1 July 2025 The film, ‘The Mission’, is all about the missionary endeavours of the Jesuits in seventeenth century Latin America. Rodrigo is a slave-trader who kills his brother. Through the ministry of the Jesuit priest, Father Gabrielle, he becomes a Christian. In order to repent his evil past, he decides to carry a heavy burden on his back whilst making the arduous journey to the mission-station. It’s a long and dangerous journey up a precipitous cliff! Watching his suffering is unbearable and, at one point, one of the priests angrily looses Rodrigo’s burden and throws it down the hill. Without saying a word, Rodrigo retrieves his burden and continues the journey. Later on, the Jesuits meet some of the tribesmen and one of them instantly recognises the slave-trader! With knife in hand, he approaches Rodrigo to threaten him, to wreck revenge, to kill? In the film, there is a pregnant pause which is broken by the tribesman’s reaction. He looks at the slave-trader sufferin...
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30 June 2025 Margery Williams wrote a delightful book entitled, ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’. In it, the Rabbit asks a question about reality. ‘What is real?’ asks the Rabbit. ‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out-handle?’ The Skin Horse reassures the Rabbit that, ‘Real isn’t how you are made. It’s the thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’ The Rabbit asks if it hurts and, of course, it does sometimes. He wonders, ‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up or bit by bit?’ The Skin Horse tells the Rabbit that it doesn’t happen all at once, ‘You become. It takes a long time.’ The Skin Horse tells the Rabbit that it doesn’t happen to people ‘who break easily of have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept’. He goes on, ‘ Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get l...
29 June 2025 Because numbers and resources have diminished dramatically within the Kirk, we have been encouraged to look beyond the confines of our own parishes. We have begun to consider our neighbours not as rivals but as partners with whom we can work and worship to the greater glory of God and his world. In the North Fife Cluster where I am the Facilitator, we have established a series of four rotational services across three charges. The first was held in Balmerino in March. When I visited one of the other Kirk Sessions, the elders told me about the strength of the singing and how well everyone mixed at the hospitality. In October, we are going to add to this pattern by having a joint cluster service which will include all the charges in the whole cluster. We are focusing on the 350 th anniversary of the Scottish Psalter and calling this event, ‘A Festival of Psalms’. As interim-moderator at Pittenweem, I have been involved ...
28 June 2025 For some time now, I have been on the rota of preachers at Crail Parish Church. The congregation on a Sunday numbers around thirty to forty people. So, it was quite an experience to attend the kirk yesterday to hear a song recital as part of the East Neuk Festival. The kirk was almost full with people squeezed into all the central pews and most of the pews in the side aisles. As chance would have it, I was stuck behind a pillar but I heard everything and saw most of the stationary action in the chancel. Mark Padmore was the tenor and Joseph Middleton, the pianist. They were performing the Schubert Song Cycle, ‘Wintereisse’. The winter in the cycle is to be found in the heart broken by love. ‘The girl spoke of love/ Her mother even of marriage’. But not now. The desolation is reflected in the darkness of a winter’s night and a lonely journey across ice and snow. The weathervane mocks him. The Linden Tree recalls happier days. The Postman has no letter t...
27 June 2025 We have students living in houses on either side of us. Recently, the tenancies changed hands I met one household over the garden wall but I went to see the other. I spoke to one of the students. He was studying Arabic which must be one of the most important subjects especially if you also study international relations. Although we sometimes refer to the period of history from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the turn of the first millennium the ‘Dark Ages’, it isn’t true that darkness fell upon the whole world. Scholarship thrived not least amongst Arabic speaking Muslims. In the fourth century BC, Euclid produced his ‘Elements’. This is his famous thirteen volume book of geometry which in one form or another constituted the mathematics curriculum in the United Kingdom right up until the 1960s. Euclid wrote his ‘Elements’ in Greek. During the ascendancy of Islam, lots of Greek texts were translated into Arabic. Difficult though it is to believe...
