23 July 2024

Because the Reformers scrapped the feast days associated with the saints, the King took his court away from Scotland to London and the Kirk Session associated community celebrations with licentious behaviour, Scotland lost many opportunities to play. Fortunately, some have been  recovered.

In parishes where I preach, we have had the Kirking of the Sea Queen at Cellardyke, the Crail Festival is being celebrated at this very moment  and the Lammas Fair will be evident  in St. Andrews next month when it takes over Market Street. It’s  one of the last vestiges of medieval life!

These communal events offer as many opportunities for the Kirk  as imagination, energy and faith allow. For they are celebrations of our community of which the kirk is as vital a part as the King riding down the Mall with a crown upon his head pointing to something much bigger than Parliament itself.

In the village of Forth, the Miners’ Gala attracted thousands and many families who  had moved elsewhere came back for the day. Houses were decorated and children were celebrated. The first thing the Queen of the Heather did was to lay a wreath at the War Memorial. The living and the dead were all one.

As children we packed buses with streamers, picnic pokes, communal songs and footballs, bean bags and hessian sacks for the Sunday School or, in my ministry, the Church Picnic. When I left Logie Kirk, one child wrote a letter containing a lasting memory of such a playful event. It  was entitled, ‘My best time in Church’ and revealed what he thought of my sportsmanship!

‘The races were great but the adults’ one was brilliant and my dad was cheating and you were too. You were holding each other back because you were trying to win. I think it was the running race and the sack race. Though you won, I think my dad deserved to win one!’ And then he added in playful fashion ‘NOT!’

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