Lift your eyes to heaven…
With the current penchant for Celtic forms of worship, and with evidence of churches dating back to the twelfth century, it would be tempting to group the worshiping community of Westray, Orkney, amongst the centres of the Celtic revival. However, to do this would be to reveal a preconception that small remote islands with ancient Christian history must have a Celtic tradition at their heart. Like most preconceptions the reality often tells a very different story.
Westray has a population of a little over six hundred. It also boasts four churches, each of which is thriving. Although each church approaches worship in a different way there is a common theme running through their practice. This is the theme of heading home to heaven, a theme and a theology of worship that seems both to nourish and to encourage these faithful believers giving them and their worship services a real sense of energy.
Having observed and reflected on the energy with which our congregations sing out of their hope in heaven’s reward, I am convinced there is a
commonality between this and the theology of the Black Gospel music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The common thread of being homeward bound is very different from the earthiness of the twentieth century Celtic renaissance. In common with my friend, the minister at the Parish Church (Church of Scotland), I have introduced some of the
Ding dong bell
Faithful ringing of the church bell to announce morning and evening prayer has produced varying responses to this priest – Revd Robert Widdowson in Somerset. One perceptive person said that it helped to make that part of the village ‘different’ because of the regular prayer being publicly offered. A new resident, however, complained of the noise, but was countered by reference to the incessant barking of her dog. One Catholic lady welcomed the regular ringing but asked that the length of the pull be increased a little so that her saying of the Angelus prayer could go at a manageable
speed. Robert was very happy to oblige. Another person said that it helped her too to pray. Asked by others if it was not a waste of time saying his prayers on his own, Robert proclaimed ‘I am never alone when I pray.’
hymns and songs written by John Bell and sought to lead my congregations to reflect on the Trinitarian nature of our God. While these have been accepted with good grace, it is songs like the James M Black classic hymn ‘When the trumpet of the Lord’, and the songs of ‘The Sankey’ (The colloquial term given to Ira D. Sankey’s hymnal Sacred Songs and Solos) that really rouse the hearts of our congregations. Whilst the Westray faithful do not usually sing ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’, the sentiment of their ‘Sankey’ favourites express a similar belief that life is hard and heaven must be a better place than this.
Even with running water, mains electricity and a transport system that boasts two ferries and two planes each day, all of which have only arrived within the last thirty years, life is still subject to a harsh unforgiving climate. Boats don’t always run, planes are often fogbound and crows nesting on the electricity poles are just one of many reasons why power is regularly disrupted. Add to this the annual rituals of calving and lambing which bring with them the inevitable death of beasts, as well as the joy of new life: the fragility of existence is repeatedly brought into focus. Indeed, in the midst of such an isolated and physically
challenging environment, there is a real need for a form of worship which feeds the inner self with
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rural worship
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