Thursday 4 September 2025
 

Notes from Small Islands 3: Selling Cold Islands

Psalm 139: 7 – 10

O where can I go from your spirit,
or where can I flee from your face?
If I climb the heavens, you are there.
If I lie in the grave, you are there.

If I take the wings of the dawn
and dwell at the sea’s furthest end,
even there your hand would lead me,
your right hand would hold me fast.

The Grail Version

Reflection

People are always surprised to hear that tourism is a key component of the vibrant economies of the Northern and Western isles.  These are islands, after all, where the “wings of the dawn” are so strong that one might be blown over, where, in December, it stays dark for a long time, and where drought is a rare problem.  Add to that the difficulties of travel in the winter months with flights and boats often cancelled or delayed, it’s a miracle there’s any tourist industry here at all.  My husband jokes that when I suggested we move to an island, he thought I meant one in the Mediterranean!  There again, in the Summer it doesn’t get dark, beaches are clean, expansive, and uncrowded, and historic sites compete with wildlife and stunning natural vistas which lift the spirit.  Those who work in tourism have had to learn how to sell cold islands to those who wish to have a different type of tourist experience.  

I wonder if the folk who have to sell cold islands have an affinity to contemporary Christians who proclaim God’s coming Kingdom to a world which is indifferent to its values.  We read stories of the earliest Christian missionaries and it seemed to go so well; 3,000 converted at the Day of Pentecost, wandering saints in northern England baptised kings and armies, a monastery on Iona evangelised much of what is now Scotland.  Yet on a recent visit to Manchester I cringed at the evangelist with his loud hailer in Picadilly Gardens shouting at passers by.  Even the genteel tones of Thought for the Day can sometimes grate.  

We live in an age which longs for new, more stimulating, experiences; an age fascinated by spirituality and where that survey by the Bible Society tells us youngsters are wanting to come to Church.   Maybe these islands of faith have life in them which appeals as much as the cold islands of the north.

Prayer

We know, O God, 
you are with us wherever we dwell,
even in cold islands.

We know, O God,
you call all people to yourself,
satisfying, in them, ancient hunger.

Help us, O God,
to proclaim your love,
embody your compassion,
and articulate your justice,
that our world may be saved
and creation made whole.
Amen.

 

Notes from Small Islands  2: Integration, Autonomy, Sovereignty?

Lamentations 1: 1 – 3

How lonely sits the city
    that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
    she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
    has become a vassal.

She weeps bitterly in the night,
    with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers
    she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
    they have become her enemies.

Judah has gone into exile with suffering
    and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations,
    and finds no resting-place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
    in the midst of her distress.

Reflection

The Biblical history of the Jewish people is concerned with what we might now call their constitutional status.  The Jewish people were, variously: slaves in Egypt, nomads, invading army, loose confederation of tribes with no ruler,  unified monarchy,  divided nation beset by civil war, vassal to foreign powers, defeated and exiled nation,  renewed country, and then dominated, divided and destroyed by Rome.  Kings attempted to manage this, prophets discerned meaning within it, and the people muddled along as best they could hoping for better times.  Today’s passage reflects the defeat and exile of the Jewish leaders to Babylon after decades of vassalage and trust in precarious foreign alliances.  

Over the modern period many peoples have sought to run their own affairs.  As empires broke up, new nations emerged (or re-emerged).  The map of Europe and Africa have changed in our lifetimes; youngsters now may not even have heard of the USSR, Yugoslavia, or Czechoslovakia.  A live topic in many island jurisdictions is their constitutional status; some of our islands are counties, others part of wider council areas, and some are almost independent as Crown Dependencies.  Provision exists in Scotland for Island Authorities to have more devolution (but they’ve not yet asked for it wondering if autonomy would be better and some dream of Crown Dependency status.)

