To the lighthouse

The other Saturday afternoon we drove out to Rosemarkie and walked along the beach to the lighthouse at Chanonry Point – my wife, daughter Bethany, and Mollie our 6-year-old Yorkshire Terrier, who raced along the shingle like the perpetual puppy she is.

I was fascinated to come across a short, battered flight of concrete steps leading nowhere. It had been constructed to take you up a few feet to higher level. But over the years waves had battered that stretch of beach so insistently that the land had been eroded, leaving the steps forlornly disconnected.

To me, these steps symbolise ways of thinking which once made sense, and led us to a higher place, but which now don’t work for us. Perhaps we were once inspired by a conviction that humanity could learn to change for the better and live in peace, until bitter experience undermined our confidence in this idea.

Or the steps could symbolise the religious beliefs we held as children and young people which made sense then but which now, in the light of the realities of life as we know it, no longer seem to deliver.

Walking towards the Point, we noticed that attempts have been made to restrain the eroding force of the sea. Wire cages filled with stones have been placed protectively in front of the low dunes. But many of these cages have been broken, the stones scattered by the power of the waves, the sand swept away.

It reminded me of our vulnerability in the face of illness, disaster, climate change and ultimately death, and the fragility of the things we take refuge behind.

Mollie caught sight of something interesting (which to her means potentially edible) and stopped to examine it, sniffing cautiously. It was a small sliver of silver, a tiny fish left behind by the tide, lying lifeless on a stone. Picking it up, Bethany flung it towards the water.

I’ve often heard folk saying that someone is ‘in their element’, but it just occurred to me the other day (OK, I’m slow!) what this actually means. The traditional elements are air, fire, water, earth – to be in your element is to inhabit the environment you were made for, in which, almost without effort, you can be truly you.

Out of your element (like the beached fish) you will be awkward, unfulfilled and limited. The challenge of life is to discover, and make our home in the environment in which we can thrive and fulfil our potential.

As Christians, we recognise that many non-believers lead deeply-fulfilled lives and are thoroughly at home with themselves, and yet we make bold to share our conviction that when it comes to spiritual fulfilment, God is the element we are made for, and that we are never more truly ourselves than when we are consciously open to the breath of God.

When the figure in blue walking towards us along drew close enough, we realised it was our neighbour, Pam. ‘Culduthel Park at the beach!’ she boomed, cheerily, and we stopped and chatted.

The concrete steps and this unexpected meeting with a neighbour reminded me of Francis Thompson’s famous poem The Kingdom of God. Its theme is that God is forever present with us, though our busyness often makes us oblivious to God. But at times of sadness and crisis – times when it seems as though the steps lead nowhere, as though the defences are crumbling, as though we are out of our element – when we cry out to God, we will know God with us.

It’s as though, says Thompson, the ladder to heaven which Jacob in the Bible dreamed of is ‘pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross’.

And so we too can meet God our neighbour unexpectedly, in our ordinary lives. Whether at Chanonry Point, in Falcon Square, in the sad loneliness of a flat, in a miserable bedsit, in a ward at New Craigs, in a well-furnished house where the rich surroundings mock the emptiness I feel, at my feet rest the bottom rungs of a ladder which leads upwards.

The concrete steps which failed us were our own ideas and delusions and misunderstandings. Grace comes down to us where we are, opening our eyes to a new way of seeing.

But isn’t this an escapist fix to cushion us from harsh reality? No, because as we head towards the lighthouse along the beach of life God our neighbour walks with us, inspiring us to engage with reality, to make the world a better place, to express the transforming values of God’s kingdom.

There were big dogs on the beach, bounding around, leaving enormous paw-prints in the sand. Beside them, Mollie’s tracks seemed small. But each dog had left a mark as only it could do.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 17th October 2013)