Scottish Spirituality?

March 24 will be an important date for us here at the College. For some time we have wanted a place (Stuart would say ‘space’) to explore the diversity and significance today of the Scottish Christian Spiritual traditions. This isn’t a wee parochial talk shop about what makes Scottish Christians special, unique, peculiar; ‘Here’s tae us, wha’s like us’, is hardly a spiritually modest toast! It’s more about trying to understand the context within which we are trying to follow Jesus faithfully as witnesses of His Kingdom. There is no claim that there is such a thing as A  Scottish Christian Spiritual tradition anyway. There is a long, tangled, at times tragic, religious history that still deeply informs Scottish values and attitudes. Scottish spiritualities often emerged from controversy, a passionate againstness that found identity through conflict. Our heritage has powerful streams of Celtic, Catholic, Calvinist, and Kirk traditions that do not coalesce easily. To understand who we are, where we came from, what histories and memories shape our present and shove us into the future – this is a missional obligation.

So there are no intended pretensions about all this. The invitation is to gather people together in a spirit of exploration, to take an interest in how Christians in our own nation and culture, past and present, have believed they were being faithful to Christ; to learn from their insights and their mistakes, because we are part of the same continuing but changing church. And while there may be occasional reflective papers, each event will be an occasion for spiritual reflection, prayer and thinking about who we are, and asking in the light of that, who God is calling us to be, here, now.

Our first half day meeting (full details soon) has the overall theme ‘Persepctives on George Macleod and the Iona Community’. There was a spiritual courage that could be expressed both in belligerence and benediction in Lord George Macleod of Fuinary. His prayers are amongst the devotional treasures of Scotland. Here’s one of them

Almighty God…
Sun behind all suns,
Soul behind all souls…
Show to us in everything we touch
And in everyone we meet
The continued assurance of thy presence round us,
Lest ever we should think thee absent.
In all created things, thou art there.
In every friend we have
The sunshine of Thy presence is shown forth.
In every enemy that seems to cross our path,
Thou art there, within the cloud, to challenge us to love.
Show to us the glory in the grey.
Awake for us thy presence in the very storm
Till all our joys are seen as Thee
And all our trivial tasks emerge as priestly sacraments
Within the temple of thy love.