The autonomy of Congregationalism is at the very heart of the URC – until a congregation needs help, or resources, when the integration of Presbyterianism becomes attractive!  The Jewish people in all their various forms of existence, were, and still are, God’s people, called to be a light to the nations and be faithful to the covenant.  The countries and islands in these isles the cartographers call British face competing demands for their futures – back in the EU or not?  Further devolution or not?  Independence or Crown dependency status?  Whatever our constitutional futures are, as Christians we, like the Jewish people, are called to give faithful witness to the one who transcends all our human divisions.

Prayer

O God of earth and altar,
bow down and hear our cry,
our earthly rulers falter,
our people drift and die;
the walls of gold entomb us,
the swords of scorn divide,
take not thy thunder from us,
but take away our pride.

GK Chesterton

 

Notes from Small Islands 1: Rejoicing in the small

St Matthew 13: 31 – 32

Jesus put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field;  it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

Reflection

Jesus never ministered more than a few days’ walk from his home in a rural backwater of an obscure Roman province at the Empire’s edge.  He was at the periphery, in every sense of the word, and had no earthly wealth or status.  He led no armies, had no political allies, yet preached a simple message that transformed the world.  Like the small mustard seed in his small parable, Jesus’ message grew so that peoples and nations came to live within it.  Yet our world tends to disparage and ignore the small and the weak.  

Academics refer to the “small state theory” to illustrate how small states, and small island jurisdictions, navigate the choppy waters of our world.  Alliances with larger nations provide security and investment in exchange for natural resources or geographical location; lacking a large workforce they may specialise in certain sectors (for example tourism) to enhance their economy. They might pool resources and coordinate action through international organizations or coalitions to amplify their voice and impact. 

This is what small congregations and denominations do too.  Ecumenical groupings mean small and larger churches can combine for witness and service. Increasingly congregations don’t try to do everything but, instead, focus on what they are good at.  I know of a church of fewer than 10 people who recently raised over £400 for charity.  Here in Orkney, as in Shetland, the Church of Scotland has united 18 or so different parishes with a combined eldership, but maintaining roughly the same number of worshipping communities.  Smaller congregations don’t have to worry about all the compliance issues as these are pooled, along with the finance.

It’s not surprising then, for the Church to learn from small island communities; Jesus himself valued the small, the insignificant, and the peripheral and, from them, changed the world.  Perhaps the decline of the Church in the West is a chance to reconnect with these values and learn from where they have already introduced change.

Prayer

O God of the small and insignificant,
help us to value that which the world ignores,
to learn from folk on the edge,
to find our security in You,
and learn to make a difference where we are,
Amen.

 

Notes from Small Islands

Dear Friends,

I hope you found last week’s series inspired by the poetry of RS Thomas useful and interesting.  I think Ruth Whitehead, Susan Durber, and Michael Hopkins did well to draw such insights from a poet who was both brilliant and complex.  We turn now, for the next two weeks, to something a little different which I’ve called “Notes from Small Islands”.

Famously Great Britain sees itself as an island nation.  More accurately it is a collection of three nations almost entirely, surrounded by the sea.  The whole archipelago of the British-Irish isles comprises a number of islands with their own jurisdictions – the Crown Dependencies of the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey –  as well as islands which are part of other counties, or are counties in their own right.  We have churches on five of these smaller islands: the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Wight, and Orkney.  

In recent years academics have started to consider various aspects of islands – their governance and ingenuity, the risks they face, and the perspectives they bring.  As a small denomination we might learn from how small islands have become effective in paradiplomacy, resourcefulness, and communitarian values.  As a denomination bringing together two different types of Reformed polity – Congregationalism (also found in the Churches of Christ) and Presbyterianism – we are used to thinking in terms of the differences and tensions  between integration and autonomy; issues islands increasingly face.   We proclaim the Gospel to a disinterested world, often with more success than realise; island tourist boards in these waters attempt to sell cold windy islands to tourists – again with surprising success.  Smaller churches, and jurisdictions, often have to be very entrepreneurial in order to survive, as do small island communities.  Islanders can experience prejudice as they seem different; in a secular age Christians too can arouse suspicion and hostility.  Living on an island often means one can feel remote from the centre of things; time and tide, waiting for no one, disrupt travel plans; the URC can feel remote from the centres of power too and learns to see things more clearly from the edge.  There’s a resilience in islanders who battle wind and wave to make a living and live a good life; many of our small churches have a similar resilience, still faithfully proclaiming the Gospel and witnessing to Christ despite the depopulation of the Church.  Islanders are more aware of the need to adapt to climate change, have fascinating histories, and have a keen sense of injustice.   There are similarities here, and lessons to be learned, for the Church in general and the URC in particular. 

