FUNERAL IN CHRIST CHURCH
TUESDAY 21 February 15.00

Nancy Willan

FUNERAL IN CHRIST CHURCH

THURSDAY 23 February 13.00

Willian Edward Stonebanks

Reconnected

Springtime in the highlands of Sweden, the snow is melting away rapidly and the endless sun is back.

I drive the gravel road leading from the village straight in to the high mountain area. The road that follows the river is mostly good but in some areas the braking of the ground frost has created big holes and long stretches of pure mood. With some patient and calm one can pass the trickiest parts.

I suppose this is a price you have to pay for spring in these parts of the world.

I reach the old mans homestead. It was nine moth ago that I stood here watching him go away in the taxi.

To day I am prepared with boots and a rug-sack with coffee beans, some sandwiches and a small alcohol burning stove. Water is never a problem in this part of the country. One just takes fresh and clean water it from the nearest brook.

The old house looks already a bit sad so I suppose no one has been here for the last nine month. I hope now that it can die quickly so the land can return to the nature.

It is sad in a way, but that’s how the old man wanted it to be.

Behind the outbuilding I find traces of the old path leading up to the wide mountain plains. The path is a bit muddy and I can see that animals have used it. Reindeers on their way up to plateau on the higher grounds as well as foxes, elks and lynx to, I presume.

I wonder how long ago it was since the old man walked here and generations before him. It’s an old path I am treading on.

Sometimes the path create it self when humans and animals walk on it. It exist as an aim in it self.

Almost like a medium that caries you forward and here defiantly upwards. It is there just to lead you to the goal. Sometimes it follows the small stream that brings the melting snow water down to the mighty river in the valley. Sometimes it takes a detour to avoid being over flooded.

It is a living path. And I am alive although it is a heavy upward slope. I notice that there are places on the side of the path were people have stopped to rest. Sometimes these places are so tempting that you need to stop and rest for a wile. When one stops, one also has time to watch the views.

One can be almost raped by the mountains, the trees and the valleys below. Ruptured; Taken away!

A bit tiered, with a beating pulse and a sticky shirt, I reach the first plateau. It’s still not the peak but it is here somewhere out on the lee side the place where they use to set their camp. It’s strange with mountains that one never seems to reach the peak. There is always another top to climb if you want to.

It is easier to walk here and I now have company by a small group of reindeers. In some places there are still quite large areas of snow and I can see that the animals have taken shortcuts over it. I am a bit cautious and walk around the snow.

In sheltered areas there are some bent mountain birch growing. There are some other trees and bushes that I don’t know the name on but they are lovely anyhow.

Here I also find traces of what has been a place for a cot in an open glade. Stones are lined up in wide circle and some peat that has obviously been the base for another circle.  There is also a bit further away a small heap of stones, just as the old man said. As I can tell from some blackened stones someone has once made a fire here. I take some water from the brook nearby and make some coffee. Change my shirt and just relax. It’s so quite and peaceful here. In the distance the reindeers are watching me maybe wondering what I am doing there. Am I an intruder?

Here is timeless space I say to my self.

I begin to understand what the old man said about places like this. Holiness is really breaking trough here.

Suddenly I remember, I forgot, rapidly I correct my self by saying loud;

- Do you mind me stay here? Hope I don’t disturb anyone!

In silence I waited for a response but no one seemed to object so I presumed it was passable to sit there for a wile.

I could see my self and was not alone. Except for the reindeers watching me, there were people all around the cot place. It was all those who had been there before me. Still here, doing there things, old and young, invisible and visibly, vættir and other small people.

I understand that the kids and the small beings were talking about me, asking questions.

-Who is he?

-I think he is the one our uncle did know.

-Then God must know him to.

-Maybe he just enjoys the dancing of the sunbeams on his cheek?

-I suppose he come here to find the daughter of the sun. I could hear one of the small ones saying from below, asking me direct;

-Do you?

-Do I?

Normally one can only feel the sun beams, not the sun. They redirect and transform the heat from the sun and make it into pleasant warmth.

It’s the same with God; you cant se him but feel him.

