Mental Health
I read with interest Thomas Baldwin’s excellent article apropos mental illness (Life and Work – March).
Cartoon: Bill McArthur
I found his interview with the Rev Scott McCrum both comforting and enlightening. Having personal experience of acute anxiety, I have witnessed first-hand the profound effects mental health problems can have upon an individual’s life, and how comforting it is to learn of someone such as the Rev McCrum who has come through similar experiences in relation to mental health.
I was most interested to learn of the support group he has set up for suffers of depression and anxiety in his own church. This is indeed a very good idea and will undoubtedly be of great benefit to those who attend. Mental health is not always an issue one finds easy to discuss or even disclose to others and sufferers can often feel isolated. However, the provision of a local group such as the Rev McCrum’s, where people can come together in an informal setting, means that sufferers of mental health are not alone, and are afforded the opportunity to relate to each other’s personal experiences and support each other going forward, whether this be simply as a regular branch of support, or in tandem with more formal professional mental health services support. Furthermore, sufferers may find it easier to open up to individuals who can testify first-hand experience of similar problems and treat the success of other members as a source of inspiration for their own progression. Provision of such groups, as the Rev McCrum’s group has testified, may also encourage engagement from other people suffering from mental illness within the wider community, in addition to anyone in the church community.
May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Rev McCrum on this and wish him and his group every success.
John G McMenemy, Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire
Welfare Comment
Because our Prime Minister is a committed churchwoman,
I am sure she was sincere when proclaiming that the Copeland victory shows the Tories to be the party for the whole country.
But, of course, everyone’s opinion is only as good as their information. So it cannot be that Mrs May has seen the deeply disturbing but absolutely convincing film I, Daniel Blake.
Now, I can understand that Mrs May’s upbringing and path to political success have shielded her from witnessing the sustained suffering of citizens in our country through no fault of their own caught in a poverty trap and treated uncaringly, even callously and sometimes brutally, in an inhuman box-ticking system indubitably designed and implemented in order to reduce the “welfare” bill – to save money rather than people.
Just in case any reader untouched by such appalling circumstances suspects that the story is fake news fabricated principally for party political reasons, I spell it out that the writer (Paul Laverty, from Glasgow) is a serious and experienced human rights lawyer of proven integrity whose script is based on intensive research conducted mainly in Dundee and Newcastle. (During my decades as a parish minister in Dundee and Leith I could not help but become aware that Social Security (for the poor) was deteriorating into welfare (for beggars deemed worthy), while individuals told me of callous and humiliating experiences in the offices.)
But just how can we get through to those in power the mind-changing truth they have somehow missed in their rush? Maybe my MP will watch this film and take advantage of his position in the Government, so close to the PM, to enlighten her.
Importantly, Theresa May’s faith, as my own, has to be kept sharply aware that God called Amos – like Laverty, surely – to confront the government of his day with the plight of the poor, while Jesus’s demonstration of anger exceeded that of Ken Loach’s film when he went down from the north to the capital and whipped the money-men who were exploiting the poor.
Moreover, it must not be forgotten that Jesus’s teaching about the necessity of being born again – and seeing the world differently – was first given to a mature adult, for long publicly recognised as a devout leader.
Jack Kellet (Rev), Innerleithen
Belief Question
I hope that Michael Weaver can reconsider his belief that
“Daesh along with other faiths of the book do not worship the same Trinitarian God as of the Christian faith” (Life and Work letters: March).
Arab Christians, who also address God as Allah, do not question that they and their Muslim neighbours worship the same God. The Qur’an asserts “Be courteous when you argue with the People of an earlier revelation. Say: ‘We believe what has been revealed to us and what has been revealed to you. Our God and your God is one’ – 29:46. Christians can reciprocate without giving space to the abhorrent morality of Daesh.
Does Mr Weaver believe that Quakers and Unitarians worship a different God because they do not accept Trinitarian doctrine? Does he part company with our Jewish elder brothers and sisters? Does he dismiss the witness of the Old Testament to the one true God because Trinitarianism was then unknown? Or, for that matter, does he call into question the worship offered by the disciples when they accompanied Jesus to the synagogue?
If Michael has a deeper understanding of God because he draws on the Nicene Creed and the Westminster Confession of Faith, then he can rejoice in that, but let us remember that we all ‘see through a glass darkly’.
Graham Hellier (Rev), Marden, Hereford
Gaelic Thoughts
I know I am not alone among your readers in continuing to miss a hard copy of the Gaelic Supplement in Life and Work which until January had been an integral part of this magazine since
1880 and with the quite remarkable record of only five editors during that period including the current incumbent, the Rev Dr Roddy MacLeod.
And it is surely not inappropriate at this juncture to pay tribute to Dr MacLeod, an eminent preacher, scholar and author, whose indefatigable promotion of religious observance in his native language and contribution to writing and the wider Gaelic movement was acknowledged most appropriately at the Royal National Mod in Oban in 2015. His fine prose writing in the Gaelic Supplement – with his distinctive style not to mention humour! – is in itself a significant archive for the language and much appreciated by readers, including learners of the language, well beyond the regular readership of Life and Work.
Gaelic language and culture have a well established and valued place in the history of the Church of Scotland and, very importantly in my view not least in the year we mark 500 years since the Reformation, with respect to ecumenism it creates a special bond between traditionally presbyterian communities and areas where Roman Catholicism would be the dominant faith – Islay and Barra as the most southerly of the Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides spring to mind – and the annual ecumenical service at the Royal National Mod is a welcome manifestation of that shared Christian heritage across Gaelic Scotland.
I sincerely hope the Church of Scotland through its work nationally, including the General Assembly, and publishing the supplement in this magazine will continue to support the Gaelic language.
Le mo bheannachdan/with every blessing. Duncan Ferguson, (member, Glenelg, Kyle and Lochalsh parish; emeritus Rector, Plockton High School)
Oor Church?
On a recent visit to Kirkcaldy museum, I was delighted to see an Oor Wullie statue being centre of attention and a talking point.
My birthplace, Dundee, last year celebrated their comic strip hero by having a Bucket Trail of 95 representations throughout the city. Thousands completed the trail and the statues raised over £800,000 for Ninewells Hospital when they were sold at auction. Each statue reinterpreted for today, the iconic dungaree clad boy sitting on a bucket. So, for example, there was a Spaceman, a Marilyn Monroe, an Elvis and a Lifeboat crewmember and others painted by prominent artists.
The thought came to me that there might be a parallel with the Church and Oor Wullie for many people? Lots of Scots people have affectionate childhood memories of both. For generations, Sundays meant Kirk in the morning and the Sunday Post after lunch. One week it was The Broons and one week Oor Wullie. But the Kirk was every week.
And I wondered if there is something there to be built on, to encourage people to reassess the image of Church by seeing it and its members differently?
The Church aims to get the message – and The Message – out there. Using the Oor Wullie examples mentioned, and of course if DC Thomson were agreeable, we might say or suggest...
The Church welcomes explorers of inner and outer space... The Church celebrates the role of women whatever your name: Norma, Jean or Marilyn...
The Church makes music for all tastes and ages...
It takes risks to save people...?
The possibilities are intriguing!
And could we perhaps tap into the trend that at significant times, people make bucket lists?
As a beginning, would it be too outrageous for us to pray they might put Church on the list of places to visit?
Would it be too much to pray that, like Oor Wullie, the Church could be seen as
Oor Kirk... Your Kirk... A’Body’s Kirk?
Nancy Gilmartin, Kirkcaldy.
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