I hope to explore these themes with you over the next couple of weeks pondering the connections we can make between them and our faith as Christians.  I hope you enjoy them and that you can make links whether you live on a wee island like Orkney or a large one like Great Britain!

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

“The Answer”

Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way
now. And slowly the questions
occur, vague but formidable
for all that. We pass our hands
over their surface like blind
men feeling for the mechanism
that will swing them aside. They
yield, but only to reform
as new problems; and one
does not even do that
but towers immovable
before us

Is there no way
other than thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of it to the point of
dying. There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.

R S Thomas © Elodie Thomas

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Reflection

R.S. Thomas’s poem “The Answer” resonates deeply with Paul’s profound insight in 1 Corinthians 13:12, which acknowledges that our human perceptions and understandings of God and God’s truth will always be significantly limited.  Both explore the tension between our fragmentary understanding of God, and the promise of that one day we will know much more of God.

In this poem, Thomas writes of 

Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way.

This echoes Paul’s metaphor of seeing in a mirror dimly, or as many remember it “through a glass darkly,” both acknowledging the imperfect nature of our spiritual sight.  The questions that arise in this half-light are “vague but formidable,” much like our current partial understanding of the mystery that is God.

The poem portrays our attempts to grasp truth as being like blind people feeling for a mechanism, suggesting both our limitations and our persistence.  Similarly, Paul recognises that our present knowledge is incomplete, though he promises a future of fuller understanding.

Thomas’s powerful image of kneeling in a cold chancel until

a stone has rolled
from my mind
offers hope amid the struggle.  The questions don’t vanish but are transformed, lying
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.

This beautiful Easter allusion suggests that our wrestling with spiritual questions might itself be part of the journey toward understanding.

Both texts invite us to embrace the tension between knowing and not knowing.  They suggest that spiritual truth isn’t about achieving perfect clarity in this life, but about persistent seeking, humble questioning, and occasional moments of grace-filled insight.

The journey of faith, as both R.S. Thomas and Paul reveal, is about making our way forward in twilight, trusting that our partial understanding will one day give way to a much greater understanding.

Prayer

Seeking Mystery,
we stand before you in our fractured knowing,
half-hearing melodies of truth.
Attune our listening beyond the limits of perception,
widening our understanding through patient grace.
Breathe into our incompleteness the promise of revelation,
gentle and transforming.
Amen.

 

The Moon in Lleyn

The last quarter of the moon
of Jesus gives way
to the dark; the serpent
digests the egg. Here
on my knees in this stone
church, that is full only
of the silent congregation
of shadows and the sea’s
sound, it is easy to believe
Yeats was right. Just as though
choirs had not sung, shells
have swallowed them; the tide laps
at the Bible; the bell fetches
no people to the brittle miracle
of the bread. The sand is waiting
for the running back of the grains
in the wall into its blond
glass. Religion is over, and
what will emerge from the body
of the new moon, no one
can say.
                  But a voice sounds
in my ear: Why so fast,
mortal? These very seas
are baptized. The parish
has a saint’s name time cannot
unfrock. In cities that
have outgrown their promise people
are becoming pilgrims
again, if not to this place,
then to the recreation of it
in their own spirits. You must remain
kneeling. Even as this moon
making its way through the earth’s
cumbersome shadow, prayer, too,
has its phases.