There is something in the old mans comparison between his daughter of the sun and the saints. They are like visual sunbeams of God. Not the sun, but helping us to understand God.

I find my self, talking to the old man, by myself. Talking to him and all the other peoples and creatures around. The small invisible ones twitter and kvitter in a somewhat un-understandable way. And we all were listening to what the nature and God had to say. Naturally, because we are all a part of the nature! In God we are one and the same.

It is all so close here and I realize that all this is happening to me both on the inside as well as on the outside. One needs a key to unlock one self and some form of input that open up the true heart.

A place like this is a key.

Later, when I returned to the village and the church I saw also her, the church with new eyes. She was also a daughter to the sun, dancing in my heart, filling me with joy and harmony.

She, the church is a place where I can be in communion trough the Eucharist with God and all that is, has been and shall be. As Saint Augustine says; “You are the mystery placed upon the Lords table and what you received is the mystery of yourself,”

Up there on the mountain that day I was given new eyes. Strangely, whilst I was resting on the cot place, I could see and hear the flowers talking. They were chattering about the good quality of the water in the brook. The mountain birch was stretching out its branches and saluted the spring as if it had just woken up.

Salvation; is to be liberated from the darkness of sins, that hinder you from talking to the flowers and the stones, the birch and the small creatures as well as the reindeers that was lingering on, still watching me.

I suppose that is also the difference in the world. One normally doesn’t talk to the flowers or the small creatures on the village high street. You hardly even talk to the people you meet.  Some of them are like Zombies, living dead, encapsulated in their mobile phones or i-pads.

I wonder if there is an app for holiness or sanctuary.

I prefer to watch the fairies dancing in the morning haze, rather then trying to communicate with someone spellbound in a mobile phone.

I think that is some form of freedom. There are too many to day that lives a confined life; in the snares of electronics.

I do have a computer and some other gadgets, but nowadays I quite often, on purpose, forget my mobile in a drawer somewhere. A steep towards liberation I suppose. The old man never had a mobile phone. He communicated with all and everything, anyway.

One has to find one self. Actually on self is not far away from any of us, closer than we are to our self, as St Paul would say, referring to God.

I suppose also he was a daughter of the sun like the old man was or still is. Defiantly so for me!

Every step I took walking down from the mountain that evening was like something new. I was like a new born reindeer calf or a child, exploring every new step, staggering but determent steps into life. They follow their mother wherever she goes because they know she leads them well.

The church is also a mother and what you are, you are in God.

I hope the small creatures and the flowers agree with me.

I will ask them the next time we talk to each other.

Someday I will tell You what they answered.

Today the old man is dressed in his best black suit and a white shirt. It might not have the latest style but it has a feeling of solemnity. Normally he has that suit, vest and white collar shirt only when he goes to church.

Today he is not going to church.

He is waiting for the taxi to take him the 120 kilometers (74 miles) to the central village and the care home.

He has asked the priest to come and see him to day. We have not meet each other so often outside the church, just a couple of times. Sometimes it happens that people become connected to each other at the first glance.

Two weeks ago I was here, in his kitchen, drinking strong coffee and talked quite a wile about his life. He was like a natural philosopher I thought and still so believe.

When I arrived to day, surprisingly, I saw him working. Dressed in his suit trousers, shirt and vest he is mowing the grass on the meadow in front of the house.  He has just done it by hand using the scythe. It is done as it has always been done by him and his father before him. Nowadays no cows are eating the hay. They were sold a long time ago but the old man wants it to be done properly and he wants to leave the grounds tidy. Especially to day.

He wants to leave with the feeling that he has done a good job. Anyone approaching the homestead should see that it is loved and care fore.

It’s a confirmation that he has done what his father entrusted him to do.

Today he can see the priest strait into the eyes, face to face, and be proud over his life. It is to die a bit, to leave one life behind and prepare for a new one.

Both he and I understand that no one will move the grass here next year, at least not with a scythe.

It will probably be overgrown.

- I am not putting it up for sale. The council can do whatever they want with it.  Burn it or just let it die a natural death. Maybe that’s the best, To give it back to nature; One can not own anything actually, can one?

