Image courtesy of Ryan Hutton at Unsplash
I suppose it must have been the late summer of 1962, Telstar by the Tornadoes had been playing on the radio. I spent the summer days on the idyllic Island of Bute on Scotland’s west coast. We had a rural cabin. It had no running water or electricity. My job was to fill up the water containers from the communal well. Cows would cautiously approach and stare. The smaller calves would shuffle through for front-row viewing. I found their curiosity compelling.
At dusk, we would light paraffin lamps to illuminate the nights. My father would read children’s books borrowed from the library: Chinese Folk Tales, Heidi and 1001 Nights. We were all ears as we ate freshly made pancakes with homemade jam and washed down with small glasses of sweet stout. The lamp caused a sibilant sound as it burned up kerosene. It flickered and fostered sleepiness. It finally slumbered for the evening, and we would retire.
I lay there in my bed watching the stars cascading through the window; all of them. And I wondered if the Chinese farmer boys, or the Bedouin shepherd boys or the milk maids in the Swiss mountains were seeing and feeling the sense of awe that I felt in my heart as the universe entered in.
At dusk, I lay there in my bed watching the stars cascading through the window; every one of them and I was filled with a sense of awe in my heart as the universe entered my room.
*
Childhood memories like that visited me often and reminded me of my spiritual awareness from an early age, albeit in my own childish way.
I had an ache to know who created the stars, the moon, and the beautiful island that was so distant from my industrial town where idle men lingered on street corners like characters from a Loury painting. Where post-war tenements blocked natural light. Where unkempt dogs savaged through bins for scraps. Where it always seemed, there was better places to be raised.
Years later I read the following verse from the Bible,
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have ordained;
what is man, that you think of him?
What is the son of man, that you care for him?
— Psalm 8:3, 4.
I live on Scotland's west coast where the Atlantic winds bend me but the colours make me young. I am working in a book with a working title, On Being Human which juxtaposes my life with biblical wisdom. It's a way of expressing my thoughts regarding the more positive side of life including my Christian beliefs. I am a non-denominational Christian. I don't like the world I'm living in and I write to improve the world by creating my own vision of what humans should be.
Don't be shy; tell me why you came today and what makes you return. It's lonely here.