From Collected Poems 1945-1990 (Phoenix Giant, 1993)
R S Thomas © Elodie Thomas

Philippians 4:4-9

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Reflection

The parish church in Aberdaron, where R.S. Thomas once served as priest, is as close to the sea as any one could dare. It’s easy to imagine him kneeling in the empty church close to the shore, reflecting that no people are coming to the summons of the bell. He writes in three stark words that ‘religion is over’, and that no one can say what will emerge. It was easy for him to believe, for a moment, that Yeats was right, Yeats who wrote lines that have become well known: ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’. And perhaps he is also remembering a poem by Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach, that describes the ‘melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ of the sea of faith. 

Arnold and Yeats are unrelenting in their gloom, with notes of sadness and even terror. But this poem by R.S. Thomas is quite different. He hears a voice that challenges his dismay, that tells him to remain kneeling, and to believe that prayer, like the moon, has its phases. It is striking that the second part of the poem does not deny the reality of the first part, but invites him to keep on praying, to wait and to trust. 

Is Paul saying something similar to the Christians at Philippi, when it might have seemed to them that the game was up and that faith was over? ‘Rejoice always’, he says and ‘Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received…’ Many of us have also known what it feels like when the tide is going out. We may have prayed in silent churches and wondered what will be. But could we also, encouraged by R.S. Thomas, yet ‘remain kneeling’ and wait to hear the voice that will keep us faithfully there? 

Prayer

God, 
be with me when I wonder
about the world 
and the church. 

I long for you to speak to me,
sounding in my ear,
clear as a bell. 
If that is not your way with me, 
then show me,
through the scriptures and your saints,
where you are working, blessing
and bringing hope. 

And I will remain kneeling,
and keep on doing and learning
what I have received of the faith, 
always. Amen.

 

You have no name.
We have wrestled with you all
day, and now night approaches,
the darkness from which we emerged
seeking; and anonymous
you withdraw, leaving us nursing
our bruises, our dislocations.

For the failure of language
there is no redress. The physicists
tell us your size, the chemists
the ingredients of your
thinking. But who you are
does not appear, nor why
on the innocent marches
of vocabulary you should choose
to engage us, belabouring us
with your silence. We die, we die
with the knowledge that your resistance
is endless at the frontier of the great poem.

R S Thomas © Elodie Thomas

Genesis 32: 24-29

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 

Reflection

RS Thomas himself once said “One of the most important functions of poetry is to embody religious truth”. So what truth is this poem trying to convey?

There is a clear reference to Jacob wrestling all night with God’s messenger. Jacob does not get what he wants – he doesn’t defeat the stranger, nor does he learn his name – but in the wrestling he is both damaged and blessed.

RS Thomas is, as always, painfully honest about our wrestling with language for God and concepts of God, and compares religious and scientific wrestling with the mysteries of our world. Yet all forms of trying to understand are ultimately defeated – God is beyond our full comprehension in this world, he will cause us to continue to wrestle with understanding and to wonder, until our dying breath.

Many scientists who are also Christians find purpose for their struggle to understand more about God and God’s world in that one word ‘wonder’. Science and faith can be united in their awe of God and God’s creation. Yet the glorious thing about both science and faith is that despite all their wrestling they will never fully grasp God. There is always more to understand and explore until eventually, like Jacob, we are blessed, changed and made new. In the wonder of heaven perhaps we will learn to stop wrestling and finally just enjoy being in the presence of pure, awesome love.

In the meantime, we can be honest about the things with which we struggle, knowing that God will never let us go. And perhaps we can practice being awe-struck by the wonders of God – in poetry and art, in words and music, and in science and thought.

One day, as Charles Wesley describes it, we will be ‘lost in wonder, love and praise’ ( the hymn ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’).

Prayer

God who is beyond all our words,
we praise you for your wonders.
We thank you that in Jesus you show us love
that looks like us.
When we struggle in life
send us your Spirit,
to give us wisdom to keep our eyes set on you,
until we see you face to face.
Amen.