– No one can not, you know best.

Once again I can see that tear in the old man eyes. It is with tears we say goodbye. It is also with tears of happiness that we experience love and harmony. Sometimes I wonder what the difference is. For the old man it is the same tears he shed by the side of his parent’s grave and when his sweetheart come and went.

Both happiness and sorrows comes from the heart and that is the source for tears to.

Sometimes I wonder if You and I one day will be able to see the priest in the eyes and say;

- Now I am ready. I have done my part and I did what I could.

Today it was a piece of land, just by the foot of the mountain. A piece of land, with stones and rocks, that never gave any turnover to talk about. But it was loved.  There were always stones to carry away as if they would never end. The deeper they were digging, the more stones the ground reviled. There was no end to it but sometimes one cannot give in. Year by year the wall of stones grow higher and wider.

-Like human life. Always new sins to clear away and the deeper you go, the more you find. Up there on the mountain, where the cot uses to be, there is also a heap of  stones. Not so high of cause, because there you are so close to God. And in Jesus he is crossing the stones into sand even before you notice them. Do you think I am ready, pastor?

 -I hope so, I pray that you are.

-If you so pray for me, I might so bee.

-Coffee?

  -Aye!

-And no strong in it?

He has a flask and two mugs standing on the chopping-block and two sandwiches with smoked salami beside. Ready for us to share. Like a communion to fulfil the service we attended.

Today everything was like worship and I suppose he wanted the priest to be there just to make it real and proper.

It was a form of absolution of life as well as a blessing to what have been done.

I hope I also one day will have absolution for my life and a blessing that leads me to the coming one.

-You know my daughter of the sun is like your saints; he says sitting on the wood stack and sipping the coffee.

 I remember you talked about them last All saints day. You see, I do remember what the church teaches me because it is important to be open to holiness.

I have always walked close to the sacred, he continues, close as a saint. I think most Sami people do still to day. In the olden days the farmers also had a sense for the divine but nowadays I don’t know. Too much TV watching and too much welfare makes people lazy in their mind. When you don’t have to give to receive, life becomes quite flattened out. Boring, I suppose!

I am amazed over this old mans insight into life and spirituality. I suppose that comes out of a lifelong connection to nature and a daily prayer life.

He looks proud and handsome in his black suit.

  – I always walked close to heaven. Heaven on earth! I think that’s because I know the daughter of the sun so well. When I walk the woods or the mountain I  always talk to here. I Ask her were to go, what’s that and why things are? She doesn’t always answer immediately but she always answers in some way. Do you like the suit?

 - Aye.

I don’t say much. Just listen to him. Nodding, eating my sandwich and drinking my coffee.

-It is the church suit, he says, I bought it when my wife and I were in the city many years ago. But it still fits. It was expensive and things like this are expected to last long.

I have that feeling that the suit reminds him that certain things in life one have to take very serious. Like the church, like love, like nature and death.

-Sometimes I have not listened to neither my self, not the church, not the nature. I have believed that I could do things by my self. That has only lead to sadness. But when I touch the birch and hold the horn in my hands I have always been brought back to life again.

Now the arriving taxi is going to take him to another life, to the care-home in the village. It’s far from the life he is used to live but I had a hope that it would be good for him. But I was not sure.

– Hope you come and see me some day!

  – I will

The bags go in to the boot, a last sip of the coffee, a final look around.

I see him waving trough the taxis window and they leave me standing alone outside the old house. The mug is still in my hand. I take the flask and pour me the last drops of coffee and wish I had some strong to put into it.

It feels like after a funeral. I am standing alone on the churchyard just waiting for the grave digger to fill the hole and make the final closing.

The black taxi disappears into the woods and after a wile I can’t even hear the sound from it.

I take a piece of earth in my hand and say to my self; from dust to dust, but our saviour Jesus Christ will receive you in his kingdom.

Maybe the old man has lived there, in heaven, all his life. The kingdom is within you and if you have eyes of faith you will be able to see it all around, always and everywhere.

I do believe it’s more visually in some places and with some people.

