Flipping the bird at island ways

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When you live in the Western Isles, there is a fairly repetitive tendency in the news cycle. It goes: ferries – cost of living – crofting issues – Sunday opening – wind farms – ferries . . . You get the picture. In the last few months, however, we have had a new one: the men of Ness, and their participation in a centuries-old tradition, the annual guga hunt.

Conservationists are, to put it mildly, a complication to indigenous communities. Just ask the Miwok, who were expelled from Yosemite so that white experts could conserve the ecosystem. And don’t think that this is just an historical problem, because you will still find green activists who love every life form except the human. Not for them the edict of Genesis 1, where God placed man at the head of his new creation – not to impose on it, or to abuse it, but to have stewardship of the place in which he lived.

Even if you reject God, you can still see the common sense in this. You cannot manage the environment from outside; the best people to care for it are those who live in it.

And that is why the campaign has been so reprehensible. It has not been against the practice – which I could accept – but against the practitioners. It has been a colonial-style vilification of an entire community, where racist slurs on their morality and intelligence abounded. These ad hominem attacks should have discredited the campaign, even if their public dress-up antics did not. Any right-thinking decision maker would take one look at the situation and take a step back. 

There are two considerations here, as I see it: the wellbeing of the bird colony on Sulasgeir, and the right of the Nisich to perpetuate a tradition which has long formed part of their identity. While I bow to NatureScot’s superior knowledge on the former, I question their fitness to adjudicate upon the latter. One can only hope that they will take advice. It is too much to ask, I suppose, that they do the unthinkable and consult local knowledge.

UNESCO has quite a bit to say about this kind of thing, incidentally. It supports the continuation of these kinds of traditional practices, because it understands them in the context of indigenous people having a unique perspective on their homeland. They have, in fact, what modern parlance would term an ‘integrated’ view of how their homeland should be managed. This encompasses language, land use, heritage and culture.

Which brings me to another of this week’s items of local discussion: crofting. My fellow ‘Gazette’ columnist, Iain Stephen Morrison has written about the decline of crofting, and cites the relationship with the Crofting Commission as not always helpful to the development of crofting. As a result, he says, crofting is on the slide.

External interference, external neglect – the outcome is the same for the people who have to live with the consequences. No one is asking the islanders how best to fix these problems, because, like it or not, there is still a white saviour mentality when it comes to the Teuchs. We can put on suits and mince off to quango meetings on the mainland (if Loganair permits), but I think we should be very aware that the power is not remotely in our hands. There are nine directors on the NatureScot board, of which a nice, round number (zero) are islanders. The Crofting Commission has one, and an obligation that at least one Commissioner should be Gaelic-speaking. One out of nine.

It reminds me of the episode of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’, when arguments against female civil servants were being rehearsed. Perhaps, like Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Scottish civil servants are afraid that islanders on boards might ‘blub’ if put to the test. 

Are we the victims of paternalism? Perhaps there is a degree of that, but I actually believe it’s more akin to colonialism. As the disgusting social media campaign waged against the Guga hunters, and Nisich in general, demonstrates, there is a hatred of what is ‘other’ to outsiders. They despise us for having a strong identity, and a relationship with the landscape in which we have been placed. 

Imagine if this kind of conduct was being perpetrated against Native Americans, or Australian Aboriginals. Even taking the vile campaign out of the equation, would we not be appalled to see indigenous peoples robbed of the right to control their own destinies, their own heritage, their own land?

So why do we think it’s good enough for ourselves?

God is love, but don’t take it from me

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They say that more people are turning to God since the world began to ramp up its uncertainty. I hope that’s true. He is certainly talked about more on social media platforms now than at any time I can remember. Of course, though, that also means placing his name where some people can throw rocks at it – and they do.

I can completely understand why an unbeliever would say that they cannot reconcile belief in God with the maelstrom that seems to be breaking loose around us every day. Many live in perpetual war zones, their homes torn apart by conflict not of their making. There are countless displaced people, just existing as best they can. And, even besides the theatre of warfare, there are quietly terrifying dramas played out in every corner of the Earth. Families sit by the hospital beds of sick children; unwanted diagnoses are issued to men and women who still have life they want to go on living; and healthy people face the torture of watching those they love suffer.

I fully understand that this seems contrary to the idea of a benign power who loves us, regardless of what we are. And I don’t have the words to tell anyone that they are wrong. Who am I, who is any Christian, to take that task on? 

All I would say is this: get to know him yourself. Don’t take anyone else’s word for who God is; but please don’t dismiss him because you’re in pain. If you want to confront him with the reality of your suffering and ask him where his love is in that . . . do it.

