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The photo was taken late in the day last Spring at Loch Skene, a couple of miles along the road. It was a swan convention, one of those moments when beauty all but forbids trying to make such a coincidence of loveliness into a digital memory.  George Macleod's book of prayers, The Whole Earth Shall Cry Glory, is one of the devotional treasures of the Scottish Kirk. These prayers are carefully crafted by one of the most practical mystics in the history of the Church of Scotland. The term mystic shouldn;t be interpreted as meaning vague, soft, evasive of the grit and grind of reality. As far as Macleod was concerned his mysticism was both otherworldly and this-worldly; because it is the awareness of that other tworld, and its proximity to the affairs of this worold that suffused his preaching and writing with a passionate sense of the closeness of the holy to all that we do. He famously described Iona as a 'thin place', a place where heaven and earth are separated by the thinnest of veils.

This man could sit on an Edinburgh pavement eating fish and chips with young lads he had bribed to come to church with the promise of a fish supper; he could galvanise unemployed tradesmen to come and work at the restoration of Iona Abbey and gift to countless seekers a place tome and feel and see and discover the presence of God in the beauty of creation; he could stand as a man in his nineties and deliver an impassioned plea to the General Assembly for a principled and unerring condemnation of nuclear weapons and the abhorrence of the doctrine of deterrence. From such a man comes this prayer, its tenderness and peaceableness with God's creation, all but palpable. Pray it, and enjoy it.

Invisible we see You, Christ above us.
With earthy eyes we see above us, clouds or sunshine, grey or bright.
But with the eye of faith we know you reign:
instinct in the sun ray
speaking in the storm,
warming and moving all creation, Christ above us.

We do not see all things subject unto You.
But we know that man is made to rise.
Already exalted, already honoured, even now our
citizenship is in heaven
Christ above us, invisible we see You.

Invisible we see You, Christ beneath us.
With earthly eyes we see beneath us stones and dust and dross,
fit subjects for the analyst’s table.
But with the eye of faith, we know You uphold.
In You all things consist and hang together:
the very atom is light energy
the grass is vibrant,
the rock pulsate.

All is in flux, turn but a stone and an angel moves.
Underneath are the everlasting arms.
Unknowable we know you, Christ beneath us.

Google has the uncanny habit of odd juxtapositions of ideas and highly logical but bizarre search results. I was reading the biography of Dorothy Day; noticed she treasured her copy of the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God. Decided to Google Vladimir Icon and came up with an utterly incongruous hit. I then went on to Amazon looking for a book that might have more information on the Vladimir Icon. I found Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons, at £30 – £40 used.

But the next hit was this! Now there is an irony in the use of the word icon to describe the Russian President whose power has been shown to be ruthless, spiteful, brutal and pervasive in and beyond Russia. Especially is such a link incongruous when the Vladimir Icon is traditionally believed to have saved Moscow from enemies on numerous occasions, including in the 20th Century. So in Russian Christianity an Icon is a window on to God. But to push this and assert that in this Icon resides a power that shapes providence partially on behalf of the Russian nation, that's different. My own theological take on that development is skeptical, and I mean theologically doubtful to the point of dismissal – I do not believe in a God who mediates divine power through images in the interests of political, material, far less national interests.

Nevertheless. The subtitle of this book seems to suggest that Vladimir the President now has the role of the Vladimir Icon, saviour of Moscow, defender of the national interests and self-proclaimed strong man who will make Russia a world power again. And all this on the day when the Russian Parliament approved the deployment of soldiers into Crimea, and with no veto on their movement into the rest of Ukraine. The political complexities, ancient alliances and enmities, the history of betrayals and pay-offs, and the current uncertainties of geopolitical balance and counter-balance, make the Ukraine crisis an impossibly difficult collision of forces and grievances for Western nations to understand. Certainly I can claim no substantial knowledge of Ukrainian history.

But the danger signs are already glowing red, and what is needed is a Vladimir Icon which is not about the protection of narrow nationalist and ideological ambitions, but which portrays the vulnerable love between mother and child, between the infant Christ and Mary, between the Incarnate Son and the Theotokos, the God Bearer. The profoundly human snuggling of the infant into the neck and face of his mother is a masterpiece of religious communication – here is the incarnation, the Word made Flesh, the kenosis of God in Christ who did not count equality with God a thing to be clung to for dear life, but that which would be sacrificed in death for the saving of the world. The idea that such an icon could ever be aligned with military and geopolitical power games in which there is the real threat of war within, and perhaps beyond Ukraine, is one of the incongruities of a fallen world in which beauty and holiness are co-opted by the power brokers and corrupted into propaganda. Whatever power emanates from the Vladimir Icon, is divine only insofar as it provokes to peacemaking, calls secular power to account, subverts the rhetoric of national security as excuse for invasive expansion. Perhaps the most dangerous forms of idolatry is where men (it usually is men) take what is sacred and consecrate it to the exclusive service of their own dire projects.

May the tenderness of God, so vividly visible in this icon;

May the blatant lovingkindness of Christ and his Mother;

May the Word made Flesh, crucified, risen and present in our world;

Bring victory, not to those who are merely powerful,

But to those who seek justice, peace, and the chance to live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

" 0. Lord, support us all the day long of this troublous life,

until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,

and the busy world is hushed,

and the fever of life is over and our work is done.

Then of Thy mercy,

grant us a safe lodging,

and a holy rest and a peace at last

through Jesus Christ, our Lord."

(John Henry Newman)

…………………

Some versions omit 'this troublous life', maybe a concession to the saccharine tastes of commercialised kitsch on cards, posters and prints. Why would you pray such a prayer if life was untroublous?

The version I first learned used the phrase 'bring us to a safe harbour'. Does anyone else know that version – I'm happy with safe lodging, but I like the image of a safe harbour!

The photo is of the harbour in the village of Whitehills on the Moray coast. Quiet, safe, and a place of peace – in the summer, until the troublous sea gets started!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smudge outside the window wondering why those obtuse and thick human beings don't realise it's flipping baltic out here – and would you move that useless ornamental tack cat off the window sill and let me in?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Songs are the heart of our memory and let us live the search for meaning in our lives again and again."(Judy Collins)

Judy Collins is one of the more thoughtful singers, whose singing and songs still speak to the deeper questions that persist and give life its poignancy, mystery, joy and longing. I've listened to her music off and on since I was a teenager, which was just when she was coming to the fore as a folk singer whose voice rang with musical and personal integrity.

I recently bought her album The Very Best of…, and she's right about memory, songs and the search for meaning. Some of the tracks I remember as singles and on albums I played over and over. Just listened to this CD again this morning, which happens to be my birthday, and remembered how her music, her voice and the words of the songs opened our eyes, nudged our imagination, appealed to those aspirations every human heart feels, and celebrated human love as gift and wonder.

And by the way – I love the way the last two tracks seem to belong together – the wistful melancholy of Send in the Clowns, and the best rendering I know of Amazing Grace – which was released around the same time as the pipe band version!