One day I hope I will be able to climb the mountain behind the house and see if I can find the place were the daughter of the sun is still dancing.

I have to ask the old man how I can find the path leading there.

I took the flask and the mugs with me and drew the 120 km home. (74 miles)

The old man died just one month later and joined his wife and family.

That was just a few days after I had return the flask to him and he told me were to find the path behind the outbuilding.

The funeral took place on the same day the first snow was falling. Maybe that was because the daughter of the sun was a bit sad that day.

But now they are dancing together.

So I believe.

For many years I worked as a priest in the northern part of Sweden. I would like to share with you one of the many meetings I had during that time. This was a meeting that in many ways had influenced my faith and life. It comes in three parts and I hope it will also give you something. It was for me a meting with the indigenous people of Sweden as well as with the ancestors of the 17 century farmers that in order to find a sustainable living, under terrible conditions moved up to the Swedish highlands. In many ways it has an equivalent in the people inhabited Scotland, especially in the highlands, years ago. Life is the same for real people. (Although the Scottish indigenous people disappeared thousands of years ago).

I have called this meting; The Connection, because it is about being connected with real life.

THE CONNECTION

His hand were old, rough, a bit shaky and with slightly gnarled fingers. But when he holds the sculpture knife in his hand and gently stroke the piece of birch with it, it was like they calmed down and become young again.

- The problems are nowadays not only the hands, he said, but also the eyes. I  can’t see so well with this old eyes any more but my inner sight is still working.   Sometimes I have to rely on the knife and the piece of wood, that they guide me and let me form it into something new.

The mantelpiece in the room was field with different figures. They were of wood and out of horn, mostly from reindeer but also from elk. There were some figures of people but most was animals; bears, reindeer’s, foxes and small birds.

- I once tried to make an eagle, he said, but the piece of birch did not want me to. One has to listen to the material what it says, what it want to made into. It is like they have the figure already inside them. If you can’t listen to the nature you are lost in this life, he added. What about a coup of coffee, pastor?

The coffee was poured from a kettle that was standing on the wood burning stove. It had been standing there, simmering the whole morning. It was a bit strong and bitter but fruitfully good. Boiling coffee makes the beans open up to free the full taste. A heavenly wide difference from the instant coffee I nowadays mostly drink.

I did not want any “strong” added to it but the old man poured some drops in his coffee.

-In the far away old time my ancestors did not have any coffee, you see, he said smiling. They used to make a brew out of leafs and roots. To give it a sting, they always added something stronger.

- Aye I said, have your family lived here a long time?

- In this house, not more than maybe ninety years. Before that they always lived  in cots all year around. When my grandfather built this house it was just for winter living. He tried to make the land here to give harvest but that was fruitless. In the summer they still followed the reindeer out on the highlands.

With a small tear in his eyes, he cuffed, lighted the pipe and carried on;

- My father gave up that life during the last war. The Germans were everywhere and always interfered in the way we moved.  You know we Sami people don’t know of any borders, in nature and between people. We don’t have maps with  dots and lines on them marking boundaries. As free people we don’t separate between Swedish, Norwegians, Finnish or Russians, even if they try to make us    belong just to them. After the war there were also so many rules and regulations coming in from the big society, so my father just sold his reindeer’s and lived on this barren land. As we are free, border less, we are also free to live with God, Ipmil. I suppose he wanted my family to stick to craft and vainly work the small piece of land around the hose. We had a couple of cows and it was hardly enough for them. I suppose we were better of from crafting.

- My mother he said, and pointed to a picture on the wall of a woman in traditional dress, always said that we were blessed in our way although I know that she often longed to the long raids with the reindeer in the summer. Sometimes we used to follow my uncle because he was still following the reindeer’s. His family still do so.  She taught me all I know about craft. She taught me how to find material in the woods, how to feel if a piece of wood or a horn wanted to be transformed into a specific figure. My mother was good with birch-bark and natural colouring of yarn. I miss here even though I know she is still guiding me, as my father also is.