I have done it. In the searing, raw moments of my grief at losing a beloved husband so young, I cried to God. It seemed hollow to me to sit in church and hear that I am the apple of his eye, that my name is written upon his palms, only to return home to a house empty of the man I always believed that same God had joined me to. In these hard, lonely hours, I was like Naomi, asking to be called Mara in my self-pity.

These comfortless seasons sometimes lasted for days, but not days and days. I can’t give anyone the formula for restoration to trusting God, because I don’t think there is one in these circumstances. You have to simply sit with him, and show him your heart – but, in return, you have to listen while he reveals his. Every time I have accused him in my bitterness, he answers me as soon as I open my ears to what I already know.

God is love. We think we invented it, but we only claimed it as our own, remaking an inferior version as best we could in our own image. And human love can be beautiful, whether it is between parent and child, between a man and a woman, between siblings or friends – even the love we can have for our pets. It has inspired countless poems, songs, novels, films, paintings, opera . . . and yet that kind of love, however attractive, is a pale imitation of the original.

God loves us because God is love. We question this because we really only know the fickle, human brand of love, which is rarely as unconditional as we would like. In our blinkered state, we judge the quality of God’s love by what we think we are due, and what we want.

His perfect love doesn’t always give us what we want. I didn’t want my husband to die, but he did. That wasn’t cruelty on the part of God because he is incapable of cruelty. It is sometimes a difficult pill to swallow for me, but in an enduring way, I know that this is part of a greater plan. Hard though this can be, it is made possible because I know God, and to know him is to trust him implicitly. Even if that trust sometimes falters into recrimination when I feel a stab of pain at my loss, in the end I always remember who God is.

God is love. We cannot understand that through any means but being with him. I cannot make you feel it, and vice-versa, no matter how many words we waste. No minister or priest can convince you of God’s love; no lecturer or textbook can QED you into believing it in your heart.

Only God’s heart can do that through a direct connection with yours. I can tell you so much about the reason for the hope that is in me, but why take my word for it?

We love only because he first loved us. That still wasn’t enough for mankind, but then God so loved the world that he gave his only son that we would not die, but have everlasting life.

He so loved the world, so loves you, that he inflicted terrible suffering, even death, upon himself. 

Our names are not merely written on his palms, but carved into them. He endured hell for our sakes, out of love. When we know this, our own sorrows are a little easier to bear.  

What’s love got to do with it?

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Just when I thought I was safe from our former minister’s pesky challenges, up he popped on Sunday, reminding us to love one another. Why couldn’t he just go off to Marbella like other retired Brits, and stop unsettling people leis an dol a-mach seo? I tried writing some of it down in the hopes that it would exorcise the persistent voice that whispered, ‘do YOU love the brethren, Catriona Murray’?

I will freely admit to all of you, because the only one whose opinion matters already knows, that this is a particular issue of mine.  Funnily enough, though, it would be an even greater difficulty if the command was to like my brothers and sisters. That’s a subjective thing, you see, based on whether you find people interesting, appealing, pleasant to be around. And not one of us can say that we like everyone we meet; nor would everyone say that they liked us. 

But something I have eventually learned is that when the Bible talks of love, it is referring to something much bigger, and much less whim-based. In a way, it’s a bit like the joy you find in Christ – that doesn’t diminish depending on your circumstances; in fact, I have found that it grows, often in proportion to how hard those are. You find joy regardless of what else is going on in your life.

Well, the love that God speaks of is surely similar to that. I think we have to love one another even if we are not always likeable. We love because he first loved us. He didn’t wait until we were perfect, or even good; he simply loved us, because his love is not subjective and does not – mercifully – depend on our degree of lovability.

On Monday, the devotional app that I use had a really timely study that spoke to an issue I have discussed here previously. While my particular problem related to a professing Christian, this study talked in wider terms about how we should respond to those who wrong us. Of course, the human instinct is retaliation – but that would be to ape the world, and we have a different, a perfect, example to follow. Christ is not only love, but he is truth, and he allowed himself to be crucified without uttering one word of reproach to his betrayers.

What did he say? ‘Father, forgive them’, and sometimes I think that’s the only prayer we need in the circumstances of which I speak. If the person, or people, who try your patience are unbelievers and persecuting you for your faith, pray for them. I don’t pretend that this comes easily, but it is possible.

‘What’, you ask, ‘even in your resentful and sarcastic heart’? Yes, well, I’ve adopted a strategy. Like I said, subterfuge is pointless with God, and he can spot an insincere prayer a mile off. ‘Oh’, I can hear you say, ‘so now you’re a paragon of sincerity’! No. I offer my inadequate prayers to God, and ask him to bless my enemies according to his mercy, and not mine. That way, it doesn’t matter so much what I may feel about them, because I am not the author of their fate.

