· stillpoint ·

  In early October 1984 I found myself footloose in New Delhi.   My nine month Gap Year project in rural Bihar researching leprosy numbers in isolated villages had been cancelled due to radical changes in  Indian Government visa policy.   I felt adrift and very uncertain as to what would happen next.  I made my way that Sunday at the invitation of a friend to a small Christian group of different nationalities that met in a school. About 30 of us sat on plastic chairs in a bare and functional room, with the unique vibes that only an empty school gives.  In that most mundane of settings, 5 young university students from Africa, stood up and began singing  verse 12 from chapter 7 of the Book of Revelation:              Amen! Blessing and glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honour and power, be unto our God, forever and ever! Amen Amen Amen They repeated this again and again, the single guitar blending with these wonde...

  I've been two weeks away from the work I love due to salmonella poisoning.  This itself was a result of eating an egg which I fried knowing there was something wrong with it.  In my abundance of optimism I had thought 'I'll be fine...my stomach grew up in India, it can handle anything'.    It's been a rough time and I am glad to be coming to the other side of it.  Ina has been amazing throughout, but is glad to have her husband returning to something like his old self.   As someone who generally has good health it has been an eye opener too in all sorts of ways.    The abiding lesson I have taken away from all this ( apart from the obvious!) is how much I love what I do.   I missed a very rich two weeks of over 20 personal appointments, three services and a conference I was taking part in as well as other work related meetings and two outreach events.  As one of my pals said to me it is a good reminder that none of us ar...

  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 fligh...

  There are some phrases which just stick in your mind after you first hear them and ‘unconsidered momentum’ was one of those for me.   I was with a small group of folk who all had a lot of experience in trying to initiate and encourage change and growth in churches in Scotland and we were there to journey together for two days and learn from one another. It is an interesting phrase, as it implies there is movement, there is even forward movement, but it is not the kind of movement that is necessarily a healthy one.     It represents continuing on a path out of habit, rather than intentional choice, or evaluating whether it is still necessary or beneficial.   Particularly it doesn’t take into account whether goals have changed, or the context has changed which gave rise to the practice in the first place. Covid was an interesting time as suddenly we were forced to stop a lot of things in our personal and communal lives which we did out of habit. ...

  On a dark cold winter night as I left the Leisure Centre just before closing time I noticed them ...suspended in the foyer, the stars that primary school children had made expressing their Christmas wishes and hopes for 2026.    A surprising number asked for peace in the world and to see more of their family.   And then there was this one which included the following:   I hope Oban gets a Macdonalds I hope that more colours are invented I hope the everyone has a merry Christmas I hope that the women in Sudan are okay. What wonderful young human beings,  able to express the joy and hopes of childhood whilst being aware that all is not well with our world.  It's been a crazy roller coaster ride in the month since these stars were put up and it is easy to despair for humanity and our future.  We are reminded though by George Herbert; And for all this, nature is never spent;      There lives the dearest freshness d...

  I’m just back from a day with my pal Richard on, in his terms, a ‘cheeky wee Corbett’ (a Corbett is   a hill between 2,500-2,999feet) near Crianlarich.   Beinn nan Imirean can’t actually be seen from the road and is surrounded by much higher peaks both close by but also on the wider horizon, as we were to discover.     It was a bit of a slog as the ground was rough and paths were few and sketchy but as we climbed slowly out of the frosty and frozen Glen Dochart with it’s -6 degrees C temperature and low lying cloud this was more than compensated for by the wonderful views that opened up in the clear winter sunshine.   Finally from the top we had a good panoramic view over many miles and could indulge in one of our favourite mountain top past times…identifying all the hills we could see, Richard’s knowledge   being much more extensive than mine, since he has climbed far more of them. As 2026 opens up I want to share a few take aways from this...

  (photo courtesy of Abi Bull, Isle of Skye) Lambing snow is the name given to an early spring snowfall that can catch some of the wee lambs out who are born at the start of the season.   Farmers have to watch out for this and, given care and shelter, the lambs are usually able to survive.   It coincides too with the images of daffodils emerging through a covering of late snow,   a similar sign of hope and new life in a forbidding and even hostile environment. Nevertheless there is something beautiful of this setting of fragile life against the rawness of nature, something that speaks to the heart of the human condition and the poignancy of it all.   I write this on a Good Friday which is set in a global context of much uncertainty and even fear and desperation.    The centuries old story that we are taken back to again and again by the turning of the season, of a God who died for a suffering and broken world, seems to have more resonance than ever. ...

