(For reference, Rob’s brother Dan—now deceased—played the bagpipes.)
Yesterday I followed bagpipers through Edinburgh. If they had played “Danny Boy,” I would have wept. It was not unlike the last scene in Braveheart when Mel Gibson is about to be beheaded. As he surveys the surrounding crowd, he begins to see dead loved ones showing up.
I have come here with these beloved pilgrims directly from Iona, officially dubbed “a thin place,” where heaven meets earth. My intent is to acknowledge these thin places more often as I go forward. Even in the seemingly godforsaken city, I believe they are all around me. As in, we live in thinness, whether we notice it or not.
Oh the puffins, the puffins. Sad that we must leave you in our wake. Today we leave Iona and travel to Edinburgh. I am writing from the bus.
Last night I ran into a rough patch. Basically it was obvious we would soon be moving from pastoral ruralness to urbaness and all it entails. I was unsettled. As usual when this happens, I wanted to maintain my image of eptness or at least a modicum of interior calm. I was tired and I needed to pack up.
We had been advised to set our small dinner groups and make reservations via Open Table for the upcoming (in less than 24 hours) Saturday night in Scotland’s bustling capital. My kids will vouche for me when I say, I am good for nothing heady at night especially anything electronic.
Finally I asked for help. What a concept!
Jacinta, Kathy, Maris, Elizabeth, Fons and others all played parts in setting up great plans for me, my buddy, and “the sisters”—our eldest pilgrims. I became excited again, full of anticipation (in a good way) and ready for the city lights and energy.
(Later on bus) Now it is becoming obvious that we’ll likely arrive too late for dinner out.
(Later, still on the bus) And now our tour company has wrestled this bull to the ground: In recognition of our late-arriving bus, they are treating us to either room service or dinner out. Our wonderful guide, Jacinta, has somehow secured the reservations!
Why did I ever waste an iota of this precious life on worry today?
I was overcome when I looked down on the precise hexagonal basalt columns that make Fingal’s Cave on Staffa Island. Of course I was reminded of honeycomb and our thousands of honeybees at the cathedral. For a moment I was bereft, missing my Rob, their keeper.
Apparently this landscape was created 60 million years ago. In the face of it, Mendelssohn could do nothing less than bow and compose Hebrides Overture. A heart-felt blog post is my humble offering, also from here on my knees .
We had started the day together singing:
“Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all our years away; they fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.” (From our pilgrimage Prayer & Song Book – Hymn #680 God, our help in ages past).
Then we found timeless majesty over and over again as the day unfolded.
OK, so I’m a swimmer, by most anyone’s definition, as long as it doesn’t include flip turns. I almost always remember to pack a suit and when I forget, there are other options. So when the 80-year-olds scheduled the charge into the ocean, I was tempted. But it was smack in the middle of my no-commitment-promise-to-myself time. I did appreciate the variety of descriptions they used to entice us: “quick plunge,” “toe dip,” and especially “metaphorical swimming.”
But when I heard the water temperature (21 degrees, do the conversion if you must), the choice was clear: No ocean for me! Besides, at our B & B down the road, the Andoran House, we can swim metaphorically too. Not especially monastic, I know, but, hey, the reading material legitimizes it, not to mention our host extraordinaire, Richard.
Always Bridging 