Ten Days in Scotland: Lochs, Glens, Bens, and Kirks

I am writing this essay on Wednesday, June 4^th, and am currently in Dunblane, which is northeast of Glasgow. I am attending a conference called "The Heart of Scotland" being run by leadership of an organization known as the Community of Aiden and Hilda. The conference is exploring the challenges and possibilities facing churches in Scotland and in particular how the insights of Celtic Christianity might be a part of the way forward. There are Church of Scotland, Episcopalian, and Pentecostal church clergy and lay leaders in attendance. It has been quite insightful! The convener is a man named Ray Davis, who leads this community dedicated to exploring the contemporary application of the wisdom of this stream of Christian tradition that predates the divisions that have created many of the troubles in the churches. Along with the Iona community, and the Northumbria Community, this group is leading the way for churches in Scotland and around the world to think about the new directions God might be calling and how we can discover much insight from the past. I’ll have much to share from this experience when I return.

Prior to these three days more settled in a retreat center, I was wide ranging in my exploration of the Highlands of Scotland. After a brief flight from Dublin to Glasgow, I rented a car and stumbled onto a Bagpipe Competition in the first city west of Glasgow, Dumbarton. There were a hundred bands from all over the UK. The festival was quite colourful and the music stirring. The next stop was the famed Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. This is one of the largest and most popular lakes in the country and much remembered in song and verse. It was a busy Saturday, as it was a bank holiday on Monday, and many people were out enjoying the lovely weather. For the first three days of my stay the sky looked like New Mexico as it was so blue! I spent the night in historic inn in Aberfoyle with arguably the most awful tartan carpet ever produced!!! The next day I continued exploring these beautiful woodlands and low mountains and visiting historic sites like the burial ground of the famous Rob Roy McGregor. As the sun this far north is up to almost 10 pm, I ended the day on Loch Awe...great name for a lovely place.

The next day included Glen Coe, a stretch of mountains and moorlands that look a lot like western Colorado. I then took the road to the Kyle of Lachaish and north into the heart of the Highlands, north of Fort William. It is interesting to note that 96% of Scottish population is in the lowlands and the urban belt of the country. So once you get into this area the population density drops from an average of 225 people per square mile to 1 per square mile...it is virtually empty, except for many a sheep and Highland cows. It is also incredibly beautiful. The next area north is called Wester Ross and the road skirts the lovely Loch Maree, a favorite of Queen Victoria, who was one of the first royals to really spend much time enjoying Scotland. Around that loch you begin to see remnants of the old Caledonian forest that features red barked Scots pines. They look more like sculptures than trees. The road gets out to the coastal area and it is beautiful, not quite as rugged as the Irish west coast, but I enjoyed one fantastic sunset. This meant I did not get to the B & B in Ullapool until almost 10:30 PM, but the hostess was most understanding.

Ullapool is a bustling port city and the gateway to the north coast. The next day I drove a circuit of a wonderfully remote region called the Coigach Peninsula. The road is one lane, but the country is open, with mountains, lochs, and then it opens out to a flat headland before colliding with the sea. There were beautiful sandy beaches and a collection of islands called the Summer Islands. This part of Scotland is absolutely raw and wild. On the way out I detoured onto a lane called "the wee, mad road of Sutherland". Enough said! On the way back to Ullapool I fished a small loch in gale force winds, but did manage to entice one lovely brown trout, until the weather just got too awful. The nice stretch of weather was over for a couple of days.

The next day was pouring rain as I headed up the west coast past Unapool, Scourie, and Durness. The coastline along here is quite rugged and the villages few and far between. The next stretch of highway goes through the kind of empty moorlands that is often portrayed in movies of Scotland – brown heather moors, peat bogs, low hanging clouds hiding the mountains, all dotted with dark watered lochs. I made it to Tongue and eventually to Thurso, the gateway to the Orkney Islands.

The weather was still quite cloudy the next day as I caught an early ferry to the Orkneys. The ride is about an hour and a half and one gets great views of some of the islands that make up the chain, including a sea stack of stone called the Old Man of Hoy. The ferry end in Stromness, which is a lovely port town with the narrowest main street I have ever seen. Once you start down it there is no turning back. I was planning to spend the next couple of days at the home of Philip Newell’s mother in law, Margot Cant and so I started the half hour trip to Kirkwall, the other large town on the island. However, it took quite a bit longer than a half hour as this island is thick with archeological sites, especially stone circles and tombs of the Neolithic period. The Standing Stones of Sterness was obvious from the road, four tall slabs in a flat field, and crying out to be photographed. When I did arrive at Margot’s house, it was a lovely croft cabin overlooking a bay called the Scapa Flow.