  The magical wonder of snow can be lost by a couple of degrees warming turning the white falling flakes into dismal rain.    It is precisely the same elements of moisture and air, humidity and wind, yet the shifting of the one variant of temperature creates a totally different outcome.  I have only managed three snow days in the mountains this winter, due to a combination of mostly busy diaries and a very unpredictable weather which meant days set aside for a climb would sometimes be literally a washout.  Ina and I did have a good summitting of the Cobbler with the spikes on our boots giving us the grip we needed in the the last snow of the season, and I felt again the sheer wonder of walking in crisp, hard snow as the world fell away around us. It looks like it's gone for the year now though and we have to wait 9 months probably to get out onto the white stuff again.  The hills just look wet and sodden now and most uninspiring... and yet...they are exactl...

  Now and again (actually very occasionally)Valentines Day falls on Ash Wednesday     This is one of those years and it got me thinking that, although at first glance the two may seem totally unrelated, actually Valentines Day can help us observe Lent in the right spirit.   Valentine's Day celebrates the love one person has for another and although this can range from a schoolboy crush to the mature love of a long married couple there is a common theme.   The 'secret' identity of the giver of the Valentine Card not only adds an air of mystery and excitement, but it also, if properly observed, means that it is offered expecting nothing in return.   At heart it is altruistic.  We usually approach Lent as a season when we give things up, a time of sacrifice and penance as we walk with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem and his death for us.  It is in foregoing some of our normal habits and luxuries that we become more conscious of what...

  Lent starts on Wednesday and I've decided this year to cultivate  curiosity. I'm not sure where this will lead me but it came off the back of a school assembly I led yesterday for 200 17 year olds.  I was referencing Jesus' famous saying ' you will know the truth and the truth will set you free'. ( John 8:32). Amidst all the revising for exams and the importance of learning facts and answers I was hoping to inspire them with the sense of wonder they had as children and the curiosity that led them to ask questions.   Good questions sometimes are even more important than good answers. After a day today walking with Ina in the Trossachs and hanging out in our van afterwards reading and chatting and snoozing  I  felt the challenge of my own words the previous morning.    Lent is so often seen as a period of contraction, a narrowing of appetites, restricting of habits, scrutiny of motivations etc.  It is hard to get excited about Lent the w...

  It’s 9pm on the 31 st of December and rarely have I felt so uncertain about the coming year.    There seem way more instability than usual in our national and international systems and given the record of early 2020 and 2021 all bets are off that there’s not something else coming down the track.   Or perhaps October 7 th was that and it just came early.   Or maybe it is the metastatic fall out from that day which will dominate early 2024.    Tonight I’m at the top of a big wave,   hovering there waiting, feeling rarely more alive just as the pre-reptilian bit of my brain flashes all the danger signals.   A deep   breath. And yet I am reminded of the prayer I led my church in this morning, written in the mid eighteenth century by John Wesley and since become an integral part of the Methodist Community’s life. I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to...

  A Solstice Nudge At 3.47am this morning the solstice took place and the earth started its' long journey back towards summer (in the northern hemisphere at least!).   I always feel my heart lighten a little when this happens. It’s all about the direction of travel as I have so often said to people struggling with circumstances or a seeming lack of progress.    And the fact that I know we are heading towards warmth and light makes all the difference in the dark and the cold.   It reminds me that my current situation, however stalled it may feel, will one day pass. Such a change though rarely takes place in a dramatic and obvious ‘before and after’ kind of way.   Rather it feels like a nudge.   You would have to be looking very closely to notice that little tilt of the earth that starts the process.   I’ve just been looking at my weather app and over the next few days the sunset time moves by a minute each day: today:15.44;   23 rd : 15.45...

  Why didn't I say something???  She was waiting in the Chemist like I was, and walked past me on her way out.   She would have been in her late seventies, maybe more, in a wonderful long bright tartan coat and a large stylish winter hat.  She walked carefully out and as she was passing I so wanted to say 'love your coat', but bottled it and she was gone into the cold dark. Her coat spoke of younger, vibrant times when she would have walked briskly, surrounded by friends laughing and talking together.  To buy and wear a coat like that would have taken confidence as she would always stand out wherever she went, especially in our  darkly clothed wintery Glasgow.   I am sure she had other coats she could have worn when she came out shopping.   I wonder whether she pulled that one from the back of the wardrobe because she wanted to feel a little different today, make an ordinary shopping trip more of an event.  Wearing a coat like ...

  I was walking along the canal a few days ago in the light rain when suddenly beside me flew a swan, her white iridescent wings sweeping effortlessly (and silently) over the dark waters.  Into the damp and cold greyness of an early Scottish January swooped a creature of light.  Changeless as the seasons change around her, she was a harbinger of that deep down freshness of things that is ever old and ever new. In a canine explosion next to me Bella set off alongside as fast as her Labrador legs, heart and lungs could carry her.  Two more languid sweeps of the majestic wings and the swan was already out of reach with Bella stubbornly carrying on until even she could see she was outmatched by the great bird.  We both looked at each other and agreed it had been a moment. On the way home we passed the heron again remaining in the exact same place except this time he was taking his time swallowing a fish.   The question of how herons, in their eternal, pret...

