Kirkliston Croci

There seems to be some debate about whether the plural of Crocus is Crocuses or Croci. I checked up the Oxford English Dictionary and it was no help - offering both options for the plural. I liked Croci better - so there! Now all I need to do is decide how to pronounce it!

My daughter has been taking beautiful photos of Croci in the Meadows in Edinburgh. So when I noticed that there is a beautiful display in Kirkliston I decided to watch out for a sunny moment to capture them in all their glory. And as you can see - they are glorious.

One of my friends will be coming to live in Kirkliston in a few weeks time, so I hope that the beautiful floral display will encourage her as she prepares to make that transition.

One of the enjoyable aspects of my present period of work in the North East corner of West Lothian has been the absolutely stunning beauty of the countryside. Of course it has its bleak moments too. But the beauty is what remains in my mental vision of the place.

I suppose life is like that too. It has its bleak moments. And moments of stunning beauty and joy.

In this period of Lent, we are reminded of one of the bleak points in world history. But only three days later there was an eruption of majesty and joy!

Ooops, there I've gone and done a Lenten Reflection by mistake!

Auldcathie Kirk

Yesterday I had my bike at Winchburgh and decided to explore some of the outlying points of interest that are inaccessible by car.

Auldcathie Kirk was my first destination. It's a sad sight, and a sad site, these days.

In living memory there used to be a community around the old abandoned Kirk, but like so many of these small clusters of houses, it was too hard to upgrade them with modern facilities, and the people relocated to larger growing settlements, like Winchburgh less than a mile away, across the fields.

There is no sign of these houses now. Only the old Kirk had sufficient prestige to avoid demolition and the subsequent plough. And there's not much left of it now.

Auldcathie Kirk is shown on my old 18th century map of the area. It dates back to at least the 12th century, and was still in use at the time of the Reformation in 1560.

Shortly after that, in 1574, the parish was merged with Dalmeny parish, and Auldcathie Kirk became disused. It's a tribute to the subsequent generations that the building still survives as a ruin today.

It was in 1891 that the new church was built at Winchburgh. The shale oil industry was in full swing, and the Winchburgh brickworks was shipping bargeloads of product along the canal to the rapidly growing cities and towns along its route - to Edinburgh in the East, and Falkirk and Glasgow in the West.

Once again the church is facing hard times, and the enthusiastic congregation are facing some difficult issues in the months ahead.

The fact that Auldcathie Kirk continues to stand above the crops growing in the fields shows that the church still retains a lot of respect within the local communities. But it also shows what happens when such respect is not accompanied by practical support.

Jesus of Nazareth called his disciples to follow him. They had no building or infrastructure. No pulpit, no baptismal font, and no pews. As in the modern church phrase - it was a Church Without Walls.

Buildings do have their uses, especially in our Scottish Winters, so much harsher than in the Middle East. But God's people will continue to survive even if their buildings reach the end of their useful life.

Indeed, the people of God will live for ever. Come and join us!

Glorious Sunset

As I came home from work today the sun was just setting and the sky was turning a glorious pink and gold. It wasn't only a shepherd's delight!

It's been a good day today, with progress being made on a number of fronts, particularly with our two Lenten projects. So it was very pleasant when the partial overcast cleared away to deliver such a spectacular sunset.

Shepherd's enjoy a good sunset because it indicates that the upcoming weather is going to be clear and fine. There's a good forecast for what's coming up.

I wonder if the Good Shepherd is equally pleased with our efforts today, and whether he thinks there are good things ahead. I think so!

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Flowers of the Spirit?

Last week I was talking with the children about where grapes come from. One 4-year old lad replied, "Flowers." It was an answer I hadn't expected - although no doubt it should have been on my list of possibilities.

Later on I was talking with the adults about the Fruits of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, generosity/goodness, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness, self-control. (Galatians 5:22)

So if these fruits come from flowers, then perhaps the flowers would be called Flowers of the Spirit. If the above characteristics are the fruits then what could be the flowers from which they come?

