God bless Canon MacQueen and Barra
Friday July 3, 2009
Categories: A Sense of Place, Catholicism
Sally Rogers sends along this marvelous story about an elderly Scottish Catholic priest who lives and serves in the Outer Hebrides. Excerpt: He still grows his own crops - carrots, onions, early potatoes, main crop. "The potatoes we like best...
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Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Rod, if you haven't ever read this book, you'd enjoy it:
http://www.amazon.com/Grandmother-Priests-Taylor-Caldwell/dp/0449213870
It's fiction, of course, but some of her English and Scottish priest characters sound an awful lot like Canon MacQueen.
My family lived in the UK when I was a child (I did my first year of schooling in "Infant Reception Class" at St. John's C. of E. school in Ellel, Lancs.). We spent a summer up on Lewis that I very dimly remember (that summer also has the distinction of being the one where I was dropped on my head, so that may explain a lot!)
From the stories my father tells, if you do go, beware of the bothy!
I like these posts so much more than that gay marriage hate fest that usually happens. Please right more about farming Rod
Chris Mills
I visited the Hebrides (Scotland) last year on my trip through Ireland, mainland Scotland, England and Wales...and I have to say the Isle of Lewis and the Isle of Skye remain my favorite parts of that trip. It's like nowhere I've ever been before. The people are VERY insular (one man told me he was still the newcomer after 20 years), and are fiercely proud to speak Gaelic (or GAH-likh as they pronounce it). Unlike Stonehenge, you can touch the Callanish stones. If you go around the island, you'll see little cairns in the oddest little places (like on a small island in the middle of the lake). I stayed at Heb Hostel, a great little place owned by Christine who finished my load of laundry for me--because I didn't know how long it would take to wash in a "water saving" mode lol
I wrote an article about it, sadly not online, but I can send it to you if you'd like. I highly recommend it.
I meant to say "I highly recommend taking a trip there." LOL
This is a bit off-topic, but because of this post I now have Mendellsohn's Herbides Overture running through my brain. Thanks, Rod. I haven't heard that in a long time.
I love Scotland - Ireland - England -Wales - great places. My insane fantasy is to live on the Scottish Isle of Mull (next door to Iona) no as far as the Hebrides.
Besides the jaw dropping beauty of the Scottish Isles - geologically it is so fascinating - we saw dinosaur footprints on Skye. Seals on the coasts, I watched dolphins from my window while eating breakfast.
Eagles too ( seriously protected).
However - the mites or midges are brutal unless you have a good wind,winters are very isloated and raw. But what a place!
Rod - as an example of another fine priest - Fr Vakoc recently died from wounds he received serving as a military chaplain in Iraq. He had lost an eye and had brain damage when the humvee he was traveling in (after saying Mass in the field) was hit by a roadside bomb. He was only 44 when injured and had spent the last five years in rehab and a nursing home.
I'm waaaay too urban to likely ever live in such a place. But aesthetically, I've been drawn to the harsher sort of isolated sources of natural beauty, and there's something appealing about the whole small cottage and garden lifestyle. Of course, I'm sure there'd be little I'd like about it in real life. Its like when I went through the 'nun' stage at thirteen, despite not belonging to any tradition that even had them.
Believe me, watching 'The Sound of Music', that convent looked a lot more appealing to me than the uptight captain and the passel of kids, probably due to being pretty much an introvert.
I know people like this -- there is a monastery in our area, whose members live self-sufficiently, and I know (mostly) old-timers who do the same. I haven't been to the Hebrides, but the attitudes and landscape seem similar to Conemara or the Aran Islands.
Sorry you couldn't make it to Ireland on your trip, Rod. Hope to meet in person someday.
I learned some wonderful Scottish harp music from Allison Kinaird, who is from one of the western islands off Scotland. She actually grew up speaking Gaelic!
Those darling Scots Canons: Lady Di's mother succumbed to their charms and became a Papist after retiring to another of those wee isles, Seil.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3774247.stm
And such isolation or deprivation didn't deter those plucky Italian POWs from repurposing a Quonset hut as chapel:
http://www.bsatroop1131.org/Journals/Europe%202007%20Rpt%208.htm
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