A quieter day for the walker, mostly on back roads, with less wind and more sun. This dog rose was one of many (and different coloured) ones by the back road near the Solway shore.
There were some highlights – the ice cream farm at the end of the day, but above all the Savings Banks Museum (yes) in Ruthwell, which Janet visited as she walked through. The welcome was warm, the story informative and the central character inspiring.
The central character was Henry Duncan, a Presbyterian minister, who set up the first savings bank, to make what we now call financial services available to people of limited means. He also saved a historic cross which may have been one of many marking a pilgrim route from Whithorn to Lindisfarne (we saw this later – it was huge). And he was the first person in Britain to recognise a dinosaur footprint in sandstone. And the list goes on… He was quite a character, who was more than ready to speak his mind, and what struck me above all was that he was a whole gospel Christian. His faith was about ‘religion’, but it was also about social justice. Add in his thirst for knowledge, and he was quite a hero.
The cross was not your normal Celtic cross – it had the salvation story carved on it in the form of Bible scenes, and is thought to have been carved by Italian stonemasons.
Museum s facebook post here… https://www.facebook.com/410973318939413/posts/2274313189272074/?sfnsn=mo
God help us to be whole gospel Christians;
to claim justice for all people,
whatever their social standing;
to show love for people in poverty,
as you do;
to respect people
who are completely unlike ourselves;
and to keep our faith alive.