Margot is a remarkable woman. She is a physician and her husband Bill was the pastor of the Cathedral of St. Magnus. He died about a year and a half ago. Her daughter Alison is married to Philip and she is also a Church of Scotland pastor. She shared with me some books Bill had written about this remarkable church, basically a cathedral built to honor a Viking saint, who was a pacifist and martyred for his faith and trust. Her husband had pastored the church for twenty-two years and she never expected to live the rest of her live in the remote islands, but its magic laid hold of them both. Bill had also been a fly fisherman, so outfitted with his waders, I was off to his favorite loch, Harray. The next couple of hours were magic for me. I was fishing in the shadows of one of the finest stone circles in all of Europe, the Ring of Brodgar. I caught another nice brown, this time of a dry fly, but I cannot adequately describe the setting. The sun came out and the sky was brilliant and as it was now 7 PM all the tourists had left the ring. So for about half an hour I had this marvellous Neolithic site to myself to wander through, touch the stones, wonder at the impetus for making this awe-inspiring place, and just feel humbled by the beauty of it all. As the Scots would say, BRILLIANT!

The next day Margot took me for a tour of the Cathedral and it is a remarkable building constructed of red and yellow sandstone quarried from the Orkneys. The church changed hands from Roman Catholic, to Episcopalian, to the Church of Scotland. While the Cants were there they celebrated the 850^th anniversary of the church’s beginnings and the King of Norway and the Queen of England were in attendance. Can you imagine what a logistical challenge that all must have presented for a local parish! We also visited a remarkable church called the Italian Chapel, built by Italian prisoners of war in WWII who turned two Quonset huts into a worship space dedicated to peace. Later that day I went to Maehowe, one of the best preserved cairn tombs in Europe, where the winter solstice sends a shaft of light down the long passageway. I also visited three other tombs that day along the road.

The next day I visited two more archaeological sites - the Broch of Gursey, and Skarae Brae. Both of these were settled in 3,100 BC and represent quite elaborate communities. It was fascinating to see how much the design of those spaces was like our modern homes - stone shelves, stone beds, fireplaces, and workshops. I assume they used some straw to make them more comfortable! Then I visited a small island that was only accessible at low tide and was able to spot a critter I had been longing to see close up – a puffin! They are small, with black and white bodies, and a large orange beak. It was poking around on the edge of a cliff and we warily coexisted for about five minutes before it scurried off! I caught the ferry back to the mainland and started down the east coast. It is less rugged, with lots of pasturelands sloping down to the sea, but still very beautiful. One could start to see the oil rigs of the North Sea materializing in the mist far off shore.

The next day was again cloudy, except for the two hour stretch when I went though the Cairngorms National Forest. This is the highest range in the UK, holding five of the six largest peaks. There was still snow on some of the peaks and I hiked around the summit area. I had to push on to get to Glasgow for an evening worship experience at the Gorbals parish in Glasgow. They were worshipping in the evening because the city was demolishing two high-rise tenement buildings less than two blocks from the church during their regular worship time. In the service, the pastor, Ian Galloway, sensitively explored how the landscape of that community had now changed and how could the church be a part of making sure that the change happening in the now gentrifying neighborhood were consistent with God’s will for all the people there. I was included in a gathering that evening of members and staff of the church and had lunch with Ian the next day. He is in the middle of a large initiative the Church of Scotland has initiated to prioritize the church’s presence in the poorest parts of the country. I’ll have lots more to share about that conversation upon my return.

I was them off to another Celtic renewal group, the Northumbria Community, just south of the Scottish border near the Holy Island of Landisfarne. They have produced a number of worship resources that we have used at La Mesa and they have a residential community that has many of the disciplines of monastic life, including the offices of prayer four times per day. Before the evening prayer I was able to visit Landisfane, which once again is only accessible when the tide is out. This was the place where St. Aiden, one of St. Columba’s colleagues based a monastery that was critical in bringing the faith to the people of northern England and southern Scotland. It is a lovely island and a place to which many people make pilgrimages.

The next day I headed up to the conference I first mentioned. It ends tomorrow and I am off for another week of adventure in the Highland and Hebrides Islands, before heading off to a weeklong retreat on Iona. The experiences are so rich, it is hard to capture them in brief essays, but I hope you can get a flavor of the people, places, and events I am enjoying. I have been grateful sitting in the seminar about the challenges facing the churches of Scotland to be a part of such a forward thinking community of faith as La Mesa, seeking to serve God and neighbor in such a committed way. I am starting to make the turn in my own mind home and am excited about what is on our horizon. I miss you all and hold you in my prayers.

Blessings, Trey