Last Thursday started out as an exceptionally beautiful and unusually relaxing day for me. After a pleasant long walk from Portgordon to Spey Bay and back, I took a wee nap, which was interrupted suddenly by a sound on my mobile phone. Still half asleep I read a notification from the BBC that a Malaysian airliner had been lost. Startled…

Last winter my mum suddenly found out that she would be having two weeks off, so I invited her to come over for a wee break. Obviously with my adopted Scottish soul I didn’t want to pay through the nose for her flights, and I didn’t want to waste my precious time checking every possible airline’s website. So I turned…

Once a month we, the students in the seminary, had a talk by our rector. Every time he was talking about the spiritual life, current affairs and recent happenings. I held a genuine respect for that man, but in his talks he tended to pick up negative examples from seminary life and consequently the overall picture was always pretty gloomy…

At the beginning of the Scottish leg of my priestly career, I was talking to a local man at a reception. In our casual, informal chat I shared my general views on the British and their habits. The first sentence I heard after I’d stopped was: ‘Father, I’m Scottish, not British.’ At that time it was a surprising declaration for…