Visiting Scotland was never on my bucket list. But when a close friend from church, Linda Jones, said she was going to Scotland to spend two weeks writing, I expressed envy. The idea of sitting by the fireplace in a cottage to write and think was very appealing. Linda very kindly invited my husband Ellis and I to join her, and here we are in Rose Cottage on Dunalistair Estates in the Highlands. It is as romantic as it sounds.
On our way to the cottage from Edinburgh, we stopped at Dunkeld Cathedral of St. Columba, beautifully situated on the River Tay. St. Columba was the priest who brought Catholicism to Scotland about A.D. 560. The construction of this cathedral began in 1260 and completed in 1501. It was an important center of the Scottish Church. It fell into ruins during the Protestant Reformation of 1560.
As an American walking these historic grounds, I couldn’t help but think of all that happened here: faith, love, war, peace, courage and grief over so many centuries. We just don’t have that sense of the continuity of generations in the United States (unless you are American Indian). The United States wouldn’t even become a country until more than 200 years after this church was destroyed.
A small group of dedicated parishioners restored the choir area of the church, where services are now held. And they are in the process of restoring the main body of the church. What love and commitment it must take to restore something so old. What drives them, I wonder? Is it their faith? Is it their sense of pride in historic roots?
As I read bits of Scottish history, I feel sadness that, 500 years later, we are still divided by politics and religion in the United States and in the world. In the Scottish novel I’m reading, the hero says to his beloved that he longs to leave all the war and politics behin, return to the land of his birth to farm and tend the sheep. As I look out the window of Rose Cottage, I see the bucolic scene of the farmhouse of the estate and fields of lush green grass being grazed by contented sheep. I can easily see how warriors from the past would want to return home to a place like this. I say a silent prayer that one day everyone in the world will know this kind of peace and beauty.
On Sunday, the three of us went to the All Saints Episcopal Church in Kinloch Rannoch, which is about 5 miles away but the trip takes about 15 minutes because of the twisting roads through the countryside. About seven cars were parked in front of the “wee kirk” (small church), and Linda said, “Wonderful, there are people here this week.” Linda has attended this church on her previous visits to Scotland, and sometimes she is the only person there except those leading the service. This week there were 16 people, including the four people involved in the service. The church is small, so they use traveling ministers — reminding me of our circuit riders in the Old West. The service was simple and contemplative — and similar to the one we attend at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville. We met the three women who have tended the “wee church” for years, and they brought to mind the group that cares for Dunkeld Cathedral.
We had lunch with the “retired” priest, David Eaton, and his wife Ginny. His sermon had been about creating a world that cares for children. He had done a beautiful job of integrating Scripture, current events and daily actions. I was left again with a prayer for peace in the world — and for a world in which a refugee child’s body never washes onto the beach; a prayer that the adults of the world get their act together, so there are no refugees — and people can stay home with those they love; and a world where children get to play on the beach, not die on it.
While most of our time is spent writing, we have a few adventures planned. The next time we have a sunny day (It does rain a lot in Scotland.), we will go searching for Celtic stone circles and megaliths. We plan to visit Findhorn — a spiritual community and center for holistic learning. Later, we’ll go to Iona, considered a “holy island” — Iona is the place where St. Columba landed after leaving Ireland and established the first Christian community and monastery.
These sacred places have their history and unique energy; they have their stories and their beauty. But in a way, all of the land here seems to have a sacred quality. Whether we are looking out the windows of our cottage, walking on the hillside or driving on the country roads overlooking the lochs and rivers and mountains, everything is imbued with a quality and clarity of light that takes my breath away. It is easy to know God here.
For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
— Romans 1:20
Dorothy Maclean, one of the co-founders of Findhorn, received this message in meditation: “The forces of Nature are something to be felt into, to be reached out to. One of the jobs for you, as my free child, is to sense the Nature forces — such as the wind — to perceive its essence and purpose for me and be positive and harmonize with that essence.”
I feel blessed to see and feel God through the “Nature forces” in Scotland, and my heart longs for a world for all that is this harmonious.