My father did know were the holy places on the mountains were. In the woods by the river and brooks, he did know where our ancestors had made their homesteads and built their cots for generations. These were holy places. He often sat there involved in a conversation with the spirits by singing a yoik. From these places you did not take anything away, neither wood nor flowers, they were scared. People in those days wanted to be close to the nature; they lived by it and respected it. Many of these places are still inhabited, not by human but with their spirits. There are also many beings that still linger on in the old places, waiting for new people to move in.These can be both spirits and very small people or beings, hardly noticeable, but good. If you treat them well of cause! Only people living close to the nature feels them. That is why city people don’t see them.

A Sami would never destroy the nature, just live with it. Before you build your cot, you always ask for permission. Sometimes you can’t build it were you were  thinking of doing it. They advise you to move it, maybe just ten meters away. We respect that. The nature is a reflection of God and who want to oppose him? Sometimes the small people wait for you to come and visit them. Maybe just for a simple coffee!  Even flowers can wait for you. They want to show you how beautifully they are and move you to tears and thanksgiving.

I could see that he was serious and talked with absolute assurance. Sometimes he poured some coffee unto the plate and sipped it followed by a sound of pleasure.  His old checked shirt did almost have more patches than original fabric. In these parts of the world one don’t throw anything away that can be mended and used again.

That probably goes for the house to. Maybe all the planks have been change during the years at least once. It. Replacing one or to of the boards is something you do every summer to keep it in a good shape. Sometimes houses in this area is painted but many are just impregnated by the nature it self.

- I don’t like the four wheelers he said. Many reindeer keeper have them nowadays. They cut wounds in mother that do not always heal. Some of the mosses have been there for thousands of years and you don’t replace that easily. By destroying them carelessly, you destroy thousands of years of life. Of cause, most Sámi people use their four wheelers responsibly but some of the young once are to wild and reckless. It might come out of the modern schools in towns and cities. In my days the teachers come to us during a couple of winter month. They lived together with us and were a part of our life. Some of them even come during  summer and followed us to the mountain. Young people to day seem to lose their connection to the spiritual world and nature. But I am sure some of them will return to real life and holiness one day.

The old man was often just staring out trough the window. As if he wanted to have the nature’s approval to what he said.

He was playing with his old pipe witch was well used and not been scratch for a long time so  it did not have room for more than a slice of tobacco. I suppose that was just a part of his life these days when he did not cut figures, just to play with his pipe. I could see that he had several pips resting in tray on a side table.

- I use to go to the holy places he said, dreamingly, but now my legs will not carry me that long. I have to stay here on the yard but that is also holy for me. I try as well as I can to keep it open.

And, he looked in my eyes and said; I am glad to be able to go by taxi to the church in the village once a month for communion.

-The church is also a sacred place because the holy spirit is working there to. When I was a kid there were only services in the church four – five times a year.  There were no roads in these days and it took the priest several days to get there. I suppose you can go there in an hour if you want to, even if the roads are just gravelled.

I must admit I felt a bit ashamed. We are quite concern about our comfort these days. I think it is a struggle sometimes to go to far with my car to reach some far distance chapel in the mountains. What would it then take of me, to day, if I had to walk a couple of days just to have a church service?

- When the priest come it was like a gift from heaven, he continued, There was  much to do of Baptism, Weddings and Funerals so he stayed for a couple of  days. It was festive days and everyone was there both farmers, workers from the mines or rail roads and Sami people. All were there together. And we all shared the bread from heaven that would keep us in faith and hope for months. That was good times. What a change. But I am glad you are here to day.

He poured up some more coffee in my coup but I still did not want to have any strong in it.

- You know, I will not be here so much longer. They say I can’t cope by myself.

Now I could see that tear in his eyes again. I don’t think it was just because his eyes were irritated as they can be on old people. It was tears from the heart.

- After that my wife died ten years ago it has been many lonely days although I do know and feel that she is still here, as my mother, father and grandfather.  They were the ones who built this house! Sometimes I don’t want to leave because I respect them and want them to see that I keep it clean for them. Who will do that when I am gone? We did not get any kids. God did not want it to be so.

He took a figure from the mantelpiece and placed it on the table in front of me. I could not really say it was beautiful but I could see that it was a woman.

