the adventures of retirement
Today, Janet had her first day on the edge of the Highlands, and in keeping with the stereotype, it was a drizzly and rainy day. Nevertheless, the spectacular scenery was hinted at through the mist, if not clearly visible – like the God OT’s people met with their faces covered.
I don’t like the uncertainty of navigating life through the mist – but maybe people who claim to have a clear vision aren’t always to be trusted.
Here is a United Reformed Church which has now been sold…
And here is a colossal cruise ship, the Ventura, parked at Greenock…
The activity belonging to which of these places do you think is more attractive to people you know?… to you? The answer I’d give might not be the same as that of many other people.
The day started with this at about half past four in the morning with this…
Then back to sleep and woke again at half past five to hear the Calmac ferry Argyll Flyer going past the window on its way out of James Watt Dock. Then back to sleep again.
Later, properly awake, I saw this on a wall at Bridge of Weir…
… “If you did as you should, you might have as you would.” – i.e. you get what you deserve, something that was spectacularly untrue of Jesus, who did right, and was executed for his trouble. This, and the conversation tonight at the restaurant, where someone quoted, “sometimes karma comes back and bites you on the arse”, and musing n the difference between right wing and left wing views about people, got me thinking. Anyway, the thinking is ongoing.
Let’s face it, thinking is never done with, is it?
Found the Co-op in Beith this morning…nice size, not as tiny as most. Just like sixteen years ago, it’s great that co-op and similar shops keep going in small communities (Beith is not that small, hence the bigger co-op).
Janet’s back on an old railway, and here’s a passenger ramp at Kilbarchan Station repurposed as an access point to the cycle track…
Churches, like shops, find it harder to survive in small communities. Unlike shops, sometimes they find find it hard to survive full stop. The bad effects of this hollowing out of small communities include the exclusion of people without car access, and increased use of cars etc.
As Jesus knew the villages of Galilee and the city of Jerusalem, so we too recall and pray for places large and small…
The next three days will be almost all on offroad cycle path (two old railways), and a good job too, because this recent run of road walking has become tiresome for Janet. And after the three days, a ferry will take her across the Firth of Clyde and into the hills and lochs. We are now staying at a place in Greenock. Maybe this sky holds some promise…
God of all the universe,
we long for you to part the clouds
and come down
and flood our lives with your light.
And too often we see nothing.
God give us the grace, give us the understanding,
to see you alongside us in our lives,
in the suffering Jesus,
in the energising Spirit,
in the opening of minds
to needs beyond our own.
A slightly shorter walk today for Janet, and we were in Stewarton in time for lunch. It wasn’t all easy, though: a road that looked quiet on paper grew busier as Sunday morning progressed, and the showers were ganging up for a spell. In Scotland it’s harder to identify potentially useful footpaths from the map.
The day began with a breakfast roll each at Macdonalds. Macdonalds is like Argos, in that you place your order at one of the data terminals in the middle of the shop, then collect it at the counter when your number comes up. A darker side of Macdonalds was evident all over the verges on the road to Stewarton.
Give us this day our daily bread…
A quiet day for the support team, mostly sitting in the car. Here’s an objet trouvé…
And here’s Janet in her element, taking pictures of orchids… opposite macdonalds….
Today was a really hot, hard day for Janet. But she made it to Mauchline: impressive performance.
Meanwhile there was some history in concrete and stone. Catrine was a cotton town. And it looked neatly laid out, a bit like a Saltaire or New Lanark….
Later, we both went under the A76…
And then Ballochmyle railway viaduct…
“As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”
The communities we’ve seen since we entered Scotland seem to be very fond of celebrating their famous sons and daughters… Burns, Boswell, Duncan, Keir Hardie…
… well, sons anyway. In those times, men were far more likely to rise to prominence than women. I’m watching the quarter final of the women’s football World Cup, and hoping that this century, south west Scotland will have plenty of daughters to celebrate. “In Christ there is no longer male and female” – and the origins of some of these famous people were in Presbyterian Christianity.
Keir Hardy was someone I remember from school history lessons, a founder of the Labour Party….
It would be interesting to know whether he made it into the recent book of eminent Victorians – I kinda doubt it.
God give us each such a measure of the Spirit of Christ
that we discover the greatness inside us.
Help us be kind and respectful to others,
that we may help nurture the greatness in them.
Teach us, and our society
the teachings of Jesus –
forgiveness, new beginnings, love.
It was great today to do the train thing and walk with Janet all the way – although my knee knows it now. The first thing I saw on crossing the county border was the beautiful hazy outline of distant hills, and this…
…evidently we are better at the economics of getting stuff than we are at the economics of getting rid of stuff in a good way.
Every smallest action we do affects other people who are not directly involved. We dirty the air, we make noise, we cause happiness and unhappiness without knowing it. We can’t help being part of the world, part of Europe. I can tell when there’s an anticyclone with a south east wind, because of the tang of nitrogen oxides in the air. But there’s no economic incentive to stop our harmful ‘externalities’
God help us to live as if
other people matter.