The world will be holding its breath over the next few days.  Election day in the USA will affect us all, what ever our politics and where ever we live.  There has been a lot of hyperbole in the media, but the result of this election may well affect the planet for many years to come, in many different ways.

Karine Polwart, a Scottish singer/songwriter has a song called The Sun’s Coming Over the Hill, four lines of which are:

Oh the nights are long
But life is longer still
Oh the nights are long
But the sun’s coming over the hill.

So, if you are US citizen, vote; if not, sit tight.  And everyone pray, breathe deeply, and remember, The Son’s coming over the hill.

At present my Twitter feed seems to be full of people and organisations saying it is important to have hope in the middle of this pandemic or the US election or Brexit.  People need hope, they say.  But they never say what they mean by hope or how you are supposed to get it!

We use the word ‘hope’ for many things. I hope the weather will be fine tomorrow.  I hope I’ll get something nice for my birthday.  I hope Inga doesn’t pee on the floor today!  In all these cases we use the word hope to mean ‘It would be nice if….’.  We might wish for something, but have very little control over whether it will happen or not.

We also use the phrase to ‘give hope’ to someone or some community.  Here we usually mean we want to turn negative thoughts or ways to positives.  This could be by giving people who have lost their crops new seed and tools so that they can grow more, or talking to someone who is ill saying they will get well.  While this type of hope has its uses, it is still a wish not a certainly.

In English, the word Hope has changed its meaning over the years.  When the word Hope is used in the Bible its meaning is not a wish or positive thoughts.  The word translated into English as Hope means a future certainty. 

I say that again.  Christian Hope is a Future Certainty.

This is the type of hope we need, and the type of hope we need to share.  It doesn’t come by trying to think positively, but as a by-product of our faith.  Positive thinking can help when down or in trouble, but what we all need is future certainty. 

As the hymn says:

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

I have a friend called Sarah.  She is an amazing lady with a very caring heart. 

Sarah spent some time in prison, and while she was there she met with volunteers from Prison Fellowship Scotland who helped her a lot.  Now she wants to give something back.  She has set herself the challenge of walking 150 miles in three weeks to raise money for PFS.

In the past two weeks she has walked 110 miles, and hopes to reach her target early this week.

“Prison Fellowship Scotland is amazing charity,” says Sarah. “They helped me so much when I was in prison, to believe in myself. I decided to get got baptised after being encouraged by my amazing befriender Jean. I am so thankful for what I learned about myself in prison.  So many prisoners don’t get any contact with anyone. This is why prison fellowship is so important. Their volunteers write regular letters, especially for long term prisoners.”

Sarah has recorded a short video explaining what she is doing.  It is on YouTube:

To support Sarah and Prison Fellowship Scotland, please visit their Just Giving page here, and put Sarah’s Walk in the message box.  You can donate anonymously if you wish.

Thank you.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a sticky patch on Inga’s cheek.  It was as if she had a brush-full of glue spotted there.  I managed to part some of the hair, and then Ben held her while I started to remove it with salt water.  It quickly became apparent it was an injury  of some kind, so we left it there and I got a vets’ appointment the next morning.  Inga was not bothered about it at all.

The vet was as surprised as I was to find this.

Their diagnosis was infected dermatitis, and they put her on an oral antibiotic and a steroid + antibiotic cream.  She was also s’posed to wear a cone to stop her scratching it.  Instead I used a cushioned collar.  When I put it on I expected a long period of trying to get it off.  Instead, she shook once, scratched at it once, then lay down again and went to sleep!

She was quite happy wearing it day and night, including going out for walks.

Magnus knew she wasn’t well, and stood guard while she slept.

The meds did their work and cleared up the infection and the skin lesions.  The hair is just beginning to grow back, and once she is clipped tomorrow the area will not be noticeable.

I have loved taking photos since I was a child, and when I was teaching, I ran a photography activity.  At the beginning of the year it was always over-subscribed, and I used to give each person a black and while film roll, and told them to go out and take pix.  Some would be back in 10 minutes wanting another film: these were in.  Others would return an hour later saying that couldn’t find anything to take photos of; these were out!

During lockdown I have been pretty much tied to the house for pix, so I have been playing with my camera, especially with differential focusing.  For example, two sunflowers self seeded in the tub below the bird feeder.  Changing the focus changes what we see.

As we were tidying up the sweet peas, I noticed the back-lit pods and stems, and took quite a few pix.  When I came to edit them, I noticed that the automatic focus had chosen different bits of the pictures to focus on.  Two show this well.  The first has focused on the pretty bits; the second on the grass weed at the end of the drive.

So often we focus on the wrong things.  In difficult times (like today’s lockdown) we focus on the wrong things.  We need to move our focus from the difficulties to the pretty bits.  Fortunately, we have our father God and brother Jesus to help us.

When I lived in London I went to Childs Hill Baptist Church.  The old church building was in some disrepair, and we used the hall for the services.  After the evening service we had coffee and tea, and biscuits.  The tea was always made by Mary.

Mary was short and round, and always had a smile on her face.  She had lived in the area all her life, and had a fund of tales of the blitz and before.  I often helped her with the washing up and loved hearing snippets of what life was like in earlier times.

Whenever the subject of what jobs we could do came up, she would always say her tombstone should read:  This is Mary who made the tea.  The only argument we ever had was whether making the tea was an important job or not.  I said it was vital, she said it wasn’t.

Mary died suddenly.  On the Sunday following her death, no one made the tea.  No one put the boiler on before the service.  No one took the cups out.  No one bought biscuits.  We all just left after a few minutes and went home.

