Letter from Australia 129 – Granny Chickens and the Rainbow

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Forgive me if this is a bit personal and raw.   I am writing this on the plane as I return home to Newcastle – after a surreal and sad few days back home in Scotland for the funeral of my mother.  Home.  That’s such an evocative word.  It has connotations of belonging and being accepted.  Do I have a home?  Do I belong anywhere?

On Monday I left Newcastle and flew from Sydney via Singapore and Helsinki to arrive in Edinburgh on Tuesday morning.   (Annabel was unable to come partly because it is so expensive and exhausting to make such a short trip – in effect four days travel for one day. – I went representing the family in Australia – my daughter Becky and her family are also here). It was made even more exhausting because I am suffering with sciatica.  Thankfully in the Lord’s mercy a couple of friends enabled me to get Premium Economy which is ridiculously priced for a couple of extra leg inches…although I was very grateful for them as they made a big difference.

My daughter Emma Jane picked me up from the airport and drove me to Perth where I took the train to Inverness.  Perth station is to my mind a picture of Scotland – it is at the centre of a most beautiful area – Perthshire in Autumn is stunning – but the station is a depressing, rundown dump – and has been that way for decades.   You would think that the SNP government, and SNP run local council, would do something to improve the station in the centre of Scotland’s heart.

No Country for Old Men

It is hard to say this but every time I return ‘home’ to Scotland, it no longer feels like the country I call home.  There are so many good things about Scotland – the beauty of the countryside; the character and heritage of the people, the history and especially the history of Christianity in this land of ‘the people of the book’.    But these great riches are being frittered away by a government and civic elite which are destroying the foundations of the culture, and doesn’t know what to replace it with.     Each time I return to Scotland I see a declining nation and a decaying and confused culture.   My worst nightmares for Scotland are coming true.  I feel politically, socially and even spiritually homeless.

My sister Fiona and brother-in-law, Gerry, took me to Clarkston House, our home near Portmahomack, where I stayed the night on my own.   Every time I – and Annabel, and our children and our grandchildren have gone to ‘the Port’ it has always been special.  The view is stunning – but I realised as I lay in that house alone – it was no longer a home – it was just a house.    What had made it a home was the presence of my father and mother – their hard work, kindness, quirkiness, reality, hospitality and practical faith – made it a real sanctuary– a foretaste of heaven.   As I wrote in this article about their strawberries, vegetables and above all eggs!

https://theweeflea.com/2017/12/31/a-taste-of-heaven/

Granny Chickens

 

Speaking of the eggs ‘Granny chickens’ loved her hens.  In fact, just before she died, she had just bought another six.  It somehow seemed fitting that she was discovered dead after a woman knew that there was something wrong because the chickens had not been let out of the hen house.   For me apart from the absence of my mother, it was the absence of the chickens that made the house and land feel so empty.

 

The Farewell

When it came to the actual funeral I tried to write out a eulogy, but I couldn’t do it.  How can you summarise the life of your mother in 5 minutes?  So, when I stood up, I just spoke to the people who were there.  I was so thankful for family, friends (some of whom had travelled from as far as Edinburgh) and neighbours.  They had come to celebrate the life of my mother, but also to mourn and to weep with those who weep.  (By the way I am tired of the modern trend of trying to make grief better by saying that the funeral is just all about celebration.  No, it isn’t.  It is unbelievably sad.   Of course I am thankful for my mother…profoundly, deeply – but that is why the mourning is so much more painful.   The loss is so much greater.   Please allow people to mourn.  And weep with those who weep.  My heart is broken.  An era is ended.  My mother has gone…let us mourn without giving us reasons to be cheerful or inviting guilt or superficiality.

