Unknown unknowns and friendly homes.

 

I was last on the Isle of Tiree 26 years ago when I sat on a beach on its west coast watching the sun going down. We caught a ferry the next day onto the next chapter of our lives.  This was a curacy in Glasgow and our girls starting school and nursery.  Just over an hour ago I was on Tiree again for all of ten minutes as part of a round flight from Oban via Coll too, all part of a wonderful birthday present from the family.

Like most of you the intervening 26 years have been full and rich , challenging and transformative.  As I look back though what strikes me is all that I simply did not know was going to happen: places, people, experiences and lessons that I did not know that I did not know.  Obviously we are aware that there is much we do not know (we certainly should be!). What catches us off guard though is the utterly unexpected, things we had not considered or were even aware of, and especially people that we didn’t know existed.

On the flight over Mull the small plane passed over at least five homes of people from St Columba’s and I could see the homes of two others.  These are good folk I have got to know during this last year and they were there for me in the spring when I was on the island as news came that my dad had passed away.   The landscape I looked down on was not only beautiful and even majestic it also had people in it who had become friends, buildings that were actually friendly homes and a shelter for me when I needed it.

My early thirties-self had no way of knowing any of this, focused as he was on the immediate unknowns and present challenges at that season of our lives.  And yet in all the five churches and communities we have served since then  what was unknown was slowly inhabited by people with much goodness and generosity of heart and through it all the faithfulness of God.  Of course there were challenges and difficulties, losses and even pain. Our faith acknowledges a full emotional register and the bible is able to blend the shadows with the light in it’s stories and psalms, teaching and poetry, lament and praise.

So as I enter the second year of my role amongst the churches and communities of the west coast, I am encouraged to hope, not that all will be smooth, but that the uncertainties and unknowns are actually gift bearers of new friendships, insights and experiences of God.  Somehow we grow into our lives by walking the pilgrim path we find ourselves on and we do indeed find what we need when we need it, quite often in the most unexpected places and people.