community

Revving Reverends and Remembering Revival

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Being a Wee Free from Lewis, I am much more at home in the 19th century. So, it was in this spirit I pointed my car towards Uig on Friday evening, bringing two Baptist friends along for ballast. Not fast enough for our minister, as it turns out, because he overtook me in the Valtos glen. Then again, he was preaching, and needed to get into his frock coat and pince-nez before 7pm. His mission was to preach in the glebe at Baile na Cille, the site of the spiritual revival of the 1820s.

When the Apostle of the North addressed the congregation there in 1827, he reckoned their number was more than 7000. On Friday night, we were not 150. In the world’s eyes, this is evidence only of decline, of the irrelevance of the Gospel for our age.

The world, as I am fast learning, does not understand the way that God works. Even His own people do not understand everything He does – but we do trust Him, with very good reason. Down through the ages, He has been consistently faithful, and consistently God. We do not have to second-guess Him the way we do people, because He is not fickle; He is unchanging.

The God who presided over the Apostle of the North’s communion service in 1827, was also present on Friday, as Rev.James MacIver preached in that same glebe, from Psalm 126.

But, the world says, your numbers are so diminished: is your God losing His grip on power?

Psalm 126 is, appropriately, a psalm of revival. God’s people, in Babylonian captivity, struggled to maintain their faith. It is indeed hard to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land. Even here in Lewis, still so blessed by the Gospel message, people have tried to unseat God. There are days when we lose heart.

I have read accounts of revival, over and over. Times when God’s spirit came down in power are writ large upon our folk histories. Christians cling to those tales, holding them close, poring over them. And we have all wept, remembering this Zion.

But something I heard in Baile na Cille glebe encouraged me , even before the service began: the corncrake. It is a sound so reminiscent of my childhood that one crake and I am back in my too-hot summer bedroom in Newmarket, trying to sleep while these exasperating birds scrape out their song. And then, for years after that, there was silence; the corncrake was gone because the grassland was no longer managed as it had been. There was no safe nesting-ground, so these shy birds simply did not come.

But suddenly, one late summer, I heard the craking again. They had returned after years of absence. The conditions were right once more and they, it seemed, had not forgotten their former nesting ground. One wonders whether they had found it hard to crake so blithely in other lands.

In the glebe at Baile na Cille, the echoing and unmistakeable call of the corncrake chimed so well with the preacher’s message. God may seem to be inactive, to be silent, to be deaf – but this is the same God who brought the Israelites home from exile, who revived the spiritual deadness of Lewis, and who brought that little knot of people together on Friday evening. We were there, like the psalmist said, to remember God’s goodness in past times, and to pray – believing – that He would bring that miracle again.

Revival seems like a miracle from another age. There is something beguiling in the stories of people so in love with their Saviour that they would walk any distance to hear of Him. And the tales of their fellowship – not polite gatherings around home baking, but the kind of attachment that saw them unable to bear parting from one another, no matter how late the hour.

But I also wonder at times if my own attraction to the idea of revival is not a kind of spiritual laziness. You know, ‘please, God, convert all these people and fill all these pews because I just want to see instant results’. Am I praying for revival because I think nothing is happening? And do I think nothing is happening because I am not tuned in to the right channel?

God is not a cheap side-show magician. I do not believe He will simply gift us revival, or the presence of the Holy Spirit in such power, unless we strive for it. And I don’t think He wants to play a numbers game with us. It cannot be all about filling empty churches, just to satisfy denominational targets. We have to be hungry for it.

As I sat on a hillock on Friday (early, of course), watching other worshippers arriving in twos and threes, I felt that sadness, knowing we would not be seven thousand. But I was looking at things the wrong way.

God revives us spiritually, whatever the environment, whatever the outward appearance, just as he always has – one sinful heart at a time.

So, we have to do what we did for the corncrake – create the right conditions for growth, believing that He will send the Holy Spirit.

Just because something seems to be threatened almost to the point of extinction does not mean we should lose hope. Not when that something depends entirely upon the God who has been faithful always, and will remain so to the end of the age.

Birds who Pray and Birds of Prey

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Etiquette in Lewis is not like it is anywhere else. One knows, almost instinctively, for example, not to bring up a person’s Balallan connections in polite company. And we don’t need a manual to dress appropriately (no wellies after Ness Gala Day), or which implement to use first when lifting the potatoes.

It is possible, as it turns out, to know all that and yet, still commit a great social taboo. I know, because I did it myself.

‘Will you speak at our fellowship in Kinloch?’ I was asked, an invitation which I happily accepted. But in the breathtaking arrogance of the lifelong Wee Free, I forgot to check which denomination . . . for there are two.

‘Two!’ I hear your exclaim in disbelief. Yes, well, I mean in Laxay. Obviously we have others throughout Lewis – we are Presbyterians after all.

Anyway, I discovered the daftness of my assumption in time and set off with friends for an evening service in the Kirk. Or so I thought.

In another colossal breach of island etiquette, we actually went to the Free Church next door. Such is our indoctrination, and our fear of the Session, that we thought we’d better, or risk censure on our return.

No, not really. In fact, the Church of Scotland notice board declared that they would be having a Gaelic service, and my pal is a monoglot, so . . .