I don’t really remember much of what I said – you can get it on the YouTube version of the funeral – (I will post a link when it is available).   I know that I spoke of her connection to the people who were there – some of whom had travelled a considerable distance to come and pay their respects.   I thanked her neighbours, friends and family who had cared for her so that she could fulfill her wish to be able to die at home.    There was a good attendance.  In today’s world, where both life and death are cheap, to have such an attendance at a funeral for a 90-year-old spoke volumes.   I spoke of her character, especially her strong independence, and her faith – which had increased and deepened as she aged.   And I spoke of it being an end of an era.

These words from Proverbs 31 seemed appropriate – “²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.

²⁶ She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

²⁷ She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

²⁸ Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:

²⁹ ‘Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.’

³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

³¹ Honour her for all that her hands have done and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Though outwardly her body was wasting away, inwardly she was being renewed day by day – especially in reading the word and listening to it preached by her favourite preachers – Sinclair Ferguson, Alaister Begg, Angus Macrae and her favourite, her grandson and my son, Andrew.  I was so proud of him in delivering the sermon (at her request).  I know just how difficult it was and yet it was clear, compassionate and Christ -centred.  Just what my mother would have wanted.

One Last Visit

After the funeral and reception in the Portmahomack hotel – the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren all went for what I suspect will be one last visit to the house.  There was something symbolic and moving to see her great grandchildren taking out the same box of toys and games that her grandchildren had played with.   It also confirmed my awareness that Annabel and I will never be granny and grandad chickens!  That has gone forever.  And so, when EJ, and her husband Chris, drove me away from the house – I couldn’t help but feel that this was really the end.  The next day I phoned the solicitor to tell him to put the house on the market (if any of you are interested in this Highland paradise let me know!) …  It’s the end of an era…and an end of our Portmahomack home.

Dundee and Edinburgh – Family and Friends

After staying with John and Betty Ellis in Dundee, and seeing my son Andrew and his wonderful wife, Caireen, and children; it was time for EJ to take me for lunch and then to the airport.  She was comatosed from night shift and lots of driving….and me from jet lag, emotion and lack of sleep…. but it was a precious time.  In fact, every moment with friends and family was precious…

And so I left Edinburgh late on Thursday afternoon and will hopefully arrive in Sydney on Saturday morning – where again the kindness of Christian brothers and sisters is demonstrated by a couple driving down from Newcastle to Sydney – and back to my home with Annabel in our wee house in Whitebridge…and a church home where I believe that God has called us to prepare people to go to their eternal home….

God’s Gonna Cut You Down

I have not given up on Scotland – and I don’t believe God has…but I do think a tremendous judgement is coming upon the nation – and is perhaps already here.  (by the way this is not the comment of someone who has escaped to a paradise in Australia – we may be ten years behind Scotland in our descent into the pit, but we are still heading that direction – unless the Lord intervenes).

One indicator of just how far down the rabbit hole the UK as a whole has gone is given on my BA flight from Singapore to Sydney.   When I switch on the map as well as being told airspeed, distance to destination, etc I am also given a Mecca compass and told which Islamic prayer I should be praying at the moment – on British Airways!  Doubtless BA exec will tell us that this is all done in the name of equality and diversity – but the reality is that some are more equal than others.  There is no other religion or group given such special treatment.  You can guarantee that Emirates, Qater and Dubai airlines are not offering up information on Christian prayer.  Britain has lost its way.

No Continuing City

Reading the above it may seem as though I am, understandably, being a bit morose and discouraged or discouraging – as though the end of my mother has led me to ‘it’s the end of world as we know it’.    And it’s true that I do feel ‘homeless’ in several senses.   Portmahomack is no longer my home, and Scotland no longer feels like home.  In some senses my attitude to Scotland is the same as my attitude to the house in the Port.   Just as without my parents that house has lost its soul – so Scotland feels to me like a soulless place – as the cultural and civic elites have killed of Scotland’s Christian heritage and adopted a new green/progressive religion of self, superficiality and superiority.    As a nation it’s as though we are embarrassed by our spiritual ancestors and have replaced them with new selfself-made but ultimately destructive idols.  The fox has truly got into the hen house.