I’ve had quite a lot of practice with this and have found that nothing takes the sting out of your dislike the way that asking God’s blessing on your enemy will.

That’s enemies, though. What about the brothers (and sisters)?

Well, last time I wrote a post, it was about this very thing. A man, professing faith in Christ, but openly practising hatred for me was causing some consternation. Aside from the variety of wise and Biblical advice you all gave me, I also received the inevitable enquiries as to his identity. Some people guessed correctly which is, I think, a comment in itself. I concealed his identity in the first place, not because I am particularly merciful, but because the blog was never about him. 

All any of us can control is our own behaviour, and our own response to these kinds of challenges. A person with anger management issues so bad that the mere sound of someone else’s voice throws them into a rage is really an object of pity. But after meditating on the matter for a time, I was brought to the verse, 1 John 4:20, ‘ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar’. It is a grave consideration because it implies that either his profession is false, or mine is. 

His, or mine? Well, I can’t answer that, nor can he, nor can you. And perhaps that uncertainty should be our gift to one another. There is, after all, nothing more dangerous than the conviction that your salvation is sure, if it is not. Such a person is possibly more lost than the loudest atheist.

And so, the best thing that we can do – any of us – is to try to make our calling and election sure. I can think of worse places to start than by praying for the brothers, and for those who have done us wrong. Yes, it’s mighty hard, but the power of prayer is in the one who hears, not the one who speaks.

Trimming the wick or putting out the light?

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At ten years old, I began to learn about the history of my people. It was the centenary year of the Crofting Act, and a collaboration between the newly-minted Lanntair, and the same-age-as-myself Comhairle brought about something that neither one could have done on its own: it gave young islanders the dignity of acquaintance with the value of their own culture. Thanks to the vision of these two important organisations, we were being equipped with a vital piece of understanding: though we had always been fighting to make our voices heard, that did not diminish the value of what we had to say.

Forty years on, and the news is dispiriting. A council budget, squeezed beyond endurance, is having to be pared back at the point of delivery. It is difficult, when fundamental care packages are threatened, when bus services are removed, to make an argument for the Comhairle spending money on something that is all too often written off as ‘frivolous’.

You have to be wary, however, of arguments along those lines. I don’t think we should have to choose between decent care packages for the elderly, and arts and culture for all. Somebody who works in an arts centre, or a library, or in drama, does work that is life-enhancing. No, it is not essential for keeping body and soul together – but it does enrich those souls, and surely that is something worth fighting for. Ultimately, if the Comhairle cuts the Lanntair’s funding, will there be more home care hours available? Will there be more frequent bin collections, a better bus service, fewer potholes and –  luxury of luxuries – pavements that aren’t just painted on?

No: the answer is ‘no’. This is not a moral decision between buying food for the kids and going to the bookies with your last tenner – this is further evidence that these islands do not have a voice. Our council doesn’t get enough income. And why doesn’t it? Well, I’ll let you in on a secret that I first learnt at the age of ten . . . no one on the outside cares about us.

They think we’re inferior, and they regard us as a nuisance. Ever since Willie Ross described the Highlander as being on every Scot’s conscience, there’s been a vague sense of annoyance that what had been going on for centuries – the denigration of the Gael – wasn’t quite as socially acceptable as it had been in dear old Butcher Cumberland’s day. No, that pesky HIDB, just by existing, gave people the notion that maybe the Highlanders, and their even more remote counterparts, out in the islands, actually required some attention. Lip service, though, nothing more.

‘Chucking buns across the fence’, is how one writer described public policy in the Gàidhealtachd since the establishment of the HIDB, which I tend to agree with. Only, for quite a while now, the buns have been getting smaller, staler and partially-eaten before they ever land on this side of the rylock.

We are still, depressingly, at the whim of the outsider. Every aspect of our lives – our economy, our transportation, our arts, our language and culture, our land use, our health care – is governed by a quango, usually underpinned by some appallingly outdated slate of legislation, thrown together in a foreign parliament. If we ask for island representation on these boards, we are accused of racism, of not wanting people who know what is best for us, even if they do live hundreds of miles away and can’t pronounce Bunabhainneadar.

As a consequence, we have developed the mentality of the colonised. We sit by the fence, waiting for the substandard buns. When fewer of those arrive, and we protest feebly, we are told that the bakery can’t subsidise our indolence forever, that the cupboard is bare, and we will have to reorganise our priorities.

Culture is always the first thing to be attacked. How far back into our history do you want to reach? The end of the Lordship of the Isles in 1493 – the last time we had local government in the islands until the London Parliament graciously gave us back a tame version of it in 1975? Or the Statutes of Iona in 1609, when clan chiefs were forced, by the monarch, to agree to educate their sons in English? Or the Battle of Culloden in 1746? Or the Clearances? Or the Highland Famine? Or the Metagama?