-This is Beijves daughter.  Beijve is the sun and his daughter is the sunbeam almost like your saints. Without the un there is no life. She melts the snow and turns it into a brook where Charrs can live and give us food. The water also refreshes the flowers and makes the grass grow for the reindeer’s to eat. God is sun and happiness and this figure reminds me of that even when the soul is in winter darkness. Winter is a time for hope and faith.

Spring is the season when they burst in to love just as the flowers. I will keep the Daughter of the sun with me in the care home, if they let me, to remind me of the smiling sun. The same smile that my mother and my wife gave me. In my remembrance they are there with me and in me as Jesus is with you in the Eucharist.

Sometimes I had the feeling that he wanted to challenge me. Not in an offending way but to test my faith. What do I have that will make my children feel that I am in them, even when I gone from this life?  Am I a Daughter of the sun? A sunbeam, which is a part of the nature that even the flowers and the small people are longing to see? Do they want to share a coup of coffee with you, with or without something strong in it?

I was challenge this day in many ways and I could also feel that this was a part of an ending. One generation, an era was rapidly moving away and a life where time did not matter was slowly ending.

Now a priest would not walk for days in order to save souls and the patience walk over the mountains with the reindeer’s is replaced by four wheelers.

When one drive away in a Saab turbo one doesn’t see the holy places beside the road. Luckily the ways in the highlands are bad and narrow and sometimes you have to stop to let the reindeer’s pas.  It gives you opportunities to leave the car and just walk as if you were a pilgrim searching for the traces were the sunbeams have hit the world.

Sometimes I ask my self the question on what is real life? If we live without connection to what life is about how can we actually live a real life?

Do I still feel the daughter of the sun leading me to places were holiness is.

Before I left the old man I had to promise him to be back in a fortnight to help him leave his home.

It was dark when I reach my house in the small mountain village.

Dan

Gen 1: 1-3

I want us to see this the creation story in Genesis as a meditation on the mystery of creation not as a chronological account of the making of earth and cosmos.

Light is the foundation of the verse to day. The very foundation of life.

Without the light nothing will exist and actually nothing is existing. Light is the center from which everything else emerges. It is the essence of life; it is life as such.

Nothing has life or, rather is life without that light. John 1; 3
It is that light you see in the eyes of living creatures, the light that flows in the sap of the tree.

The light of the first day is the source of everything and everything that exists is that light.

We may say that all past and present, seen and unseen are expressions of what was implicated in that first moment.

That’s why all, with no exceptions, is interwoven and a part of that original life energy. Everything is connected and a part of that which it is connected with.

Our eyes can not see it, maybe feel it, nor can any human thought or imagination grasp it.

That is also why we never can understand or explain God because God is the foundation of that light.

God is not separate from the light and not separate from creation.

Creation is not something that God has done like an artist painting a picture, hanging it on the wall and stepping back to observe it.

God is the beginning on which all beings rest and can not be known because he is always more.

God is the light that makes the sun shine.

God is the life that makes our life.

God is the love that we are giving in moments of sensuality as well as in reaching out to others.

If you take away God there is no life, no light, no love, and no humanity.

And still the life, light and love that you can give and receive is just glimpses of what God is

Reconciliation and salvation is to be reconnected to and receive that light that actually is you.

We are called to be reconnected because we have, as individuals and society cut ourselves off from the light that is our life.

The light is held in bondage within us.

Grace is like sunrise in the morning that reveals to us what actually was there all the time but hidden in the dark.

We live in a world of shadows and in a mist that hides reality from us.

That is actually what we call sin; our incapability to see the total context. Reality is hidden from us by our own and our cooperative sins.

In Christ we can see the real human coming to those who have lost their full humanity to show us the light that is hidden in the depths of life.

It is not God who have been absent from us it is we who have been absent from God.

Ps 43

God is closer to us than we are to our self.

Reconciliation is to rediscover that light and to liberate it. : Acts 17:28.