Eventually, we did make it to the Aonadh fellowship. A lifetime of ribbing my mother about her ‘inferior’ CofS upbringing, of questioning the validity of her own and my father’s marriage (it having been Kirk-rendered) . . . all words I’d have to eat, along with some excellent pancakes. Because – and nobody tell the Session I said so – they were a lovely congregation. Aside from some native character flaw which makes them all turn up at the last minute for things, they are a warm, genuine and welcoming branch of God’s family.

I knew they would be. It’s not simply that one or two of them were known to me before, nor my natural Lochie bias, what with the Achmore genes, but something else altogether.

It was God’s timing, and His hand I could discern. My visit to ‘the Lake District’ of Lewis had been planned for a couple of weeks, and it was a standard, share-your-testimony kind of plan. But, I knew, a couple of days before that, whoever else might derive benefit from hearing me, one person really needed to hear that testimony again: myself.

I was running, if not quite on empty, very close to it. Physically, emotionally and even spiritually. End of term, end of tether.

There have been difficult conversations around differences of opinion with other Christians. Not everyone sees Grace on the Green as what we intended it to be: an open-air act of public worship, and a nod to the place Christianity has in our culture, all to glorify God. Nonetheless, I appreciate those who addressed their disquiet directly to me, and who did so privately, as Scripture prescribes. No difference of opinion between Christians should result in public displays of pique. And, I might venture, no one should assume they know the heart of another, nor the prayers that have gone out from that heart. God knows, and He deals accordingly.

It has been predictable, but dispiriting. On top of everything else, it gave me a quick flash of ‘why do I bother?’ which, after prayer, dissipated. The freedom I enjoy in Christ is not going to be bound up by anyone else’s idea of conscience. Otherwise, are we really free?

God had prepared the remedy for me last Sunday, however. It was not the good Laxay air, nor the copious amounts of baking, nor even the warmth of the lovely fellowship. No, it was my own testimony.

What is testimony, after all, but evidence – an eye-witness account – of God’s goodness to us? This same God who took my time of unspeakable sorrow and raised it up as immeasurable blessing. It is to Him I pray, to Him I commit every day of my life, and to Him I look for guidance. My faith is sure because of Him, not because of me. And so, I know in whom I have believed. That is more than sufficient for my peace of mind. Remembering His goodness to me reaffirmed that; I rest on Him, and He is enough.

The doubting – and sometimes unpleasantness- of others can shake your confidence. You can begin to question your own judgment and even your own motives. But whatever is anchored in Him is sure and unshakeable. Sometimes you need to remember that all over again.

As I left Kinloch, one of the congregation stood at the door of the church with me, and pointed out two birds of prey flying overhead. Hen harriers, he thought, and I marvelled how he could tell from that distance.

And then I realised that his confidence came from knowledge and a practiced eye. I think we Christians would also know each other better if we spent more time getting acquainted spiritually, and remembering our unity in Christ.

Even from this distance, we should all be able to discern His marks on our brothers and sisters, and them on us.

Community – We’re All In It Together

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North Tolsta is seriously lacking in celebrities and, so, they asked me to be the guest at this year’s school prize giving. My duties were to hand out certificates and trophies to the winners, and address all the children for five minutes or so, preferably without boring or frightening them – two things I struggle to avoid with most adults, let alone anyone smaller.

Co-dhiù, despite having been somewhat rudely referred to as ‘z-list’ by one of our councillors, I was still sensible of the honour bestowed upon me. I even had a few Princess Michael of Kent moments, placing medals around necks and handing over cups that were bigger than some of the worthy recipients.

I was also supposed to say something inspirational to the kids. Not really being that type, I decided instead to opt for saying something not too depressing. I’m sure you’ll agree that’s a more realistic goal for a gloomy Wee Free. After all, reared myself on a diet of loch an teine for heinous crimes like picking flowers on a Sunday, I have to be careful not to go too old school with my advice.

In the end, I went for something I feel strongly about – our community, and the need to put something back. It would be easy to forget the adage that it takes a village to raise a child, especially nowadays, when every man seems indeed to be an island. Children may not be as aware of the fact that they are part of something beyond themselves as once was the case, and it really doesn’t hurt to remind them.

Someone beat me to the punch, though, and far more effectively than my five-minute ramble ever could.

Willie Campbell and the school choir performed his lovely composition, ‘Innse Gall’, a tribute to the children’s island identity. It was so good to hear their young voices united in praise of home. There hasn’t been a lot of that lately. From where I’m standing, there seems to have been a storm of criticism, of complaining, of belittling. But precious little of the praise that is due.

Our home is beautiful. No controversy there. However, that isn’t really what I was trying to say to the kids, and I don’t think it was the message of Willie’s song either.

Personal achievement is a good thing, and much to be lauded when it is the fruit of hard work and dedication. No one makes the grade by themselves, though. Behind them are parents, families, teachers . . . a whole community, even. I have always relied upon the support of others, and have been peculiarly blessed by encouragers throughout my life. Sometimes these were teachers, sometimes family members, sometimes colleagues, sometimes friends. We all need that. It doesn’t matter how confident or ‘together’ a person seems to be, they will always benefit from a kind word, and to know that someone believes in them.

