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The news about Paul Lister, and his determination to ‘re-wild’ his own patch of the Scottish highlands is a classic story of contemporary Britain, and it has a lot to say about the situation facing the church in this fair isle too.
First there is the fantastic story of the multi millionaire businessman, who having bought his own patch of Bonnie Scotland has decided to return it to the way nature intended, spending millions on bringing back boars and moose, planting native trees and plants, and even making desperate attempts to bring back wolves and bears too.
Then there’s the problems - he has fenced his estate in, enraging the walkers and climbers who have the hard won freedom to explore them thar hills. More than that, if his estate is fenced, then it cant be a wilderness, its a zoo, and in a zoo you cant let the nasty animals eat the nice ones!
Its a story that will go on and on until one day the money runs out, or somebody lets Lister have his way. On a personal level, I have a lot of sympathy for the idea of re-wilding the countryside, but in all honesty I cant see it happenning in the UK. The British countryside is a vast money making machine, reintroducing animals like wolves into it would sound a death knell for shooting estates and sheep farms for a start.
And this leads me on to the church.
I would dearly love to see the church re-wilded. Like Scotland, the church has the appearance of wildness. But in reality the wild place it once was, is no more. Just as Scotland has been tamed, its natural appearance transformed, and many of its natural inhabitants hunted into extinction, so the church is practically unrecognisable from what it once was.
Like Scotland and its over abundance of red deer, which many think are beautiful and pretty wild in themselves, the church has become overpopulated with grazers, who roam around looking pretty, fighting with each other and generally just munching up the foliage.
It is the high population of red deer which means that Scotland will be unable to re instate its natural vegetation, the red deer just scoff it. A consistent cull of red deer is already necessary just to maintain the vegetation it has got. The heather that has come to be the symbol of scots mountainside is in fact a weed, a parasite which smothers the growth of anything new, or anything ancient which seeks rebirth.
The venerable scottish thistle can still be found, bristling in its spikyness - but its not a very attractive plant really, not when all those thorns get on your fingers.
In the church we have our own flora and fauna - we might consider our traditions and practises as flora - they cover the church, they appear to be the distinctive feature of the church, and all too often they smother the birth of anything new, or the re birth of anything ancient.
Where a venerable outpost of early Christianity exists, its often too spiky for us to cope with.
What is the answer for Scotland? First bring back boars - we need pigs who root around and stir up the ground. In the church, we too need those who will root around, make a mess, be a bit dangerous - dig stuff up, turn it over, make a noise.
Bring back predators - lets be honest whatthe church needs like a hole in the head (I should know, I’ve got a hole in my head) is more deer. More people to look pretty, but be good for nothing but shooting. We dont need those pew fillers, those ‘Christians’ who refuse to let the notion of discipleship affect their lives in any way other than what social groups they mix in, and what they will watch on tele.
Lets get some wolves in, who will kill these deer, or at least scare them off. Lets reduce the deer number, whittle them down. Lets get some bears in too - big brutes who can really make some impact on the world.
Lets find some of that old vegetation which has died out, and encourage it to grow again. Lets embrace the dirty, the dangerous, the wild.
Lets say no to the sanitised version of church, and say yes to re-wilding.
But lets not put a fence around it - instead of creating a zoo which looks like a wild place, lets create a real wildness - that spreads like a virus over the world. And guess what, that needs the estate managers, those who have grown fat and confortable on the money making activities of the church to change their ways.
Lets accept the fact that making a living out of this is not what its about, this is not an enterprise! Its not a business! This should be a wild place, with wild people and wild ideas - ideas about changing the world, about self denial, about love, about compassion, about God.
Let’s pray that God, who is the ultimate multi millionaire, will re-wild us, killing off those who are having a negative impact, and planting new growthin the old vegetation. I see signs of wildness, shadows of it, pockets of it… I see it in World Horizons, I see it in the Simple Way, I see it in alternative worship, I see it in the new monastics… but I long for the day when the real wildness will break out, and we’ll be back to the way we should be.
(Except now I’m worried that I’m a deer, when I ought to be a moose, or a pig, or a wolf… or perhaps a red squirrel. The red bit is right anyhow.)
And in case you havent got enough wonderful images of feudal lords and castle bound malcontents… now some guy wants to have wolves back in Scotland! Hoorah, I am cheerful once more.
(If memory serves, they’ve tried this one before, and it met with a predictable response, but well worth another go I reckon.)
Oh bum.
Wow, couldnt have asked for a better result in Wales v England! I certainly wasnt expecting that result, but I really couldnt be more pleased.
Then this afternoon’s match is looking like a real vintage struggle, France are fielding a wild team of all kinds of talented but potentially mismatched players… never can tell how they will play though. And the Scottish team is looking really strong, so long as they dont fall into complacency, the lads should get this one! If I was only slightly sadder than I am, I would live blog it….
The six nations tournament begins tomorrow, and depending upon whom you listen to, its either an open contest, or England or France have their names written all over it…
Guess what, I’m backing Scotland.
Yeah I know, I backed Scotland for the world cup and it didnt happen, but so what. Here’s the deal…
England have Wales at home on Saturday, in all honesty, much as I love Wales and the Welsh, I cant see England losing this one. Dismal Ireland face weak Italy, hopefully the Irish can walk away with a some honour restored.
Then on Sunday the Scots square up to France, the champs. But the French, who have six uncapped players in their squad, have been soaking up the sun while the scots have been muscling it out in all weathers, and guess what… it’ll be snowy and horrible at Murrayfiled on Sunday! Perfect!
Its not a done deal by any stretch of the imagination, but we can tough it out up there, and give the French a beating, that will put tails well and truly up for Wales in Cardiff next week. And dont forget we’ve a good record at the Millenium stadium, which could make it two wins out of two… then the chances are we should beat both Ireland and Italy, and even if England prove too much for us, we’d have four wins, and that could well be enough to get us the championship… dreamer I may be, but let’s just wait and see what happens on Sunday shall we!
DISASTER! I AM GUTTED!
We should have had them… devastated.
phew - that was too close for my liking, I thought I would be sharing some Welsh style misery tomorrow… but we put the Azzuri in their place in the end, and next up - well France or Argentina I reckon, and that could go either way, although only if we do a lot better than we did tonight.
Come on Scotland!
As things go - that isnt a bad result for Scotland, as long as the team dont let it knock their confidence.
To come out against the world’s toughest side, with your second string team, and only conceded 40 points is pretty good if you ask me.
Yes the scrum did get shunted around the park, but actually any front row will struggle against those guys, and lest we forget, our big forwards were all being rested. In fact Iwouldnt put it past Hadden to have made that a tactical move, the All Blacks werent able to put the shove on as much as they liked, for fear of being penalised!
So I dont think that was the battering people were expecting, a tough game yes, a heavy loss yes, but a good move on our part.
The next time we see these guys could be the final (that’s if the AB’s find their form again) - and we’ll certainly field our full team then…. please God!
Seems people are begining to come round to my opinion.. come on Scotland!
And for all the talk - I think this must be one of the strongest ’second string’ teams around - certainly the best we’ve had available for many a year.
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