So I put together the following list of nine practices which might help us to bear the nine fruits:
Prayer, Submission, Forgiveness, Honesty, Trust, Open-ness, Sacrifice, Vision, Purpose.

I don't propose that there is a one-to-one correlation between these nine Flowers of the Spirit to the nine Fruits of the Spirit. But it seems to me that these nine practices would help us to develop the nine Fruits.

And of course, the Spirit provides the power and motivation to grow the Fruit, and to bear the Flowers.

What do you think? Would you suggest a different list?

Darwin's 200th Anniversary

On this date 200 years ago, the famous naturalist Charles Darwin was born. When he was 50 he published The Origin of Species, in which he proposed that mankind had developed over a long period of time from simpler creatures.

It is now largely accepted that this long period of time was around 400 million years, during which life developed from tiny single-celled creatures such as Amoeba through to the arrival of modern mankind about 100,000 years ago.

I find it quite remarkable that what Evolution took 400 million years to achieve, each human child manages to accomplish in 9 months!

Happy Anniversary to Charles Darwin's enthusiasts!

Pruning and Cleaning

Although it somewhat early in the year for pruning that's what I was thinking about last weekend.

The Gardener prunes those branches that do bear fruit, so that they will bear even more fruit. It seems a bit harsh that the reward for producing fruit is to get a severe trimming.

But the original language of this piece is old-fashioned Greek and in Greek, the word καθαιρω also means cleaning as well as pruning.

Perhaps it makes more sense to give the fruitful branches a thorough spring clean in order that they will make the most fruit ing the coming year. On the other hand, as with roses and many other plants, bigger and better fruit and flowers are more often produced if the weak branches are removed and the long branches are shortened.

I think that if we are all honest with ourselves, there are some parts of our lives that do not produce as much sweet fruit as we would like them to produce. I know that this is true for myself. None of us are perfect. We all have room for improvement.

Some of us are carrying too much baggage. We are loaded down with trouble, worry, complexity, burdens, that we are not meant to be carrying. They are slowing us down, consuming our energy and resources, restricting our fruitfulness. Pruning, cleansing, helps us to cut away some of the retaining straps on these heavy loads. It cuts them away, like secateurs cut away the dead branches that are no use anymore. We are released to spring forward on our journey in the Master's footsteps.

If the metaphor of pruning and cleaning does not appeal to you, then you can be glad that I haven't been talking about the refining fire that burns away the dross and leaves behind the pure 100% gold!

Enjoy a fruitful year!

Planning Ahead

People frequently ask me what I am going to do next. Usually they are wondering what I will be doing after my current training placement is finished. However the end of this placement is still a long way ahead. It's too soon for me to be deciding what to do next.

So I am much more interested in what I am going to be doing during the next few weeks, or even the next few days.

Today in Winchburgh, three of us had a very productive planning meeting, looking at the next few weeks. We have decided to try out some new ideas in that period leading up to Easter which the church calls Lent.

Lent always begins 40 days before Easter. Since Easter is always on a Sunday, this means that Lent always starts on a Wednesday. It is called Ash Wednesday, because one of the old ceremonies for that first day of Lent involved marking oneself with Ash, the ancient symbol of mourning and despair.

Easter moves around from year to year, and this year in the UK we will celebrate Easter on 12th April, thus making Ash Wednesday 25th February - only two weeks away tomorrow.

The eagle-eyed among you may have calculated that there is something strange about my arithmetic. Ash Wednesday is more than six and a half weeks before Easter Sunday, working out to be exactly 46 days before Easter Sunday. What's going on?

Well the answer is that the 40 day period of Fasting that is Lent does not include Sundays. On Sundays the church celebrates the resurrection and presence of Jesus. So Sundays are not to be mournful and despairing Fast Days, but are rather to be Feast Days. There are 6 Sundays in Lent, so that subtracting those from the 46 elapsed days gives the 40 day period of Lent.

So if you were thinking about Fasting for Lent - you get Sundays off!

And if you are wondering what I am going to be doing next - the answer is - our Lenten projects. And you can find out more about them on my Lenten Reflection blog here.