It works the other way too, however. Those of us who have benefitted from that kind of help have to be prepared to pay it back. Not out of obligation to those who have supported us, but out of a desire to please God, by whose grace we receive all that we have. The great encouragers of my life are all gifts from Him to me. And His placement of me in this unique and wonderful community, that also is His gift.

Community is a wonderful providence, bestowed in Eden when Adam was given a companion so that he would not be alone. We are meant to work together, and to do for one another, as well as for ourselves. But, there is one fatal flaw in all of us which makes it very difficult to act in this way. We can only do our best by others. How that is received is certainly not something we can control.

And you cannot legislate for opinion. You know, sometimes we will disagree about what is best for the place that we love. A few days before the prizegiving, that same community hall was the scene of some heated debate regarding proposed development for the village. Such plans are frequently controversial – but only because we leap to ascribe motive to others that would offend us if levelled at ourselves.

Years of active political campaigning has taught me the futility of this kind of attitude. I remember, as an eleven year old, my parents returning from a public hustings, and speaking of the hostile atmosphere and of verbal exchanges across the floor. Last week, I heard the same kind of thing again from my own family and neighbours, who had been at the meeting in Tolsta.

We can, all of us, get carried away by our love for the place that made us. It can make us strident, defensive, and even devious. But if we are truthfully going to teach these children what it is to love your community, and how rewarding it is to give something back, our example is going to have to be as good as our word.

In striving to make the place that we care for as good as it can be, are we really prepared to lose touch with the most important thing of all? By God’s grace, we live in an area of outstanding beauty, of unparalleled peace, and of almost total security. He put us all here to look after it, and to look out for one another. If we do it properly and with good conscience, we glorify Him.

That’s the example of community we need to be setting our young people. Nothing matters more.

 

 

 

Your Gender-fluid Granny

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There was some difficulty in ascertaining what species I was, the day my parents brought me home from the hospital. My brother – a mere 20 months old at the time – was held up to peer into the carrycot and hazarded three guesses. I was, he mused, either a bird, a kitten or a hen. In my defence, I must say that he had a limited vocabulary and life experience, and it was that, more than any weird fur or feather arrangement on display which led to this misapplication of ‘isean’ ‘piseag’ or ‘gog-gàg’.

And then, when I was a little older, my father seemed to be labouring under some misapprehension that I was a collie. He worked myself and my brother like a brace of sheepdogs, every time he wanted some of the woolly halfwits moved from one part of the croft to another. We always had an actual dog, but never one that was helpful in the usual ways one might expect. Seonaidh Mòr was adept at wearing hats and escaping; Tim was the king of intimidation and burying things, but neither canine cv had ‘working with sheep’ as a life-skill.

Finally, however, I settled on just being a girl or, as modern parlance would have it, ‘the gender I was assigned at birth’. It’s the use of ‘assigned’ that amuses here. Whose decision is it? I imagine the midwife approaching my mother and saying, ‘Well, Mrs MacLean, regardless of what biology seems to be suggesting, we’re making this one a boy, because we’re out of pink blankets for the moment’. To think the future course of my life may have depended upon the laundry efficiency at the Lewis Hospital . . .

Thankfully, however, there must have been a good supply of the apropriate colour of blankets, and I was, according to the hospital wristband, ‘Baby MacLean – Girl’. Born the day before my granny’s birthday, but arriving early, as is my wont, there was really nothing for it but to name me after her.

Naming children for their relatives is a practice that seems to have fallen into disuse, unless I have misread the situation and there actually are a whole lot of bodaich on the Taobh Siar called Dylan. There was a time, however, when it was de rigeur, and when a family dispute could well be sparked by parents’ failure to honour a sensitive relative in the naming of their child. Regardless, that is, of whether said child was of the same gender as the relative who expected this honour.

Yes, those of you who think we islanders so narrow in our outlook, and so unsophisticated in our response to contemporary issues, read this and consider: gender fluidity started in the Hebrides.

Amongst our older generation, it is not difficult to find legions of women named Angusina, Murdina, Duncanina, Kenina, Hughina, Willina . . . Each one of these is testament to two things: their parents’ commitment to family honour; and a complete lack of chauvinism. Some people will jokingly say that it’s tantamount to saying to your daughter, ‘we really wanted a boy’ but I think you have to look at it in its social and historical context.

The really important social custom being observed here was the preservation of traditional names, and the giving of due place to senior members of the family. It is not about gender at all really, and it is certainly not about the superiority of male over female.

There is something else as well. The number of firstborn girls who were named for male relatives testify to the fact that parents were well aware that this might be their only such blessing. My sister was named for our great-grandfather – my father’s seanair, and the only father figure he ever knew – because, I imagine, my parents sensibly accepted that there might be no siblings and, even if there were, there might be no boys. As it happened, two boys followed, but neither of them had the name ‘Donald’ bestowed upon him. That distinction belongs to my sister, Donna.

I used to think that it was only we islanders that had this obsession with genealogy, and with naming. But many other civilisations have the same interest. God, in His wisdom, placed our Saviour within a human lineage, so that even prophets like Isaiah knew that the Messiah would come through the house of David. The name of David remains linked inextricably with that of the Lord, giving Him that identity which was so necessary for our understanding of Him, and for Him to experience fully what it means to be human.