26 June 2025 When Norway was invaded by the Nazis during the Second World War, the King moved to the United Kingdom. Armed forces personnel made their escape and joined the allies. A section of the Royal Norwegian Air Force arrived at Woodhaven, Wormit and flew catalinas. They were very well received by the local community who made great efforts to make them feel at home. King Haakon came to Woodhaven in 1944 to encourage what became known as the 333 Squadron. Whilst in Woodhaven, he planted two laburnum trees. In 1975, a stone was put up between the laburnums to mark this occasion. Yesterday, the stone was rededicated. The relationship between 333 Squadron and the people of Woodhaven has been nurtured over the past eighty years not least by the Wormit Boating Club. Speeches were made by a Colonel in the Royal Norwegian Air Force and a representative of the Wormit Boating Club. Because there is no parish minister, I was invited to lead the dedication service. It was a glo...
25 June 2025 Jesus seeks refreshment. He has made a detour into Samaria and arrives at Jacob’s well. A Samaritan woman has come with her water jar to collect water. Jesus is thirsty. ‘I thirst.’ are words spoken not only at the well but on the cross. They reveal Christ’s vulnerable humanity. His encounter with the woman has a natural origin but it breaks many boundaries – talking to a woman. engaging with a Samaritan, conversing with a woman who has not only had five husbands but is living with one now who is not a husband at all. This marvellous piece of writing reveals a great deal about ministry. It celebrates the ministry of women. St. John writes, ‘Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.’ She exercised a brilliant ministry, witnessing effectively to Christ. But it wasn’t her ministry which was of ultimate significance. In the end, they say to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe …’ Of cou...
24 June 2025 We read one of Thomas Hardy’s favourite passages on Sunday. It was the Old Testament lection in the Revised Common Lectionary incorporated into our Common Order. It was all about Elijah’s depression and, in particular, the voice of God which is not heard in wind, earthquake or fire but in ‘a still small voice’. In the 1662 Prayer Book, this lection is set for what is called ‘The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity’ which usually falls in the month of August. Hardy’s poem about it finds its context in a Cornwall church where his brother-in-law was vicar. It is called, ‘Quid Hic Agis’ and refers to God’s word to Elijah, ‘What doest thou here?’ Whilst the tale of Elijah is being read, the young Hardy finds himself looking for the smile of a girl ‘across the sunned aisle’ and reflecting that this tale does not ‘in any degree/ Bear on her or on me’. In youth, he doesn’t make any connection between himself and the depressed Elijah. In the second verse, the vicar has aske...
23 June 2025 When I was minister at Logie Kirk, I inherited a parish which was favoured by travelling people. They came there for funerals and other religious ordinances and always took a collection for the kirk when they were there. Among their number, I got to know the Bastable family who owned the dodgems. They had an only child, Valerie. Unbeknown to her parents, Valerie got her HGV licence so that she could take over the driving from her dad. But this was never to be. She died suddenly in her early thirties. As you can imagine, her parents were devastated. A long time after, they came back to ask if they could put a stained glass window into the kirk in memory of Valerie. We chose the ‘Parable of the Good Samaritan’. It resonated with travelling people and embraced the eternal truth about the power of human kindness to heal the wounds of division. Valerie loved the snow. She died in February and I remember it snowed at her burial in the kirkyard. So John Bly...
22 June 2025 Sometimes our disappointment is transformed when we see what has happened in a wider context or when we are humble enough to acknowledge the unreality of our expectations. But there are times when our disappointment isn’t so easily explained and our feelings aren’t so readily healed. On these occasions, we are inclined to trap ourselves in the past by struggling to understand why our expectations weren’t fulfilled. The more we think about what might have happened, the worse we begin to feel and the greater our disappointment. In these situations, we must look out for God’s messengers and listen to the whisperings of his Holy Spirit. He will help us to detach ourselves from our disappointing past by giving us something to live for in the future. I remember once being disappointed and unable to understand why my expectations weren’t fulfilled. On that occasion, I was becoming trapped in the past. During this time, I read a little book by Rabbi Kushner wh...
