This time last year I wrote about wearing masks because we were still looking towards the end of Lockdown and wondering what the future would hold. The good news is that mask wearing certainly in church is pretty much reduced and in the wider public sphere seems to have pretty much disappeared. You may have your own opinion on that.
However, I’m glad to say that things have improved so much that many people are considering going on holiday in the next weeks, me included. When we lived in Newcastle we were very close to the coast and walking along a beach was an easy matter, achieved after a brief evening drive. Now it is a less easy matter and requires a couple of hours in the car. But living here has opened up to us a whole new stretch of our coastline and we are discovering parts of Norfolk and Suffolk which we had never visited before, most of them very attractive and some of them positively mind-blowing.
The problem with the North East coast as many here have discovered on holiday is that it is gale-blowing as well as mind-blowing, though braving the gales can be very rewarding! But this is not is an advertisement for visiting Northumbria (desirable though that may be) so let me move on by admitting that that part of the world has seen many ups and downs, incursions from left, right and centre, been fought over many times and generally been knocked about a bit.
My father told of being in the Army with several Scottish soldiers, one of whom claimed that a Geordie was “just a Scotsman wi’ his brains kicked oot” and it is true that there has been a long love-hate relationship with ‘friends’ north of the Border.
A Scotsman who rampaged about the north a bit was Robert the Bruce who was born in July 1274, on the 11th. The only thing most people know about him was him hiding in a cave after a defeat and watching (and apparently being inspired by) the efforts of a very persistent spider to form a web. Bruce came to believe that if an arachnid could succeed then so could he! Thus inspired he embarked on a successful military campaign which led to the defeat of the English at the Battle of Bannockburn (for more details apply to Marilyn Macdonald of this parish).
The Bible is full of people who needed special encouragement to do what is right. Believe it or not, so is the church. The Christian life is not a bed of roses, but underneath are the everlasting arms of Christ.
Colin Dixon