I think that there is a lesson for all of us in the fact that our Lord’s identity was not something that could be neatly summed up in one word. There were many facets to the only perfect man who ever lived, but that did not diminish Him one bit. And even we, who are made in His image – albeit now like a shattered looking-glass – are greater than the sum of our parts.

In my case, I am happy to be the gender I was assigned by my Creator. And I am happy to be nighean Mhurdanaidh Catrìona Dhòmhnaill Iain Ruaidh. Or banntrach Dhòmhnaill Chaluim Sheonaidh. Some people know me as Post Tenebras Lux, or the woman who taught their kids in Sunday School, or their Gaelic tutor, or that blone on the Trust. Catriona Murray, nee Maclean is a daughter, sister, auntie, friend, lecturer and widow.

But, in any and all of those things, I am who I am, what I am and where I am because God ordained it so. It is, like everything else He does, fixed and secure. And, contrary to what modern wisdom will tell you, this does not box you in – it liberates you in ways that doing as you please, and being who you think you are, never will.

Wee Frees & Defective Hunks

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’This hunk is defective’, the minister said, gesturing to one of the elders. Not wanting to agree too readily, I pretended not to have heard, and mumbled, ‘pardon?’ He sighed deeply, and repeated, ‘In hunc effectum – the meeting is in hunc effectum’. Really none the wiser, I nodded my acquiescence, but I’m sure he wasn’t fooled. After all, how would  a daft wee airhead like myself be as versed in Latin as those fellows who presumably use nothing else at their Session meetings? The point is, I am a mere woman and impossibilium nulla obligatio est.

We use language – jargon, even – according to the situation we are in at the time. My Stornoway Trust life involves talk of wayleaves and resumption, of decrofting and apportionment. And we never, ever approve anything; we just homologate.

I don’t mind admitting I had no idea what on Earth that meant the first time I saw it written.

In my job as a lecturer, I occupy a world of blended learning, of internal and external verification, of validation, of curriculum offer.

There was a day, I suppose, when I didn’t know what any of that was about either. I had come to it fresh and green from a world of grant monitoring reports, of capacity building, and of exit strategies.

Yet, none of this rich and varied vocabulary made much practical sense until I started to use it for myself.

Which brings me back to Wednesday night and the single-item meeting. Or, really, just before it.

Prior to convening our church communication committee, that ‘defective hunk’ of an elder had been part of my Bible study group. We were looking at the wisdom of James (the Biblical one, that is). And we were using a whole lot of words that I feel I’ve always been hearing: salvation, works, faith, justification. When Wee Frees like me were wee, we learned our Catechism, which was brim-full of vocabulary we didn’t understand.

Rote-learning filled our heads with words that were longer than ourselves. And, somewhere along the way I learned the TULIP acronym for five-point Calvinism. Oh, the hours of torture my wee brain has suffered over the years in trying to grasp unconditional election, and averting my eyes from my total depravity.

And then, when I grew older, I thought I could book-learn my way around these words. The Bible is God’s instruction manual for us, I reasoned, so I’d better try to figure out what He’s saying. I thought I could do it with a concordance and a few text books. When that didn’t work, I tried a course of study, hoping to unlock the mystery in the code wrapped around salvation. Surely a course accredited by no less an institution than the Free Church College would set me straight.

But no. All I was amassing for myself was so much head knowledge. I could read every single book ever written on salvation, and every treatise on grace, and never really understand their meaning. Oh, yes, I could have written you an essay. In fact, I recall one such, on the emotional life of Jesus. The brief was to demonstrate that He was indeed a human being with the full range of feelings that implies.

The fact that I wrote enough to pass actually shames me now. How could I calmly write of His joy and His pain, of the depths of His anguish on my behalf – and not be broken-hearted?

Simply, because I had not really learned these two words: atonement and salvation. I knew what they meant, yes; but not yet what they meant to me. And I thank the Lord every day that He, and only He, opened my eyes.

Powerfully, though, as we read what James has to say, I thought of those who have not yet accepted His definition of salvation. The letter runs:

’Even the demons believe – and shudder’.

I know what it is to have a cerebral knowledge of God, to be acquainted with His vocabulary, but not to have Him. Satan knows more of the divine attributes than many who profess to love God. He could, I’m sure, deliver a powerful lecture on justification, and not mean a word of it.

In the lexicon of faith, there is only one word that Christ Himself would place before us,exactly as He did to Jairus: ‘believe’.

He came into the world, taking our humanity – out emotional range – to Himself, in order that He might suffer in our place, wholly and substitutionally.

But we don’t have to define substitution; we merely have to accept it. And the reason for that?

It’s because Christ’s appointment at Calvary was most assuredly in hunc effectum.

 

What did Gaelic ever do for you?

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A sardonic gentleman of my acquaintance recently dismissed the phrase, ‘saoghal na Gàidhlig’ as making it sound like we live in Brigadoon.

Brigadoon was, of course, the eponymous village in a Hollywood musical, which emerged from the Scottish mist for one day every hundred years. And that, coincidentally, is about the frequency with which the Gàidhealtachd attracts the attention of the media, or the government, or the two-bit celebrity out for cheap publicity.