When tears comes to us in night and our pillow feels like a stone God is there already even if we do not feel that. Prayer is a way of overlapping that ravine that separates us from God. God is there and sleeps on the same pillow. Gen 28:16-17

Dan and Zen

A MORNING IN LANARK

Days are shorter now
I notice that both in the morning and in the evening. It’s like evening tide for our part of the world
and whilst I am crossing Delves Park one morning I notice the splashing wet and depressing autumn leaves that
stick to my shoes. It’s almost like some form of gloominess that grabs hold of me. The leaves stay there as if they don’t want to go away, like grey hair, but looking at their colours I say to myself, the leaves are at least beautiful

Reaching the small Wallace monument I think to myself, that now when the leaves have fallen, one can see it.
It’s a part of Lanark and maybe it is also beautiful.

Sad then that no tourists come in October. They would probably not find it anyhow! There are no signs that help people to find it and nowhere to rest if they do. Maybe the monument was not ready for any new visitors. Anyhow, one sees more in the autumn, even in life

Sometimes people searching find the Church. Despite the fact that the council doesn’t like us to put up a direction sign, I hope it is ready whether it’s summer or winter for anyone needing a good word on their way
We have a nice bench to rest on, a garden that is alive all year around and on Sundays it’s open and welcoming- as it should be.
People care about their church, it’s a part of their life and those already in want to share it with others because when you have been given so much of positive input you want to give something back.

Some of the leaves follow me all the way in to the Rectory. They are no longer depressing, more like a companion. They just remind me of the autumn we all have to face and it is beautiful in the winter too, reminding me about home and childhood. That’s always good
And who can be sad, it’s a grace living so close to Christ Church, It’s a grace living in Lanark too,
Even when the grey hair comes in the autumn
Dan

The one above the pulpit is a watercolour painting by Galeoti (around 1800) actually showing the central part of Andea del Sartos’ painting “Madonna and the Harpies” (1500) It shows Mary holding baby Jesus.

Behind the altar in the side chapel there is also a small Tryptich. This is divided into three sections, which are hinged together and folded during Lent. When folded, there is a small painting of Veronica and the cloth that bears the image of Christ’s face. It is interesting to note that the fanciful derivation of the name Veronica comes from the words Vera Icon (ikon) meaning “true image”.

Currently Christ Church does not have enough members with children to sustain a ‘Sunday School’ although children are welcome to attend any of our services. Instead we hold a family service every month (usually on the second Sunday) where the children take an active role in the service. Three children are currently undergoing training as Servers.

Dan makes the service especially relevant to the children and is usually assisted by some bears! Peter, who is dressed in a cassock and his sister Mary, complete with dreadlocks! A recent arrival is ‘Father Ted’, who is supposedly a travelling priest from a monastery at Whithorn

The children come into their own at Christmas time when we hold a Christingle Service. This is attended by families from many of the churches in the town and the junior choir of Greyfriars Church also takes part.

As well as our usual Sunday services and Christmas, Easter and Harvest services, we have different forms of service at various times in the year.

One of the most popular is the Midsummer Outdoor Service followed by a barbecue. This is always well attended and we have always been lucky with the weather.

The Christingle Service in the week before Christmas is a highlight of our church year and it is usually standing room only as so many people wish to attend. After an incident of singed hair, we now give out electric Christingle candles which are specially imported from Sweden by our Rector!

Our regular Celtic Evensong services are lovely and calm, especially when the Harp Group is participating.

In the side chapel are two double windows. The first shows the annunciation and the second shows Mary and Joseph with the infant Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem. The shepherds have arrived to worship the new king. Beside the organ is a large window shoeing Mary and Jesus flanked by the two Celtic saints, Mungo and Ninian.

One of the most beautiful windows by Pauline Payne is in the Apse beside the altar and shows the risen Christ. Behind the choir stalls is a mysterious window which may show Mary Magdalene and St Veronica. The other large window in this part of the church is of St John and St Andrew.

Then we have two more ‘Pauline Payne’ windows showing Celtic saints. The first is of Saint Columba and Saint Margaret and the second is Saint Aidan and St Cuthbert.

Finally at the West end of the church we have a magnificent window showing The Resurrection.