Thought for the Week

It was on the boat back home from Barra that I said to one of my colleagues: ‘It is just gorgeous but it’s such a long way away.’

She replied: ‘That’s what folk say to me about living on Mull.

‘However, I am not a long way away from anything I want to be near.’

That made we wonder: ‘What do we need to be near?’

I expect that depends on what is important to us.

Sometimes our city friends ask if we don’t miss the shops or the cinemas or the theatres or the all night food places. Well, actually we don’t. I think our priorities change when we live in a rural part of the world.

We don’t have access to the big stores that offer everything, we can’t just take in a show whenever we like, we can’t go out of an evening and have a choice of Indian or Thai or Cantonese or Italian or the many other restaurants that city folk take for granted. We have a different way of life. We are greatly blessed. We can find peace as we walk on a deserted beach with the wind tugging at our hair as the curlews call their strange lament.

We can take a ferry to a quiet island, or join in a ceilidh, or just sit on a rock and watch a seal or an otter play.

We can find the drama of creation in the standing stones and cysts and cairns that define our coastline.

We can walk the edges of the day at sunrise and sunset as the Atlantic rolls in to bring a sense of timelessness. We can be at peace with ourselves and God. What do we want to be near? For me, it’s those I love and this place I love.