The filmic village was protected by the local minister’s prayer. By those terms, Brigadoon went on in peace and harmony, as long as its people kept within its boundaries, and it remained mostly unseen.

Sound familiar?

We are good, though, for a few column inches from lazy journalists. Or, no, let’s call them what they are: racist journalists.

I have seen all the counter-arguments made by my fellow Gaelic speakers. They will quote statistics, they will use scientific evidence for the cognitive benefits of bilingualism, they will even travel through history to prove to a few bigots that Gaelic WAS spoken outside of the modern-day Gàidhealtachd.

And that’s all great. It really is. Make those arguments if you have the appetite for them.

But, here’s the thing, I don’t see why I have to justify my identity to anyone, least of all a tabloid journalist, or a Lowland politician.

In a world where you can identify as a teapot, or a dog basket, or a Taiwanese figure-skater, why is my honest to goodness Gaelicness still a problem? And, more importantly, why is it allowed to be a problem?

Why are people permitted to say and write the things that they do about Gaelic?

I read a comment on social media recently, where it was suggested that the racist abuse levelled at Gaels does not signify because snide comments don’t cause a language to die.

No, but they can make people ashamed, which causes a culture, a way of life, to die – and that’s what Gaelic is to me. It is not simply a language and it certainly isn’t a cash cow, or a political football either.

It is long days in the potatoes with my parents. And it is the laughter of older folk, sharing that unique humour that only makes sense if you’ve grown up with it. Gaelic is knowing words like ‘tobhta’, not because I am seeking linguistic richness, but because, in my world, there only was one tobhta. Gaelic is the taigh fhaire chairs from the village hall, piled up at someone’s door like the sorrows that they represented, or the blessings they counted.

For me, Gaelic was long, tedious sermons in the homely setting of the Seminary and understanding the spiritual significance of ‘dà cheann-latha’. It was the kindness of the old folk – that particular keen-eyed concern. And it’s handshakes, more warmly expressed in Gaelic as ‘breith air làimh’ – ‘grasping hands’.

That, for reasons of clarity, I should add, is not grasping as in mean, as in looking for money. It is grasping as in hanging on for dear life to the things that matter.

Language, however, doesn’t matter to me at all. I don’t want Gaelic if what’s on offer is a sterile thing in a test tube: a synthetic language without a cultural context; a wild animal placed in a zoo because we have let its habitat be destroyed.

But don’t mistake me. I am not talking about Gaelic as a thing of the past – I am talking about it as something that formed me. Like my parents, my family, my home, I carry it with me. It is who I am; it is my very self.

When I worked as a development officer in Ness, I spent a lot of time applying for funding. It would have been much easier to obtain if more of the Nisich had been Welsh, or lesbian, or . . . well, just not so . . . Niseach. They were just boring old White British – no extra cash for that. But then, I thought, no, they ARE part of a minority ethnic group, and so the heck am I. Repeatedly, then,the National Lottery received forms from me with ‘Other’ ticked and, under ‘Details’: ‘crofters and speakers of Scottish Gaelic’.

That’s who we are. It is what we are. Why should we apologise? We have been doing that for centuries.

It’s time to clear the taigh-fhaire chairs from the door, and build up the walls of the tobhta. Restore. Revive.

We are an indigenous people, still occupying our ancestral lands. Despite clearance and emigration, despite famine and despite concerted policies to eradicate our way of life, we remain.

Gaelic in Edinburgh and Glasgow is all very laudable, but I tend to think of the proverb which says the bird sings sweetest where it was born.

This was never just about language. And working hard to save the language is rather missing the point, if there survives no place on earth where it is woven into the hearts of the people.

Gaelic is my father and my mother, and it is my home. When people denigrate the language, and deride our way of life, that’s what they strike at.

And all the shame is theirs.

 

 

 

The Trust, the Well and the Council Clock

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‘You may lead a Lewisman with a hair, but you won’t drag him with a cable’. Thus spoke Lord Leverhulme, the proprietor of the island in 1920. A mere two years into his tenure, he had already seen enough of the people to know that they were versed in the art of subtlety, as well as masters at being thrawn.

I’ve always been interested in this hard-headed northern businessman. He thought he knew what was best for the crofters of this island – and perhaps he did, in economic terms – but he also reckoned without the strong attachment the Hebridean feels to his land.

It is hugely to his credit that he was willing to gift the very terrain that caused such dispute, back to the people who had opposed him. I wonder how a successful entrepreneur managed to set aside ego to this extent; his financial worries notwithstanding, it was a magnanimous gesture.

Attending meetings of the Stornoway Trust, which manages the estate of the same name, I frequently look upon his portrait, which hangs on the boardroom wall. I think he would find the plans and projects, the obstacles and objections strangely familiar. And I imagine him rubbing his hands with relish, and getting stuck in, bluff wee northerner that he was.

The Trust is guardian of his legacy, yes – but his intention in gifting the land to the community was that the community should run it, not Leverhulme’s way, but the Lewis way.

Just last week, I took a tour of the Castle policies with the man who is responsible for the day to day management of the estate. He definitely has a name, but is known to everyone simply as ‘the Factor’. With him, I got a palpable sense of the way that history is a living thing for us in Lewis. Conversation flowed seamlessly  around which was Lady Matheson’s favourite picnic spot, to a Second World War bunker, to the Millennium Forest project, to a prehistoric chambered cairn, to the Castle School, to Mac an t-Srònaich, to speed bumps, to Lord Leverhulme e fhèin.