They were all disastrous in their own way. The only outside attack we came through thriving was the Viking invasion – because at least they had the honesty to wield axes and scream bloody murder. Every other attack on our way of life has come in the same insidious guise: helping and civilising, while quietly dismantling and destabilising. 

Our culture – who we are and how we live – is our foundation, and no one knows it, or values it, but ourselves. The Scottish Parliament doesn’t care whether the Comhairle has enough money to keep its doors open, far less the doors of an arts centre. But we have to care.

I have stood on the stage in An Lanntair’s auditorium a few times. Once, it was at UHI’s research conference; another time, it was to mark the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, and several time, it has been to talk about different aspects of our Gaelic heritage. Through good times and bad, it has been a platform for all kinds of expressions of island life, whether through music, drama, or film.

I owe the beginning of my own cultural education to a partnership between An Lanntair and the Comhairle, and I want to have faith that outside neglect will not be the means of pulling down that edifice. But if it isn’t going to, some real leadership has to come from within. 

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Seven times seventy?

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It has been quite a while since I last posted a blog, but one of my aspirations for 2026 is to pick up the pen a little more often. For those of you who have stuck with me, thank you; for those who were hoping I’d finally shut up, sorry . . .

I have often written that I believe our providences are not just for us. Yes, we are the ones who will enjoy, endure, or survive them – but if we are willing to talk about how God has helped us through, then I believe our experiences can help others without them having to necessarily go through the same waters.

It’s tempting when you blog about faith to present a uniformly positive picture. Indeed, I remember being criticised (by an atheist, so it didn’t hurt because I don’t really believe in them) for having such a slant to my writing. Presumably he wanted angst and pain, and fruitless weeping; that would be edgier. But I was trying to encourage people, and I was pretty astounded – still am, frankly – that in the very worst losses and pains of my life, God was more than sufficient. Others have a right to know that too.

Now, though, I have hit a persistent bump in my spiritual road. I have thought about it, prayed about it and still, I have no clarity. So, I’m going back to basics and I’m going to try working it through with pen and paper – and I’m taking you along with me.

So, here is the problem. I have a lot of experience of facing the enemy, of being embittered and almost defeated by him – but, leaning on God’s strength and wisdom, prevailing. Even a young Christian will tell you about the whole armour of God, and I can testify to its efficacy. But what has flummoxed me is this: how do I deal with a professing Christian who hates me?

It’s weird, but as I started to write the previous paragraph, a text dropped into my mind – one I’d completely forgotten about while worrying over this issue. Matthew 18:21-22 speaks about forgiving a brother who has offended us ‘seventy times seven’, and this, I freely admit, I have failed to do. This ‘brother’ is wilfully and deliberately nasty and disrespectful, and all too often, I bite back, or allow my anger towards him to take hold of me.

I am in the wrong as much as him. No, he shouldn’t allow this poisonous tendency to have free rein, but that’s very much his problem. That he creates dissent and discord wherever he goes is a poor testimony for a Christian, but that is not mine to control. Believe me, I have toyed with the idea of tackling the issue head-on and asking him what he has against me in particular. This, though, would be a fruitless exercise because the truth is, I believe, that he doesn’t know the answer. Or, at least, he would never admit to himself what the reasons are.

Ultimately, we have to accept that we cannot control how others behave – but we are responsible for our own reactions to them. Ball is in my court on this one.

So, some audience participation is required here: what would you do? How would you deal with the circumstance? His hatred isn’t rational; I would tell you if I’d done anything to him. That being the case, then, how do I set about forgiving him so that his toxicity doesn’t cause me to poison my own soul?

I know part of the answer. Every day this happens, I must take it to God. And, of course, I must be mindful of how much I have, and am, being forgiven. There is a whopping great plank in my own eye, I know.

In practice, though, when this man speaks to me through gritted teeth, or uses deliberately derogatory language about me in the presence of others, I struggle to ‘go high when he goes low’. I am human and, sometimes vulnerable. His behaviour angers me, yes, but sometimes it is hurtful too. So much so that I have been seriously considering removing myself from any circumstance where our paths would have to cross. To do that, I would have to let others down. However, if I never saw him again, this problem would go away and I would be protecting myself.

This feels like a huge test. I’ve had vile anonymous messages in the past, I’ve been vilified on social media and even had my grief mocked by strangers in a public forum. Ultimately, it didn’t matter because I could genuinely say, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’ – but how do I get there when the attacker professes Christ himself?

Out of the depths, o Lord

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The news that Charlie Kirk had been shot, and the subsequent update that the injury was fatal, cast a gloom over much of the western world on Wednesday night. Like many, I prayed that he would survive, but it was not to be.

