in South Korea since Wednesday heading a delegation from the Presbytery of Lanark (Church of Scotland) to East Seoul Presbytery (Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea) and we have been very busy since we have arrived. Also I have not had much opportunity to get online.

The picture above is meant to back up this claim as it shows us standing outside the national Headquarters of the PROK with two of our Korean hosts.

To be honest, the trip so far has been like one long meal interrupted by occasional activity!!

We are certainly not going to starve, physically or spiritually.

Last night on top of the feast of food we were given a feast of culture as various churches and individuals from East Seoul Presbytery put on a spectacular concert for us in Dongkwang Church. Our hosts preferred to call it a cultural exchange as it gave them the excuse to insist that we had to sing something Scottish. (In the end we gave in and sang something Scottish followed by something Korean - but with English words) However, there was no way we could compete with the Korean Drumming group, the Korean fan dancing group, the duo playing traditional Korean intruments, the fabulous young opera singer, the dancers, the accordion band (complete with the former Moderator of the East Seoul Presbytery on the harmonica) OR the ten-piece saxophone band made up of Korean policemen!! There will be photographs to follow to show I am not making all of this up.

I'm not sure if there is a TV programme of this name yet but let me tell you KOREA'S GOT TALENT!

But most of all it has a warm-hearted and generous people who know how to offer hospitality in a big, BIG way... especially when it comes to food! (I'm glad the weight restrictions set by the airlines apply only to the baggage and not the passengers.)