I think we generally have an easy relationship with our past. Modern kit houses sit on the site of, or even alongside early white houses and, sometimes, the tobhta of the family blackhouse. We incorporate patronymics into our identity, so we are part of a line which stretches back through history. And the different names we go by – our forefathers’ – inhabit and shape history at different times.

My maternal seanair helped build the iron water well, a landmark in the Castle Grounds. It commemorates a sensitive individual who used to moor his yacht in Stornoway for the peace and quiet. How very strange that he should be memorialised here in that way, and that generations of Lewis children should know the name of the reclusive Robert Alfred Colby Cubbin.

Whatever the plaque says, though, for me it is a monument to Alex Hearach, my grandfather.

Following the Lewis way means guarding our identity. It involves maintaining a relationship with the past in order to move forward. The more I contemplate our close connection with history here in the island, therefore,  the more fiercely I am determined to see all of our heritage protected.

We cannot say ‘yes’ to Lady Matheson, or Mac an t-Srònaich, and ‘no thanks’ to our Christian legacy. There is something incomplete in our understanding of Stornoway’s history if we believe that it includes Lord Leverhulme, but excludes Rev Kenneth MacRae; if we embrace Latha na Dròbh but, frankly, find òrduighean Steòrnabhaigh a bit of an embarrassment.

You cannot separate our civic and religious past, you see. Literally, sometimes. When the Town Hall was razed to the ground in 1918, the clock was lost and folk had no way to tell the time, unless they visited Sime’s shop on Church Street. So, the Town Council came up with an ingenious plan – they erected a public clock on Kenneth Street Free Church.

The building belonged to the Free Church, and the clock to the Council, but the time that moved its hands, that belongs to God. We so seldom look beyond what is right in front of us; we accept the face that history presents, and we do not question.

But we should. I have always thought of that graceful stone monument in the Castle Grounds, built in part by Alex Hearach, as the iron water well. Walking there last week, though, something that now seems rather obvious was casually alluded to: the actual well is some feet away, anonymously supplying the man-made structure with pure, clean water.

That, I think, is as good a metaphor as any I’ve found for what Christianity has been to the history of this place. It is always there, feeding us living water, and giving real meaning to all the events that we foolishly believe are authored by ourselves. While we are busily cleaning up and repointing the facade, the water continues to spring forth and give us life.

We need have no fear that particular well will ever run dry. But equally, it’s important that no one should ever be permitted to stop its mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Electronic Mission Field

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During a recent gathering in our church hall, the minister asked how many of his congregation were regular users of social media. Quite a few hands went in the air, despite the fear that he may be about to chastise us for wantonly dabbling in a century other than the one to which we belong (the 19th, according to many sources).

It was more unsettling than that, because he just looked mildly interested, and sat back. No shouting, no threatening – okay, he didn’t have a pulpit handy to thump, but really – and no accusatory pointing.

In still greater nonconformity to the stereotype, he was asking this question in the context of a wider discussion about Christianity and media: traditional and social. These have been a growing consideration since the 20th century came to the rest of Scotland and even occassionally lapped at the shores of backward, wee Lewis. Of course, with the advent of radio, and then television, the implications for the church have been catastrophic.

Last week, I challenged an assertion by the Scottish secularists, that it had been the norm for ministers in Lewis to regularly peer through windows, to ensure that people weren’t watching anything mì-chàilear on television. Nonsense – one minister on his own would never have been able to handle the workload – obviously there must have been a crack team of elders supporting him in these endeavours.

No intelligence was offered on what happened in the event that the entertainment being indulged in did breach Presbyterian etiquette. Did the outraged minister burst in and switch the set off? That would certainly have been more impressive and dignified prior to the remote control: imagine the interloper having to first rummage around under the sofa cushions, before he could eventually zap the offending signal.

It must have been an enormous relief to these overworked killjoys when the dear old Beeb closed down with God Save the Queen at midnight.

Now, though, media is 24/7. The recent discussion in our church hall was an acknowledgment of the challenges this poses to Christians. It is a minefield for young – and not so young – people. Satan lurks where we sometimes least expect, and the newer technology has provided him with a host of opportunities for trouble.

We hear about cyber-crime, and the dark web. And every parent should be aware of the threat posed by that laptop, or tablet with which their child spends so much time alone. What are they looking at? Who are they talking to? Are your family safe in their own home, or are you harbouring – unaware – a stranger who means you harm?

Of course we have to be mindful of the dangers. The internet is both an extension and a mirror of this sinful world. There is real evil to be found there, as there is here.

But also real potential for good.

I have heard prayers that people would spend less time on social media and more attending the means of grace. While I completely understand the sentiment, and the intention, I’m afraid it’s an unhelpful approach. Attendance at the means of grace should, without question, take precedence. We all must begin by ensuring our own spiritual lives are healthy before going elsewhere; but there has to be a Christian presence online as well.

Why must there? Well, obedience to the Great Commission – ‘go, therefore, into all the world’. The apostles had to wear out shoe leather doing that, but we can fulfil at least part of the command at the touch of a button.