So, did the God in whom he so unswervingly believed fail Charlie? That is what the crowing mobs – and, sickeningly, yes, there are such people – would tell you. They are always there, in every disappointment, every terminal diagnosis, every loss, every bereavement, jabbing their fingers and asking, ‘where is your God now’?

He is closer to the broken hearted than any atheist would believe. Indeed, closer than any Christian who has not yet been broken can comprehend. The late Queen, quoting indirectly from Dr Colin Murray Parkes, famously said that ‘grief is the price we pay for love , but I would add – from my own experience, no less – that God’s comfort is the dividend of faith. I have no doubt that the believing family and friends of Charlie Kirk are experiencing that God, and that comfort more viscerally now than ever in their lives before.

‘Pain’, said CS Lewis, ‘is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world’, and so maybe this personal, human tragedy for Charlie’s family should be regarded as a wake-up call to the rest of us. The political responses have been predictable: hunt down the person responsible and deal with him as punitively as the law allows; suppress the far left: in short, meet violence and lack of understanding with more violence and lack of understanding.

This is not the way. Any hopelessness that I feel in the face of this tragedy does not stem from a questioning of God, but of the depressingly unchanging way in which people are responding. Yes, it may be possible to locate the gunman . . . and then what? Does dealing with what may be an act of unwarranted inhumanity from someone ideologically opposed to Charlie Kirk end the problem? Of course it does not. The world’s way, as we are seeing daily, is to meet brutality with brutality. We talk more than ever before about understanding, about kindness, and about walking a mile in the other guy’s shoes – but I don’t think this world has ever contained less comprehension of love than it does at this moment.

There is, of course, a way through; there is always a way through if we are prepared to humble ourselves. Therein lies the rub, however. We have made gods of ourselves, of our desires, of our feelings. Nothing must be allowed to hurt me, or even contradict me. If you doubt my word, or dare to pose a counterargument, you are not merely disagreeing, but hating. In their populist stupidity, successive governments have tried to legislate for petted lips, for offended sensibilities, and now stand amidst the wreckage, wondering who to blame.

Blame us, then, the creatures who have tried in vain to usurp our Creator. We did this. Our relentless pursuit of power and glory has wreaked interminable havoc. Ultimately, we tried to run this world on a rogue operating system, having tried every which way to disable the pre-installed software. And we have catastrophically failed.

That, atheists, is why people die in pointless wars and human conflict, and why every day is peppered with innumerable acts of cruelty and depravity, inflicted on one set of human beings by another. It is the reason why, no matter how well-intentioned we think we are, nothing goes to plan. And when – if – the person whose bullet killed Charlie Kirk is found, we still won’t be satisfied. Don’t look for justice in a world that no longer recognises truth, that no longer cares whether a person or an act is good or evil, as long as it aligns with their own world view. We, each of us, think of ourselves as the plumbline for everything: does it sit true against my ideology? No? Ah well, it must be wrong.

This is no nihilistic assessment of world affairs. It is a call, not to arms, but to peace. I was so moved by the words of Pope Leo (yes, Proddies, him again) earlier in the week in describing the role of tears in situations such as this one. Weeping is not a sign of weakness, but of strength; Christ cried out on the cross to his Father, and that type of anguished plea can be understood, the Pontiff said, ‘as an extreme form of prayer’.

Sometimes, love has no other outlet than to shed tears. I think we have now reached that point as a world. Cry, then, from the depth of your hearts, to the God of all comfort, because he understand us – better, even, I think – without words. 

