Personal Blogs

The Autumn Pulse of Loch Lomond

Yesterday, I wrote about contemplating the early morning stars and the extraordinary sense of wonder they awaken in us. Standing beneath such an immense sky reminds us how small we are, yet somehow how connected we are to something so much greater.

Later that morning, my wife and I drove to Loch Lomond for breakfast. We found a restaurant with panoramic windows that seemed designed to bring the magnificent landscape indoors. The water was so still it looked glass like rather than formed, a sheet of blue holding the whole sky. With a warm roll and a strong cup of coffee steaming beside me, I found myself doing very little other than looking.

Across the water, Ben Lomond rose majestically into the morning light, while Conic Hill sat quietly to one side. Between them, the loch seemed almost to breathe. There was a remarkable stillness about the place, as though the landscape had its own heartbeat and, for a moment, I had become quiet enough to hear it.

I thought about the thousands of walkers who pass through this beautiful country each year on the West Highland Way. They arrive with heavy backpacks, aching feet and perhaps minds crowded with the concerns of everyday life. Yet something happens when we walk through landscapes like this. The noise gradually falls away. There is simply the path, the next step, the rain on your face, the scent of bog myrtle and the sudden golden glow of a hillside when the clouds part.

Many discover more than they set out looking for. They come to walk, to escape routine or to challenge themselves, but somewhere along the way they rediscover something within themselves. And in those moments of unexpected beauty and stillness, they find God.

I wonder whether this is one of creation's greatest gifts apart from humankind. It draws us out of ourselves and reminds us of the things that matter: beauty, gratitude, humility and our connection to something greater. The stars of yesterday's morning and the mountains before me seemed to be telling the same story, each in its own language.

And there I sat, with breakfast, looking across Loch Lomond. I had climbed no mountain and undertaken no great pilgrimage, yet I felt quietly blessed.

Sometimes we travel a long way to find what has been waiting for us all along. Sometimes all we need to do is stop, look and allow ourselves to wonder.

In our prayers at the end of the evening, we prayed for the young friendly couple from Kerela and hoped that they would see with their spiritual eyes what we saw yesterday.

“Who has confronted Me, that I should repay him?

 Everything under heaven belongs to Me.”

Job 14:11

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