Even as regards the church I now have a lot more sympathy with those who feel that they don’t quite belong.  In one sense I never thought I belonged to any church although I was fiercely proud of the Free Church – but always felt like the outsider.   But that didn’t really matter.  I tried to live by Chalmer’s maxim – “who cares for the Free Church compared with the Christian good of Scotland”.

A New (temporary) Home?

What about Australia?  Is that home?   In one sense yes.  Even as I write I feel as though I am going home to Newy…and not just because Annabel is there.  Both of us have grown to appreciate the place where God in his strange providence has placed us.   When we moved here from North Shore our daughter Becky who lives in the Blue Mountains suggested that we were more ‘Newey people than North Shore people!   She wasn’t wrong.   Newcastle is to Sydney as Dundee is to Edinburgh.   It is a post-industrial city with a strong working- and middle-class culture.  A lot of open needs and lots of spiritual potential.   Like Dundee.   I feel called here.   Home is wherever God has placed you and I believe that he has a work for us to do in, and through, the Presbyterian church here.

We have been granted ‘permanent residency’ here in Australia, but we know that nothing in this life is permanent.  This world is not my home; I’m just a passing through.    But we can still enjoy the journey – and see all that is good in it as something that God has given us richly to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17)) and all that is bad as something which will eventually be ‘undone’. (Revelation 21:4).     The imagery of Revelation tells us that there will be no more sea in heaven – that is not because the Pacific Ocean is bad!  But rather because sea represents separation (the pain of separation by 16,900km is a constant!

The Rainbow Hope

But there is a greater hope.   We mourn – but not as those that have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).    The morning of the funeral…I got out of bed feeling sad yet strangely refreshed…. I opened the curtains in the front room, only to see the most magnificent rainbow arching the house, as I looked over the Dornoch Firth to the Sutherland hills.    I actually prayed “Lord, you’re kidding”!  I admit it was not a very biblical prayer.   But I was astonished.   To you it may not appear a great thing – and maybe I am being overdramatic – but to me it was sign, a covenant sign.  The most perfect rainbow arched over the house.   It remained at that intensity for no more than 5 minutes…

It’s sad that in the devil’s perversity of all that is good, the rainbow has come to represent in our culture, all that is perverse.  The devil always seeks to distort the good.  I object to that cultural/spiritual misappropriation, and I want to take our sign back.  It is not a sign of human pride and perversity.   The rainbow is a sign of God’s judgement over a sinful world, and of his mercy and determination to save it.  It is also a sign of his authority.

At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. ³ And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne”. (Revelation 4:2-3)

The rainbow is only over our homes for a fleeting moment.   But the rainbow is always over the throne.

The elders around the throne cast down their crowns and declare “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.’ (Revelation 4:11)

My mother, like the rest of us, was created by God.  It was by his will she had her being.  And by his will he took her from her ‘no fixed abode’ to her eternal home.  Her deeds follow after her.

Destroy the Ring of Power and Hasten the Return of the King

I have said enough. On the plane back I have been watching all three Lord of the Rings films – finding them strangely relevant and poignant.  Frodo and Gandalf took the ship into the West when their work was done.  For those who are not yet called home, we are in the face of increasing darkness and evil, to shine the Light and defeat the Darkness.

The question I face is this – do I sit and wait for the inevitable sinking of the ship? Do I join in the band playing hymns as the ship goes down?  Do I help rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic?! Or do I obey God’s call to rescue the perishing and to shine like stars as we firmly hold to the word of life (Philippians 2:15).   It’s a no brainer….

Yours in Christ

David

Ps – This weeks Beauty for Ashes was done in memory of my mother – Beauty for Ashes 3 – Sorrow and Songs – a Mother’s Special

And this is the song that was featured….I was standing by that window with the rainbow thinking exactly this –

Letter from Australia 128 – The Christian ‘Middle Road’ that leads to Disaster