Popes, Presbyterians and Piety

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I have long been a connoisseur of quality bodaich and despite my upbringing and cultural leanings, it was somewhat inevitable that I should add the new Pope to my collection. It’s stretching the definition a little to include a sprightly fellow in his late sixties, particularly when it had been considered that his ‘youth’ might work against him in the conclave. Nonetheless, I’m counting him in.
Now, what is it, you may well ask, that appeals to a Leòdhasach of Calvinist leanings about the head of the Roman Catholic church? Please don’t write in, but here it is: his faith. I mean, yes, he’s photogenic and highly entertaining with his high-fiving, pizza-scoffing, baseball-signing ways. Nuns squeal with delight in his presence, and he has been gifted a truly sensational number of hats and cuddly toys, signalling a general acceptance that he is a cutie pie of the squishiest kind. And yes, I am well aware that this is not quite how the Westminster Confession of Faith refers to him.
But, here’s the crux. If we are Christians, ultimately we are only concerned with one thing: the increase of the Kingdom. Aren’t we? Doctrine has its place, of course, but when you see people who profess Christianity – Protestant or Catholic – wielding points of doctrine and even of liturgy and tradition as a means to gatekeep salvation . . . well, I am reminded of the good sense of God that he didn’t leave it in our hands.
I mean, I have thought for years what a shame it is on us that an island like Lewis hosts so many different (but not) denominations. You can’t get an onion-skin page of your Bible between any two of them in matters of doctrine and confession, but they have put supreme effort into locating even one difference that mandates them to sit in a separate, three-quarters empty building. Never mind that we do not have enough preachers, never mind that increasingly elderly congregations are burdened with heating and lighting churches across the island when we could probably all fit into one or two.
And if our hearts were fixed upon the love and joy of the Lord, that’s exactly what would happen. We’ve all read the revivalist accounts, where people couldn’t bear to be parted from one another, so continued praising God into the wee hours.
Now, we not only put up walls, but we form whole new denominations to show just how wrong those others are. Not us, obviously. We all think we’re worshipping the right way. It started off with eschewing the bells, smells and statues of the Catholic Church. And since then we have divided and subdivided so many times that we’ve now resorted to separating over what kinds of songs are sung in praise of God.
Chan ann san aon àite a tha an olc. This is not just a Calvinist thing. Since finding myself on the RC side of social media (this happens when you follow the Pope’s every move like a fangirl) I have read an awful lot of self-righteous nonsense from Catholics too – only the priest should hold his palms upwards when praying, the Eucharist should be placed directly on the tongue and not into the hands . . . Mo chreach, with all the petty bickering about the correct way to worship, I’m inclined to think that we have more in common than we might care to admit.
Which is my point here. There is one Redeemer, and he is the one route to Heaven. When he comes back to claim his church, I don’t think he’s going to sift us by denomination. Call me bold, but I don’t even think he’s going to ask us which songs we used to praise him, how we held our hands, and if we used beads, prayer cards, or candles. Faithful women who went hatless are probably not going to be counted less than hard-hearted ones who covered their heads.
Unless I have been on a very misleading path all this time, it is not about any of the trappings. God gave us something that is, yes, undoubtedly, mysterious, and in many ways beyond our comprehension. But, more importantly, he gave us something so simple that a child can understand it; indeed, he said that WE must become like children to receive it. Not by squabbling over ritual, and certainly not by telling each other we’re damned because of the way we stand, or kneel, or wear our hair.
No, we must receive his free gift as he offers it. Complicating it is a sin because it may act as a stumbling block to someone else. What is wrong with us when we tell others that they cannot be saved because they have a statue of Mary, or because they allow musical instruments in their churches? Shouldn’t we be saying, ‘never mind HOW you worship, as long as your worship is of him, and for him’? Why aren’t we hungry and desperate to share our loaves and fishes with a multitude?
Yesterday, I watched Pope Leo preside over Mass with a group of people, described in the Vatican briefing as ‘the poor’. The Pontiff urged us to make no difference in our hearts, or in our dealings, between those who minister to people in need, and the needy themselves. Each, he said, meets Christ in the other.
Perhaps I am naïve. There’s a good chance this blog will be taken as further evidence that women are silly about doctrine and definitely shouldn’t have a voice in their churches. Nonetheless, in a world that is buffeted by the enemy, I think we should focus more on being Christlike – as the Pope has modelled throughout his life – saying little, but being and doing what we ought, witnessing effectively in faith. I prefer the white martyrdom of Leo XIV to the whited sepulchres that would damn us all on a technicality.

I’m not religious, but . . .

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If the recent discussion of Tesco’s proposed Sunday opening in Lewis is anything to go by, people are pretty selfish. It’s basically been a rehash of Lanntairgate and that perennial favourite, Swimmingpoolgate. Even the arguments are versions of the usual thing: ‘we need to be like everywhere else’ and, in the case of the sports centre, ‘we need to be like Uist’. Smaoinich. It’s on us the two days have come when we can aspire no higher than that as Leòdhasaich.

Now, it’s already been established that the mighty supermarket is a business and, as such, couldn’t really give a stuff what we islanders think. Though they don’t exactly have a monopoly, they also know that we don’t exactly have a lot of choice when it comes to buying the messages. Therefore, Tesco can do what it likes.

Tesco can change the character of the Lewis Sunday without so much as a by-your-leave. Keep that in mind for a moment.

Now take a look at the pitched battle on social media between the pro and anti-opening lobbies. On the pro side, you will see one refrain repeated often: move with the times. Ah yes, the times. The times we live in, which we have every reason to be proud of – the times in which wars are fought over land, the times in which little children die, fleeing their despotic countries, the times in which politicians lie and defraud us. The same times – closer to home – in which old ladies are terrorised by kids who should be at home, in bed; in which respect seems to have died the same death as shame; and in which parents abdicate responsibility for the feral conduct of their offspring. Mmm hmm, those times sure are worth living up to.