 Early winter in Scotland is a season with few bright and spectacular colours.  Shades of grey frame the ubiquitous brown bracken under which the land sleeps.  Early snows haven't yet developed the vivid sparkle that comes with greater depth and cold mornings and the lochs reflect the white and the greys in stillness or movement.  Patches of green are also to be found along the path,  and of course on the conifers scattered around and the black of the bark wet after the rain.  Leached yellow grasses(that display no recollection of sunlight)  on the upper slopes, awaiting the new life of spring.  Greys, browns, faded greens and yellows and the scattered whites of early snow provide a pallet befitting this season of  rest and loss.    Living with the seasons of our life and owning whichever season we are in can be tricky.  If you are a sunny and relentlessly positive like me it can be difficult to admit it is winter.  Not fa...

    ‘What is the most loving thing to do right now?’    This was the question I left my church with last Sunday.   We were exploring 1 Corinthians 13, Paul’s famous chapter on love, in which there are 15 verbs about love…that love is something we do, not just something we feel.   Often that space for action, to do, is very small, as we find ourselves reacting to things that happen to us.    It is into this small space that I suggested we could try to wedge this question, what is the most living thing to do right now?   It was Victor Frankl the Viennese Psychotherapist and Auschwitz survivor who famously said  “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”    Frankl believed that the choice to love, painful or as difficult as that maybe, is what leads to growth and freedom.  And as I heard someone say just this morning...

  When I go to the hills, along with my rucksack full of the usual, I often take with me something I'm mulling over...the hills are a good place to mull. It could be a decision,  a project, a passage from the bible, a new idea I'd just come across, or as in the case today something I'd been reading recently that had rocked me back on my heels.  A FB pal Graham (we are yet to actually meet!) had kindly sent me a wonderful book for Christmas:  Backpacking with the Saints  . I had just been challenged yesterday to   give myself to Joy in the full awareness of all the unrealised joys in my life.  To embrace felicity (bliss) despite a world of endlessly unmet needs.   The author is referencing Thomas Traherne an Anglican priest, mystic and poet from the 1600's who had a very intense spirituality and an amazing way with words.  He believed that God himself recklessly participated in unfulfilled desires and that in the Cross He assumes t...

 Liminal is a word that resonates well at this time.   It has a cluster of meanings including transitional stage, start of a process, threshold, being at a boundary.   A liminal season implies a period of time when things are changing from what they were and are still  in flux and a new normal has not emerged yet.  A lot of uncertainty and even insecurity can go with this experience.  Old patterns, ways of doing things and even ways of thinking and believing no longer work so well anymore but we are not sure yet what they are being replaced with. There's no doubt that these last two years have been an extended liminal time to some extent in that a lot of our old ways of being in the world and in public spaces have changed.  We don't know yet what the long term future of for example shopping, travelling, worshipping etc, will look like.   As I write this my niece is checking in at Heathrow airport en-route to Sri Lanka for a few mont...

 This Advent I'm exploring ways in which Jesus came to his Temple and he was not what people expected.    Jesus came to the Temple twice in the last week of his life.  In Matthew 21:12-15 we find Jesus indignant at the way the temple had become a place of changing money and selling goods, albeit in the name of religion.   He turns the stalls over and chases the money lenders and others out crying out 'my house will be called a house of prayer but you have made it a den of robbers'.   Just as the Jews had been waiting for a long time, so too we can be waiting, but in our waiting things can drift.  There were (semi) good reasons for the money changers and the sellers of doves to be there, to facilitate the sacrifices and offerings of people.  Over time though a religious habit had become so entrenched that it actually took away from what worship of Yahweh was about.   It could be time for us to look at ways that some of our religious ...

  The second time Jesus visits the temple is as a young teenager when he stays behind "in the temple courts sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions." (Luke 2:46).   I love this image of a young person full of curiosity and an openness to learning, asking questions that would probably be quite different than the usual ones the teachers of the law mulled over. Young people look at things differently and have a perspective that can be both quite refreshing and disconcerting at the same time.   In my experience knowing the right questions to ask can open up new avenues of discovery and experience.  It often involves letting go of previous assumptions...as I said last week 'we're all addicted to your point of view'! May this advent be one in which you feel liberated, and perhaps even playful and youthful enough, to ask questions, even strange and unusual ones.  You never know where they might lead.   Perhaps they ma...