21 June 2025 The trouble with destiny is the choice, God’s choice. He chose the Jews and not the Scots to be his people. He chose Jesus and not Caesar to be his Son. He chose water and not milk to be the element whereby our entry into the church is effected. He chose this one to sing beautifully and that one to run fast! But why didn’t he choose me? I’m sure we’ve asked that question before when an opportunity eludes us or a person’s success threatens us. Of course, there’s no peace in this question. If it’s God’s choice, we can do nothing about it. Moses’ sister was one of the first to discover this. The girl who stood at a distance on the banks of the Nile and secured her brother’s nurture, grew up to become the first prophetess in the Bible. Her wisdom is evident on the banks of the Nile and her leadership was celebrated on the banks of the Red Sea. Sad to say, the tambourine leadership of the women was not enough. Miriam became jealous of her brother. ‘Has the Lord sp...
20 June 2025 Our son and daughter-in-law came for a meal last week. They brought us a welcome gift – two punnets of fresh fruit bought on the way to St. Andrews. One contained the sweetest strawberries, the other the plumpest raspberries. They reminded me of summers spent picking berries in the berry fields around Blairgowrie. Before we were old enough to get paid employment at home, my brother and I were sent off to granny’s cottage in the Perthshire countryside. She always hired bikes for us to cycle to the berry-fields. Worse than that, she always woke us up at 6am in the morning. We were sleeping in a bed settee in the living-room and so granny was always there to make her breakfast. She worked as a cook in what we called ‘the big hoose’. The trouble with the 6am wake up call was not that we had to get up just then but she always put on the radio. The music I remember being played then was the ‘Air’ from Handel’s Water Music Suite. I will never forget the association....
19 June 2025 For the most part, we think about silence as something that exists when there is no sound – a voice stops talking, a bell stops ringing, a TV programme comes to an end. But is that fair on silence. Can we look at it from an upside down perspective? Why shouldn’t we consider silence to be the predominant environment for our existence and sound, noise, communication, technology are all things which interrupt silence. There are two things which hint at the significance of looking at the world in this way. Firstly, there is silence in the Universe. Most of what constitutes our Universe is called dark matter. The interesting thing about this is that the scientists cannot grab hold of it. Dark matter defies scientific exploration, at least for the moment. It is enfolded in silence. Secondly, there is the silence which enfolds God. Our worship tries to penetrate this silence in at last two ways. When we pray, we enter the silence of God. In order to become more comf...
18 June 2025 In his ‘Diaries of a Dying Man’, William Soutar writes about a worthy minister at Redgorton called the Revd. Dauvit Grahame. Apparently, he was too fond of his dram. Inevitably, he was called to account before the Kirk Session. Right at the start of the meeting, the minister rose to his feet and said, ‘Gentlemen, a preliminary word, please. I am well aware why you have summoned me here this evening but allow me to ask two questions before we proceed. ‘First, has any man among you assisted me home when I have been the worse of liquour? And second, is there any man among you whom I have not assisted home when he was the worse for liquour?’ Since the answer to both questions was, ‘No!’’, the minister turned about and, as Soutar wrote, ‘no doubt left for the inn at Pitcairngreen’. I like the author’s sense of humour. And the minister’s. Kirk Session meetings can be very serious affairs. A sense of humour allows us to be transported into a broader landscape with a...
17 June 2025 I had a dream. I suppose that’s not unusual but I don’t usually remember my dreams nor even attempt to recover them. This was a short dream or so it seemed to me. I was busy speaking with a group of people. I looked up and was surprised to see my father. He was standing still. He was smartly dressed in suit and tie and he was smiling gently. My immediate reaction was to run towards him. As I was running, I thought that he should have been running towards me just like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. But he stood still, smiling. Thinking about it in the morning, I realised that he would not have ran towards me. His emotions would not have led him to express himself in this way. But I also realised that he couldn’t have run even if he had wanted to because of the divide between heaven and earth. I never reached him in my dream. I was puzzled that the dream took place within the context of the famous parable. Was I the prodigal son ru...
16 June 2025 Yesterday, I had a Sunday off from preaching. We decided to worship in a small church belonging to a different denomination. There must have been about forty worshippers – predominantly older people but there were some babes in arms and a few young children with their parents. The minister preached about the Holy Trinity and, in particular, the 1700 th anniversary of the First General Council of the Church at Nicaea making frequent reference to Arianism and the divine nature of Jesus. He talked about contemporary problems working against religious faith. He highlighted three – individualism, cynicism and societal fragmentation. None of these is conducive to building up a harmonious community. Focusing on ourselves, being cynical about the effectiveness of institutions and the fragmentation of communities into protest, identity and political groups work against unity. Three things within the worshipping community stood out. Firstly, there was a very powerful ...