The counter-argument and, as far as some of us are concerned, the clinching one, is that Christ said the very opposite. And, even if you’re not a believer, his teaching is worth paying heed to on this. He told his followers not to be conformed to the world. In other words, he exhorted them to keep to the path of truth and right. If he was here at this moment, I am pretty sure he would be reminding us of something important: the Sabbath was made for man, not the other way round. 

What does that mean? Well, it means that the day of rest was created for the benefit of all humanity – not just professing Christians. So, think on that, if you’re one of the ‘you do you’ brigade. And perhaps also consider this from a different perspective to your opinion on whether or not YOU want the supermarket to open on Sundays. Think of the staff whose families will have to make the sacrifice so that you and I have the option of maybe, occasionally, if the need arises, perhaps, nipping to Tesco once in a blue moon if we want.

Is it really worth it? Are we so utterly sure of our own judgement that we are happy to end a particular way of life simply because a corporate giant wishes it. In fact, if their local manager’s statement is anything to go by, this is being proposed because Tesco is too tight to build a bigger store with more parking. The idea, the demand, has not come from the customers. Yet, we are content to allow a company which offers a cut-rate service to alter the very character of our community.

That’s what this comes down to. And the ‘what about visitors’ defence is an extension of the ludicrous way our islands are being run. Where else would you have business interests trampling so blatantly over the local culture with no one to defend it amongst our local leadership? It’s staggering to me that some islanders and island residents are content to let this just be imposed by commercial concerns.

But, then, I’m often fairly shocked by what islanders are willing to permit.

Like many commentators on social media, I’m not religious either. Religion is often the enemy of Christianity and of common sense. It is not religiosity that makes me wish to see the Lewis Sabbath unaltered, but my personal experience that its rest is a godsend. For me, that is a literal thing. However, whether you believe it was ordained by the Lord, or not, the benefit derived from a universal day free from the obligations of commerce is undeniable.

People, community, culture are more important than trade or mere convenience. But once those precious things are altered, they cannot be put back the way they were.

“Free trolley image“/ CC0 1.0

A Birthday Tribute

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Today, had things gone to plan, I would be celebrating my husband’s sixtieth birthday with him. When I say ‘plan’, I mean ours, not the eternal one. And it has, at times, been a bitter pill to swallow that this isn’t a mistake, or an aberration of some kind – this is precisely what was meant to be. Donnie was meant to die five months short of his fifty-second birthday, and I was meant to be a widow at thirty nine.

I accepted this because, well, I accept the sovereignty of God. And, most of the time, I accepted his wisdom and his goodness. Yet, I am human and sometimes it was hard not to dwell on what I had lost, and on what Donnie would miss out on by dying so young. One of the hardest things was a school photo of his that surfaced on social media, shortly after he died – seeing him as a cute, wee boy with all his life ahead of him . . . it was almost unbearably poignant.

I used to comfort myself with the idea that the grief would get easier, which it does, mostly. What I didn’t know was that it would still wash over me in waves that sometimes feel, even now, like they might utterly engulf. It made a friend laugh recently when I told her that, after he died, I used to wish it was five years in the future so that things would be easier, better . . .

That would be 2020, then, year of Covid. I think Donnie himself would laugh at my unfortunate wishful timing.

On what would have been his sixtieth birthday, therefore, I simply want to pay tribute to a quietly wonderful man. He would never have allowed it had he been here, but there’s no one to stop me singing his praises now.

He proposed to me while wearing a Santa suit – fittingly, as being his wife was without doubt the greatest gift he could have given me. The proposal was cemented initially with a locket he’d bought me because he’d lost his nerve in Ernest Jones after going in to buy a ring. ‘I don’t know what an engagement ring looks like’, he said, as though the whole thing would have been a thorough mystery to the jeweller as well.

Usually he didn’t balk at buying me presents other men might consider embarrassing. I think the ring was different because it symbolised something so important. Donnie understood what mattered, and to him, at thirty nine, this was a big step. The day we went to the manse to discuss the service he was nearly delirious with nerves. Somehow, I think he had it in his head that the minister would catechise him or something. These nerves carried on right up to the big day itself, when only a stern ‘don’t you dare’ from his big sister stopped him from being sick!

It’s funny to think back on how he reacted to these small pressures because, when the ultimate test of his mettle came, we all saw the man he was, and none more than me. He faced his initial diagnosis matter-of-factly, endured treatment with stoicism, and looked upon the end of his life with total reconciliation. If he shed a tear he never did so in my presence, and all his worries were for me – would I be financially secure, would I be taken care of. When I told him that I would be alright, that I would not give way to despair, he seemed surprised at the very idea that I might.

His faith, you see, was far ahead of mine. He was only concerned with practical things, things that he could do for me – things he felt he SHOULD do for me, even at the end. The rest, well, he knew he was leaving that in safe hands.