On Friday, I was able to testify to Christ’s work in my life to a Highland-wide audience, using only my mobile phone. I sat in an empty classroom at work, and shared in prayers and witnessing with people I have never met. We could see each other, and speak like friends.

During the recent Trust election, I maintained a smidgen of sanity because of my WhatsApp support group. We anchored our daily discussion in the Word, and in worship music, and we had virtual – yet very real – human fellowship.

Videos of our church services go online now. A Gaelic sermon, preached to a congregation of perhaps seventy people, will be heard by five hundred more. And they feel connected to it because they can see the preacher and the precentor, as well as hear their words.

Aren’t these valid uses of technology?

Stornoway Free Church has never just been confined to the building on Kenneth Street. It has always been missional, sending people out into the field at home and abroad. Cambodia. Moldova. Uganda. Leaders go off to camp several times a year. And on our own doorstep, Campaigners, Sunday Schools, Christianity Explored – reaching out to the lost.

Now, though, mission has a new dimension. Make no mistake, it has its own difficulties. Christians will be pilloried and despised online as they are in the world; people will ignore your message on the internet, just as they do in person. Those who do not set foot on the threshold of a real Church are unlikely to click on your website link, or Facebook page just because it’s there.

But online mission is important, and I believe we have to get better at it. The people are there, and so many of them are lost.

Instead of praying that Christians would avoid social media, shouldn’t we be encouraging them to bring their witness to it? God does not send His soldiers into battle unequipped and, if we place our faith in Him, He will make us equal to this task also.

I can testify to the fact that technology is not bad, or wrong if, like anything else, we deploy it in His wisdom and not our own. Let’s encourage the world to look through our window, and let’s show them nothing but Christ.

Rumour, Lies and My Religious Privilege

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Many years ago, news swept through Lewis that a particular local minister had passed away suddenly. Fishermen preparing to set out for sea kept their boats tied-up in the harbour out of respect. A solemn air descended over the surrounding districts in response to the loss of such a well-liked figure.

Except he hadn’t actually died. He was very much alive, and in robust health. Not only that, but he was pretty annoyed about the rumour, and made every effort to locate the source. This was finally traced to a bus driver and, so, the next time the good reverend had occassion to use the service, he confronted the gentleman in question.

‘What do you mean by telling people I was dead?’ the minister demanded.

‘Well, the last time you were on this bus, you told me that if you were spared, you would be waiting for me at the crossroads on Friday morning. And, when I drove by, you weren’t at the stop. I know a minister would never lie, so I naturally assumed you had passed away’.

Ministers were minor celebrities. Walk into any home in the island – especially where there was a cailleach – and the sideboard would almost certainly have at least one framed photograph of the local reverend in pride of place. I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that they were the Kardashians of their time but, had Lewis had its own version of ‘Hello’ magazine, manse families would certainly have featured prominently. Hard though it may be to believe now, there would indeed have been an appetite for a six-page colour spread on which wallpaper the Stornoway minister’s wife had chosen for the dining room.

Times have changed. The churchgoing population of Lewis – as we are constantly reminded – has fallen from where it was. It is still a national envy-inducing 44%, but that represents a minority nonetheless. We are aware of that position, and reminded of it repeatedly by another – even smaller – minority: militant atheists.

Supposing a mischief-making bus driver wished to circulate a rumour about a man of the cloth nowadays, chances are he would be met with blank stares and ‘who?’ from his audience. These manse-dwellers have slipped in the social rankings because they are seen as representing something irrelevant to the majority of the island population.

I don’t like the label ‘last stronghold of the pure Gospel’ being applied to Lewis (or anywhere) because it is either Pharisaic, or sarcastic in its application. Besides, the stronghold of the Gospel is not actually a place; it is a Person.

Regardless, we have been a peculiarly privileged people in our spiritual heritage. That much is undeniable. It should not be viewed as a a source of pride, though; rather as a solemn responsibility. Luke 12: 48 reminds us of that fact – because we have been showered with blessings as a community, we surely should be paying it forward.

Statistically-speaking, although there are fewer of us with a ‘live church connection’ here in Lewis, there is one reason for evangelical optimism: the mission field is growing all the time. The net figures suggest that there is a trend towards in-migration to the Long Island. That is, somewhere in the region of 100 – 200 new people arriving among us each year.

These people come – according to research carried out in 2007 – largely for lifestyle reasons; drawn to the peace and safety of Lewis. It remains a stronghold in that sense at least.

We want to welcome them in with open arms, and we want them to settle here, so that they will love it as much as the natives do. And one of our priorities has got to be addressing the lie that Lewis somehow suffers because of undue influence from the church. That is an untruth which has gone unchallenged for far too long. It does not come from people who move to Lewis but is, I fear, an unwanted resident of long-standing.

Some born and brought up here, privileged as I was to be surrounded by Christian witness and teaching, have not yet been awakened to their own need of that truth. They have, for whatever reason, opted to reject it. Not content, however, with pushing it away from themselves, they are trying their utmost to dash that cup from the lips of others. I don’t mean me, or other practising Christians either, because once you are secure in the Saviour’’s hand, no amount of angry Facebook trolling by atheists can unseat you.