15 June 2025 St. Cyril of Jerusalem was born in 315 AD. This was two years after the Emperor Constantine passed the Edict of Milan ensuring tolerance for Christians and other religious people throughout the Empire and ten years before the famous Council of Nicaea. The first General Council of the Church wrestled with a heresy called Arianism which denied the divinity of Jesus. Those who followed Arius considered Jesus to be the Son of God in the sense that he was created by God but was not co-equal with God. Cyril became the Bishop of Jerusalem in 351 AD and throughout his ministry, he had difficulty with those who continued to support the views of Arius. In fact, he was exiled from his diocese on several occasions by the supporters of Arianism. But he didn’t deviate from the doctrine propounded at Nicaea when he was a mere ten year old. He is famously remembered for his sermons on baptism. On reading his ‘Lectures on the Christian Sacraments’, I was immedia...
14 June 2025 It was unexpected – a ‘Ring of Bright Water’ moment. For almost six years, I have been walking along the same portion of the Kinnessburn and have never seen … Well what did I see? At first it looked like an eel. There are eels in this water but the eel turned out to be a tail. It was an otter. No one else was around to watch the otter’s spectacular acrobatics in the water. His back was so supple. His body twisted and turned in harmony with the flow of the water. Clearly, the otter was searching for food. At one point, he entered a pipe but reversed out pretty quickly! What struck me about the otter was that on four or five occasions, he made eye contact with me or so it seemed. He looked up from the water as he looked around and caught hold of my eye. He appeared to be saying, ‘Who are you?’ or perhaps, ‘Are you coming out to play?’ Was this my imagination or is there a possibility that human beings may make connections with animals in the wild? In the book o...
13 June 2025 We have been astonished by Paul’s Himalayan Musk. It was originally planted beside the cherry tree but over the years has climbed higher and higher as befits its Himalayan name. It is now cascading down through the cherry branches like the hanging baskets of Babylon. It is not only the colour of the tiny roses which astounds. Of themselves, they are a marvel for they range through red, pink and white in assorted gradations according to the time of their birth and their passing. But the wonder of the musk is its fragrance. It seems to me to be stronger when the rose is first in bloom but you can bury your face in the fading splendour and imagine you are in heaven. It is the smell of old rose. A number of the English roses in the garden smell similiarly. As it happens, the bird feeders are hanging on the cherry tree – some heart shaped sunflower seeds and some fat balls. They have attracted a family of sparrows whose acrobatics at the feeders ...
12 June 2025 I discovered a book, written in the nineteenth century, about a Scottish liturgical initiative. It was described as a first edition and rare. It was a scholarly work which has not been replicated in more recent decades. I decided to buy it. The acknowledgment of my purchase came with a welcome piece of correspondence. The bookseller recognised my address and deduced that I was a minister. She had known of two other ministers by the same name. She had lived in Scotland for some time before moving south. She described one of these ministers as ‘very kind and friendly even though I was not in the Church of Scotland and didn’t know him very well’. I was greatly heartened by her distinctive memory. In my reply, I wrote back, ‘It is always good to hear about the parish element of a minister's work. It always extends beyond the immediate congregation if a minister is fulfilling his vocation.’ Her comment confirms two important things about...
11 June 2025 On 6 June, I wrote about the case of Dorothy Readhead who died as a consequence of medical malpractice. The operation went wrong when medics tried to achieve their goal through a blockage in one of her legs. Despite knowing about the blockage they persisted with what reviewers called a ‘have a go’ mentality. There are three concerning moral issues. Firstly, the truth was deliberately concealed. The actual cause of death was not included on Mrs. Readhead’s death certificate. The ninth commandment has to do with concealing the truth. ‘You shalt not bear false witness against your neighbour.’ It was broken. Secondly, at the critical moment when progress was impeded, there was the opportunity to acknowledge the mistake. Instead, the sanctity of Mrs. Readhead’s life was sacrificed on the team’s fear of being humiliated. She, like the rest of us, was made in the image of God. Thirdly, the operating team and, in fact, the Hospital Trust denied there had been ...