 

Worship Notes for September and October

Dear Friends,

As you know we provide notes to help those lead worship prepare.  September’s material has been on the website for some time and October’s has been up for a week or so; we’re nearly ready with November’s.  You can find the material by going to urc.org.uk then clicking on Your Faith, then Prayer and Worship, then Worship Notes.  Here’s a direct link.

As many of you may know it has become a tradition in recent years to observe a season of Creation from 7th September until 4th October.  I am very grateful to the Revd David Coleman and his wonderful team at EcoCongregations Scotland for helping provide resources for these Sundays.  I’ve added other material to them and so, for each Sunday of September, and the first in October, there will be an additional set of Worship Notes for those who lead worship wishing to develop a Creationtide theme.  They should be read in conjunction with the regular Worship Notes so you can get a good range of material.  The first two Sunday’s worth of additional material are posted and I hope to get the other two loaded tomorrow.

The alternative material has the normal range of prayers, with a Communion prayer for each Sunday and a range of hymns with a creation theme.  In addition it has commentary on all the readings in the Lectionary – the alternate Old Testament passages as well as the regular ones.  All Age Activities are found in the regular notes as are hymns with a closer connection to the particular themes in the readings.  

I hope those who plan worship will find these notes helpful in the vital work of planning and preparation as we facilitate the feeding of God’s people.

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

Marged

Was she planned?
Or is this one of life’s
throw-offs? Small, taken from school
young: put to minister
to a widowed mother, who keeps
her simple, she feeds the hens,
speaks their language, is one
of them, quick, easily
frightened, with sharp
eyes, ears. When I have
been there, she keeps her perch
on my mind. I would
stroke her feathers, quieten
her, say: ‘Life is
like this.’ But have I
the right, who have seen plainer
women with love
in abundance, with
freedom, with money to
hand? If there is one thing
she has, it is a bird’s 
nature, volatile 
as a bird. But even
as those among whom she
lives and moves, who look at her
with their expectant 
glances, song is denied her. 

From Collected Poems 1945-1990 (Phoenix Giant, 1993)
R S Thomas © Elodie Thomas

John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Reflection

What does it mean to have life and to have it abundantly? This aspiration is often quoted in church and elsewhere, but there is little agreement about what it really means. Is it about having love, freedom and money, about being ‘your true self’, ‘living your best life’? Where do we see those who have life in abundance? And how would we assess our own lives on a scale of fulness? 

In his poem Marged, R.S. Thomas describes a woman who lives a life that does not seem abundant at all. She is ‘put to minister’ to her widowed mother, keeping hens, doing household chores, and her mother ‘keeps her simple’. Thomas (pastoral visiting?), assures her that life is just like this. But he doubts his own words and sees her as a bird denied its song. 

It is profoundly sad and disturbing when we meet people whom we judge to have a limited, rather than abundant, life. And it can be soul destroying when we reflect on our own lives, to imagine what we might have been. 

But perhaps it is part of every human life that we don’t ever (and could not) fulfil all our potential. There is unrealised longing in everyone. Today we talk so much about fulfilling our lives, whereas Jesus talked about losing them as the way to do just that. Thomas is convinced that Marged was ‘put to minister’ and ‘denied her song’, and if so that is her tragedy and her mother’s sin. But it is possible to choose a life of service, and to find fulness there. And it is even possible, when a life has been thrust upon you, to live abundantly. It is a paradox, that we often see in those with a life limited in some way what does really look like fulness of life. It may be possible, every day, to fill the cup of life, whatever our circumstances. It is a gift.

Prayer

O God, 
by whom I know myself beloved,
planned and begotten,
thank you for the gift of my life. 

I know that I am limited,
by time and circumstances, 
by my body and my will,
that I cannot fulfil all my dreams
or all your hopes for me. 

So, I pray that you will teach me
how to live well in each moment,
that I may lose myself for others,
and give abundantly of love.
Amen.