What shapes our spirituality?
By Lewis Rose, November 2002
Over the past few months I have visited a number of places, met a variety of people and have become interested in what shapes our spirituality.
My journey started when in the course of my work I spent some time on the Western Isles during the beginning of July, and as an old seadog memories were rekindled as the ship pulled out of Ullapool and started my trip to what many would regard as one of the last bastions of Christianity, Islands where Sunday is sacred and only what is deemed necessary is carried out. But were the Western Isles which lies on the periphery of Europe always like this, what was it that shaped their spirituality and ultimately ours?
The Thursday before Communion/Eucharist is a day of preparation, often referred to as 'Little Sunday'. In 1930s it was still the custom for all the shops to close on that day, also most of the business and even golf was taboo.
In August 1939 war was looming and a large number of young men had received their calling up papers. The first draft was due to sail after the evening service. As soon as the service finished black-clothed worshipers made their way to the pier and in utter silence they watched as the reservists board the ship which began to list as the men lined the rail facing the quay. For safety reasons the Master ordered them back to trim the ship before he sailed.
As the lines were being cast off a lone voice in the Island fashion began to present the opening words of a Gaelic Psalm. The people on the pier took up the line and those on the ship extinguished their cigarettes and joined in. The telegraph rang and she slipped away in the darkness with the Gaelic singing of 'God is our refuge and our strength, in straits a present aid' rising into the night sky. A couple of nights later another contingent sailed to the music of the bagpipes and lively banter from their friends on shore. To understand these islands we must understand the fact that solemnity and psalms, bagpipes and irrepressible gaiety belong equally to the tradition, and have their roots deep in the past, as does our spirituality.
As I journeyed throughout the Islands I came across some of the things that has shaped their spirituality. Travelling north I visit Uig, where an Iron Age village was discovered some years ago. The village had been built on a lovely beach there and over the centuries the movement of sea and sand had hidden it but due to a storm it was once again revealed. As I stood on the beach chatting with a couple who were thatching one of houses that had been reconstructed, I learned that it was on this beach that emigration had taken place to the then New World. This was at the whim of the landowners that did not realise that they were shaping the spirituality of vast parts of the world as they moved the people out whose ancestors had been there from time immemorial.
As I said earlier that I was an old seadog and as I stood on that stretch of sand one could see, hear and indeed feel, the beauty and the power of the western ocean breathing in the purest air in the world and experience the mysticism of life.
Travelling back from there I arrived at Callannish where there are Standing Stones which have been described by various people as famous and have long excited the imagination. The authors of Symbols of Power at the time of Stonehenge believe these stones rewrite history. On approaching these stones from a distance they look for the all the world like a group of mourners, a funeral procession straggling across the skyline.
As you stand among them you only begin to realise the size and the complexity of the layout, with avenues and arms superimposed on a circle, almost in the form of a Celtic cross. It is difficult to oppose the illusion that a pagan monument four thousand years old is a Christian sanctuary.
No matter what these stones were or are they are somewhere, where the ancient peoples of Lewis came to worship, to meditate to have spiritual experiences and weave these into the rich tapestry of spirituality of the islands and ultimately today's society who also come to these stones to experience similar things.
My travels took me further south through Harris and North Uist arriving on South Uist I suddenly realised that something was different, at various places on the road there standing stones, a different kind of a standing stone, which were statues of Mary the mother of Jesus looked after with love and care. Here was spirituality depicted in a modern sense compared with the other standing stones on Lewis.
The last Island I visited was Arran, staying with friends in Lamlash where one could see across the bay the Holy Isle where at one time monks must have a lived hence the name. Today though it is not Christians who have a place on the Island but Buddhists who have built a place of retreat where people from all walks of life come to have a spiritual experience.
Spirituality is a bit like genetic modification always splitting and joining, recently I was at a meeting where the usual thing took place all of us present sharing who we were and where we came from both in a personal and a church sense.
What was revealed that over 50% present were not now in the church that we had been born into or brought up in. We had taken some of the spirituality that we had grown up with and mixed into where we were creating something that was not new but something that has been enhanced.
Time will not allow spirituality to stand still as I have discovered on my journey, and I am sure this is the same for each one of us. And so as we journey on being touched and touching people the spirituality we are creating is as relevant for today's society as it will shape tomorrow's which can be summed up as:
"From you I receive, to you I give. Together we learn and so we live"