It was a lesson to all of us.  We had taken Mary’s gift of making the tea for granted.  She couldn’t give a load of money, or preach, or take a service, or read a lesson.  She showed her love for her Lord in the way she could. 

She made the tea.

I am the eldest of three, brought up in the Brethren until my parents realised the format of the meetings was turning us right off God.  We then moved to a local Baptist church, which had an active youth programme.

At some point in my early teens the faith I had as a child grew up with me.  At 16 I was baptised, and ever since, my theological leanings have been towards the Baptists.

My love of dogs started when we got Sweeper, usually known as Sweep, in my primary school days. She and I went everywhere together.

I read Biochemistry with Pharmacology at Strathclyde, and was active in the Christian Union there.  A group of us went round many of the Glasgow churches of all colours taking services etc, and we also took a Sunday School in the middle of the Gorbals (300 kids aged about 5 to 11).  Great fun, and good experience.

After I got my degree I went to London to do research.  I found a village Baptist church in the middle of London, just off the Edgeware Road!  I spent three happy years there, being elected as a Deacon at the end of the second year.

The next several years were spent in Mill Hill, in north London, this time at the local CoE church.  (I believe in going to a local church if there is one!)  There I married Steve and we had 2 boys, Ben and Nick.   

When the boys were about 5 and 6 we moved down to Dover, and I went back to work as a Chemistry teacher, while Steve looked after the boys.  As it was a boarding school it was a 7 day a week job during term time.  But we joined the local Baptist church, and I went whenever I could.  All of us enjoyed our Dover life.

Then came the bombshell.  An x-ray on my hip showed arthritic damage to my hip girdle and my lower back.  I was told I had to stop work NOW or be in a wheelchair within 5 years.

By this time Steve was working in the Occupational Therapy Unit at the local ‘core and cluster’ home for folk with multiple and profound learning difficulties.  This was at the time Care in the Community was all the rage, and we ended up adult fostering two men, who were friends.  Alan sadly had to go back in to hospital care after a fit caused more brain damage, but Nigel came to Orkney with us, and is still in the care of the family. (I lost all my photos in a flood in 2005, so there are none of Dover or of the boys growing up.)

After a holiday in Orkney, we knew we wanted to move here, and that is what we did in 1995.  Steve and I separated in 2002, but have remained friends.  I moved to the island of Flotta (population about 70), a place I loved from the start.  The church on the island is officially Church of Scotland, but as an island kirk, we had Catholics to charismatics, and all stations between!  I loved the mix of traditions, and had intended to spend the rest of my life on the island.

But God had other things in store for me!  Over the next 15 years or so I moved back to St Margaret’s Hope to live Nick after his breakdown and subsequent diagnosis as bipolar, back to Flotta, then back to Kirkwall to live with Ben who has been diagnosed autistic.

All this time my health has been getting worse, and I am less able to do things every year.  Gone are the days when I could stand to take a service, or take part in most activities.  As my body has been able to do less and less, I have been forced to rethink my ‘job’ as a Christian, and have realised it is ‘just’ prayer – something you can do sitting or lying down!

Over time I hope to put some of the lessons I have learnt in writing.  Most posts here will be short, and irregular.  But I hope some of them will cause you to think!

It was my last big trip south.  I had stayed with my mother over her birthday, then came up to London to see both parts of The Cursed Child, then to the set of the Harry Potter films.  Finally I travelled to pick up Magnus and his half sister, Eilidh. 

I had a travel bag for each of them and they were excellently behaved on the trains.  I met a friend (with a car) in Inverness for the last stage.  They were still fine, and on the ferry we left them out on to our laps.

Even then Magnus had the most open, trusting ‘stare’.  He was interested in everything.  As he grew older that interest meant he was into everything.  He was ALWAYS naughty on a Sunday morning when I left them to go to church – other days they were fine, but there was something about a Sunday…

As he grew, he became not only a beautiful soul, but a beautiful body!  He is very correct for the breed, and my dog trainer called him Magnificent more than once.  He moves so well, and is such a softy!

When Eilidh was killed by a car last November, Magnus was heartbroken.  He moped, went off his food, and was very depressed.  I knew I had to find him a companion.  That was when Inga came into the picture. 

Magnus is now three.  He is as loving as ever, and takes his guarding duties seriously.  Now a mature dog, he is still a magnificent example of the breed.

Inga was born on 1^st January 2020.  When I saw the photo of the litter on Facebook I knew she was mine! 

I contacted the breeder immediately, and booked her.  At that point I only knew the bloodlines she would inherit, and that she was well known by the breeders of Magnus and Eilidh.  Jess was surprised that I had contacted her so soon – she was expecting to wait a couple of weeks to make sure the pups were OK and doing well.  It was only then that I asked where she lived.  It was in mid Wales.

The trip was a complex one.  I was able to see my mother (now in a care home after a stroke) and Steve was able to see several of his siblings.  We picked Inga up on our way home, and had 2 nights on the journey.

From the very start nothing seemed to phase Inga.  She already knew her name, and was happy both to run about the room, and to go in her travel bag.  This had zip down sides, so that for the overnights she had plenty of room to move about.

We arranged that Magnus would be home from kennels before we got back, so that he was here to meet the new arrival.  He was fascinated with her from the start, and looked after her, guarding at a distance.

Now aged 9 months, she is a real sweetie wheatie!  She loves to snuggle (on her own terms – she is a Scottie after all!).  I was a bit worried that because of lockdown, she was not able to go to puppy classes etc, but nothing seems to faze her.  Every one and every thing is her friend.  She has only one fault: she expects to occupy the whole bed, and will not move if I want a small bit for myself. I can live with that.