How often I have imagined his wry comments and mischievous smile over the last eight years. He would have had much to say about world events and local politics. A mild-mannered fellow most of the time, he would have erupted into protective fury at some of the situations I have found myself in – but, then, most of these wouldn’t have happened in the first place had he been here. From almost the first moment we were together he made me feel safe, cared for, and like the most precious object in the world. I was first in everything, the apple of his eye.

Of the few regrets I harbour, one is the fact that many special people who have come into my life since then never knew him. He would have loved them as I do, I’m sure. In moments of weakness, I regret that he will never again insist on running me a bath, or pouring me a glass of wine because I’ve had a hard day. Donnie was the sort of man who filled my life with small kindnesses – flowers from the supermarket, my favourite chocolate, compliments and, though I can scarcely remember why, frequent expressions of gratitude.

Known in his own family as ‘Dòmhnall Beag’, and sometimes just ‘Beag’, I never knew a man of greater moral stature. He genuinely never put anyone ahead of himself, and his first instinct in every time of trouble was to ask what he could do. His bravery, for a man of any size, was titanic.

After he died, I read the diary he’d been keeping in his last months. It was entirely filled with reflections of gratitude and love, just as his life had been. He broke me with this entry, however: ‘I hope Catriona meets someone who will be good to her. She deserved so much more than this’.

The thing is, a Dhòmhnaill, you set the bar impossibly high; I don’t believe there could be more than we had. And though there are days I wish God’s plan had aligned a little more closely with ours, I can hardly be surprised at his haste to bring you home.

Whenever I’m cast down by the way his plan unfolded, or am tempted to question providence, I look at all he has given me, and it is well, it is well with my soul.

Of cemeteries and the death of respect

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There are two things we used to do well in these islands – death and respect. I remember being at a funeral many years ago and, returning to my car afterwards, passing the local primary school. It was lunchtime, the children were in the playground, and they were absolutely silent. The janitor had seen to it that they were aware of what was happening and how they should behave.

A playground filled with children can behave better, it seems, than the adults frequenting Luskentyre.

Then again, it isn’t entirely the fault of tourists. They are bombarded with images of empty beaches, of empty roads, and the likes of Calmac irresponsibly using words like ‘playground’ to describe a place that is actually a living, working community. That is, a community in the true sense of the word, filled with people whose roots go generations deep, and whose ancestors are buried in the sandy soil of places like Luskentyre and Dalmore.

Unfortunately, these cemeteries, where, respectively,  my grandfather’s people are interred, and where my own father is buried, are adjacent to beaches that people want to visit. This means car parking – and the mundane reality of funerals or mourners visiting graves must not interfere with the Instagram plans of the tourist. Signs reminding folk that some spaces are for cemetery-users only are blithely disregarded. All inconvenient truths go the same way. And the justified backlash from islanders has – unbelievably – met with a mixed reception.

It’s all about respect, you see, and that’s a rare commodity these days. So many (and I don’t say all) visitors display a sense of entitlement that leaves no room for consideration of the fact that this is home to some of us. I have seen the same sort of thing in my own community, where a simple request to respect the cemetery road was not met with the expected, ‘oh, gosh, I’m sorry it’ll never happen again’, but a quite sensational display of me-before-you-ness. Rights trump right for people like these – and I’m afraid the only proper response is to curtail them until the lesson is learned. You cannot appeal to their better nature, nor yet shame them, apparently, and so the only remedy is to put physical barriers in their way.

Not only do I think that cemetery carparks should be kept for cemetery visitors, but I think a message needs to go out about other expressions of respect. Perhaps think about not drying your clothes on the cemetery fence, not tethering your tent to the cemetery wall, and not conducting raucous gatherings within earshot of visiting mourners.

These things are much harder to police because, well, if adults need to be told that this sort of thing is wrong, I feel they may be beyond the reach of improvement.

If you are a visitor, or newcomer to the island, and you’re reading this, I have a wee tip for you: follow what the islanders do. I mean this especially in relation to funerals and cemeteries in this instance, but it’s not a bad watchword for island living in general. We islanders love our home, and we respect it – we have never felt ownership or entitlement because, as any islander will tell you, we belong to it, not the other way around.

The Luskentyre campaign is more important than some seem to realise, not least – apparently – our elected representatives. This is a test case to see whether our councillors and other local leaders are actually prepared to put community first. I hope they too remember a time when this basic level of respect didn’t have to be asked for; I hope they’re not expecting us to beg them to enforce it. 

The Luskentyre campaign is being led by women, and they are still waiting for the support of their council, which is still run by men. I make no comment on what that says about local leadership because you can see that for yourselves.