No, they are trying to stop the message of the Gospel from reaching those who need it most – the unsaved. They are a stumbling-block to their own children, and even to many who move to this community and misguidedly believe the lie that the church is a suffocating, dictatorial influence.

We have, as a Christian community, been quiet for far too long on this matter. Gradually and without apology, we are being discriminated against for our faith. Schools quietly ditch decades-old practices like morning prayers and grace before meals on the say-so of one or two atheist parents; but will not reinstate it at the insistence of many more Christian families.

After hearing, last night, from a South Sudanese pastor, of how his people suffer and die for their Christian faith, I hesitate to call what is happening here persecution. It is, for now anyway, discrimination. But the insidious creep of hatred often starts small.

I have lately been told by various vocal individuals that, in holding elected office, I have no right to act according to my ‘religious interest’.

What is my religious interest? If I believe that I am already saved – and I do – what am I striving to hold onto?  Nothing this world offers, I can promise you that. My interest is in becoming more like Christ, and doing what He wants of me; He wants me to be more like Him, and to have a heart for the unsaved.

Praying for those who hate Christianity, and witnessing to them about the power and love of Jesus Christ – that is my religious privilege. Which man has the power over a conscience committed to God?

 

Giving Up Sarcasm for Life

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Many years ago, my father was in his local shop, where several neighbours were also gathered, buying their messages. A well-known local lady, noted for her considerable girth, walked past the window, but did not come in. Not a word was spoken as they all followed her progress past the shop, beyond which was nothing but a dead-end.

‘Where on earth is she going?’ one customer asked. The nonplussed silence of the others was finally broken by the shopkeeper:

‘Unless she’s going down to the bridge to turn’.

Nowadays, this might be misconstrued as all kinds of things: sexism, body-shaming, nosiness . . . Actually, it was of its time and of its place – an indication of how community was really an extension of family. These people knew one another. Gentle mockery and robust banter were all part and parcel of village life. The rules were implicit and understood by everyone at an almost instinctive level.

Our island has evolved over the years since then, of course. That kind of exchange would no longer be possible for many reasons, not least the fact that it originally took place in Gaelic. There is also a new seriousness, a carefulness, to people’s interactions. We have become more guarded in our dealings, one with another.

I see this online quite frequently. Not long ago, I witnessed someone being told off for being unpleasant when, what he had actually been was mildly ironic. We are lovers of irony in Lewis – dry wit that puts people in their place. You can get away with that when you are self-deprecating too; when you are equally willing to aim the barbs at yourself. It is all part of the code.

Interestingly, this obsession with political correctness and equality has not created more kindness, however – quite the contrary: it has brought a nastier, harder edge into our exchanges. We are trying to manage human relationships by legislation, and sometimes tying ourselves in knots in the process.

It is sometimes difficult for me, as a Christian, to see where I should fit into this new regime. The situation is complicated by the fact that I am a Gaelic-speaker, and an afficionado of the old way of dealing with folk – show them you care by laughing at them. Well, not at them, exactly; near them, maybe. I can identify with the seanair of a slightly older friend of mine who, having stepped into the breach when her father died, used to greet her brothers with a cuff around the head. Whoever sat nearest the door would receive this treatment; once, it was her new boyfriend from the South.

I get that bodach’s thinking. My slaps are usually verbal, but they are generally a sign of my affection – nothing else. People get that. Or, at least, I hope they do. Sarcastic I may be, but I would hate to hurt anyone’s feelings.

It used to be a major consideration for me: how, if I became a Christian, could I stop being this way? And, one day, I was in church and the message echoed my very concerns. Be wary, the minister said, of starting to build the tower without first being certain that you have the tools to finish the job. I don’t remember the context – I only remember the way I felt. He had verified my self-doubt, validated the sense of unreadiness in myself.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming him. Preachers are not responsible for the way individuals in the èisteachd might be feeling at any given moment, which is just as well. They are not meant to be in the business of pandering to feelings or petted lips, but to laying the truth before us.

No, the point is that I recall that sermon – probably inaccurately – as being a caveat against rashly jumping into Christianity. Don’t start unless you’re sure you will see it through. And, part of my smorgasbord of excuses for holding back was, of course, my quick tongue. How could I even think of following Christ when the first thing I would probably do thereafter is let His cause down by saying the wrong thing?

As it turned out, though, saying things has been very much what He had in store for me. He has turned my . . . well, let’s be generous, and call it outspokeness, on its head. It was not necessary for me to work on ridding myself of sarcasm, or that wry Leòdhasach view on the ridiculous, because God had a use for it.

And it was never going to be up to me to change anyway because, for one thing, I couldn’t do it on my own. I understand that now. He hones you, chips away the rough edges and works at refining any impurities away. Yet, He does not change the essentials of who you are. If you rely on Him as your guide, and ask Him to govern your tongue – and, in my case, keyboard – then He will.

Viewed through the lens of prejudice and hatred, the world will always magnify your flaws. God, though, views you through the filter of the cross, where these flaws are made whole.

Don’t hold back from giving your life to Him as I did because you think yourself imperfect or inadequate. You are both those things, as am I, but the material point is that He is sufficient.

He may even use those very imperfections in His own service.