Lairg, Sutherland

If only we had known then, what we know now. If only we could have appreciated the landscape then, the way we often long for that landscape today! In my late 20s and serving my first solo position with the Church of Scotland following two years in a city center church in Edinburgh which was just a short walk from Princes Street and Edinburgh Castle. In my time in Sutherland my drive from the coastal village of Golspie to Lairg, all of some 30 minutes, took me through the most wonderful landscape, as you can see from the photo above. This drive was a regular one, for Presbytery
(church) meetings – it falling in as near the middle of the whole county of Sutherland. “If only,” I find myself saying! The Edinburgh poet Norman MacCaig knew both the cityscape of Edinburgh and the landscape of Sutherland. The latter he visited often and spent most summers in beautiful Assynt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assynt. His poem about Lairg Station captures that sense of “earth explorer. I hope you enjoy the poem and trust it stirs some fond memories for you of wonderful landscapes – “if only”!

Back again, Lairg station
Into the seventh house of the stars
the train, caterpillaring between
green somewheres, huffed and
sighingly stopped. I, the earth explorer,
stepped out, at my home station,
and faces I knew were not angels’
angelically greeted me. Hands gripped mine
with a forgotten hardness and I stood,
saying nothing in different ways,
in a green somewhere, unable to bear
the fuchsia hedge, the barrow wheels grinding
on grit, moved as by the finger of God
by the baggy trousers of the stationmaster,
by the stopped clock, by the  most disobeyed
of orders, Cross the line
by the bridge only. Norman MacCaig 1910-1996

Prayer:
Loving God, I thank you
for memories and moments
in the midst of beautiful landscapes and
cityscapes.
From Edinburgh Castle to the outcrop
of bare rock amidst gorse and heather. From city gardens to
majestic hill sides,
lakes, and
water falls.
From the bustling and busy noise of
pedestrians and buses to the song of
birds and
the cry of the deer
disturbing miles of silence.
All of these sights and sounds,
I treasure, and rejoice in the memory.
Loving God, remind me and all others that
as we live we are truly tenants in the midst
of your amazing
Creation. Amen.