Day Seven

 7th May 2009 SCOTLAND

Talking to rainbows

I slept well last night… I wake up to check the time; I was thinking it was maybe somewhere near midnight …crumbs twenty past four; I still have a little more time in the sleeping bag before I need to think about waking up properly. Before nodding off again I decide to turn the heaters up a little so as to make the room cosy for when I do get up. The control switch to the heaters is on the opposite wall, still in my sleeping bag I swing my legs around and sit up on the bench, I figure it will take two bunny hops to reach the switch… a moment later I’m picking myself up of the floor… what a stupid place to leave a rucksack.

Two hours later I am up, bag is packed and at the flick of a switch the gentle orange glow of the heaters is replaced by the starker…eye squinting light of a single bulb up on the ceiling. I put the benches back to where they should be. Before giving back the church to the reverend and starting the days walk, I take the map out (making sure it’s the right way up) I try to figure out where it is I will head for before the day is done. A thumb print will put me in the middle of nowhere…nowhere is fine but when it’s been raining like it has been nowhere is no fun. A thumb print and a half will get me to Fort William… that’s a long day… I look at the idea of walking half a thumb print… studying the map that would put me in striking distance to another Youth Hostel. Maybe it’s a good idea to give my legs an easier day before they demand one…I am pondering on what best to do when there is a knock on the door and the reverend Adrian walks in with a mug of tea ‘breakfast in half an hour, that ok’. ‘Wow I didn’t expect that… thank you so much’. The reverend also informs me it will be a breakfast for two; a hitch hiker late last night had found the door to the church hall unlocked and had rolled his sleeping bag out in the hallway, glad I guess like me to find a place of shelter for the night. I invite him around to my place…the porch… it’s a little warmer than the hall. We eat breakfast and talk a little, his name is Tom. He had taken a handful of days off and had decided to hitch hike to the west coast of Scotland to take a little time out and recharge his batteries. After breakfast I take the tray of dishes up to the reverend Adrian’s house and again say thank you. I wonder at how many times the reverend had given shelter and fed people like Tom and I… something I had said yesterday comes to mind… to give and then to give again forget that we had given only to give again…maybe that simple idea is a starting point for a road map to a better world… a world where we put the other first… a world where our first thoughts are to give and not to take… a world that reflects the heart of God.

By the side of the road under an overcast sky Tom and I shake hands and wish each other well. Tom sticks out his thumb and I start to walk. I realize my head had not yet decided on how far I would walk today. I need not worry… once the legs had wind of the idea of a short day the decision had already been made. The perceived wisdom is that the body should follow the directions of the mind, and that is true but once in a while that is turned upside down…regardless of how far the head wants to walk any given day, if the legs dig their heels in and decide enough is enough there is little the head can do about that. A shorter day it is… I will head for the Youth Hostel close to Laggan in the hope of being given a bite to eat…a bed maybe… hmm I feel as if I’m pushing my luck a little. I am about to step of the main road and again pick up the Great Glen Way when I hear a beep of a horn, I look behind me… I see Tom in the passenger seat of an old van, window down and arm outstretched, I wave back, glad that he got his lift. 

It is good to be back on the Great Glen Way, although the main road is not really very far away… if I half close my eyes ignore the distant sounds of cars and focus on the sound of the breeze rustling through the trees, the birdsong and the bubbling noise of an unseen stream… I could be a million miles away from anywhere. I open my eyes a little more just as the sun breaks through an overcast sky; the rays made visible in the haze created by the woodland, dance on the higher branches of the canopy and then fall to the ground just ahead of me. It is when we are standing in places like this; be it a woodland glade, on top of a mountain, a remote coastline or in amongst the wildflowers of a meadow that we many times feel close to God… to what is good (maybe we don’t even have to be a million miles away… I have an image of my mum working in her garden feeling the same as I feel now). Even those that proclaim to have no faith feel a sense of peace in such places. Why is that? It is because within the creation there is no contradiction, no lies or hate… just harmony, truth and beauty…the connection we feel with the creation is easily explained… we are made from the same stuff… and I’m not just talking about the physical aspects of who we are… the atoms, minerals, elements and the dust-to-dust kind of stuff… we are also made from that invisible stuff that underlies this physical universe such things as truth beauty and goodness… we are all these things and more… and what is the more… it is the ability to love and to be loved. I understand this with my eyes - only half opened… I wonder at how much more we could understand if we knew better on how to open our eyes fully… I wonder… instead I close my eyes and say a thank you for the created world around me. 

Sorry I’m a dreamer (…I’d like to think I’m not the only one). My head maybe up in the clouds but my feet and legs let me know that I am still on solid ground… and that there is still a fair way to walk. Although the walking is easy going, the legs are beginning to feel it. I think it was a good decision to have a shorter day. The path takes me through woodlands and open spaces, overhead the skies are mostly grey. The rain is holding back for how much longer I don’t know. The track seems to be heading back down to the road; I don’t really have much choice but to follow it. Fifteen minutes later I step back on to the main road the sun again breaks through the clouds and a little over a hundred yards in front of me I see a café the Thistle Stop … hmm… I Imagine a pot of tea… its easy if you try…Aha-ah… 

The Thistle Stop is run by a couple called Patrick and Julie… and again I share something of what it is I’m doing … and again I am shown a table and given a pot of tea plus a couple of scones, butter and jam.  Julie comes across and sits down at the table, wanting to know a little more about my story and the walk. I tell her that I am just the storyteller, without Julie and the many other people that have helped to take care of me on this journey there would not be a story to tell.  

When walking alone it is nice when somebody gives you a tea and a cake… the cherry on top of that cake (scone), is when they sit down with you and share it… I was glad of the company… it is not just the teas and cakes that make the walk possible without the friendly smiles and the voices of others this walk I think would stumble and fall to the side of the road and mean nothing at all. Half an hour goes by; it is time to make a move. I am hoping to get to Laggan before the rain starts…and it will. I say thank you to both Julie and Patrick and step out the door and back on to the road turn to my left and start to walk.

It is not long again before I pick up the Great Glen Way, the path leads me away from the road and to the southern side of Loch Oich. The narrow loch sits between Loch Ness to the north and Loch Lochy to the south; the three lochs are connected by the Caledonian Canal which was built in the early 1800 by the Scottish engineer Thomas Telford. The three lochs and canals link the east coast with the west coast, an impressive piece of engineering considering (as I understand) the three lochs are at different heights to each other. I am reminded that we have the potential inside of us to engineer, build, create a better world…people are clever… we just need to figure out a way to stop being stupid. 

I am back on a woodland track, both the loch to the right of me and the sky above are as grey as grey can be… and I am still dry… the sun against all the odds keeps pushing its way through the clouds. I see a rainbow…a double rainbow, I hear myself say ‘’Hello Mr Rainbow’’… oh boy… seven days in and I’m talking to rainbows… 

Walking along the path I come across a discarded coke can… why do people think its ok to junk the place… this world we live in is both precious and incredibly beautiful… and at the same time fragile… it sometimes feels like we are not happy unless we are throwing rubbish into the environment or trying to break the place by throwing bombs at each other. I have no idea why, but I am reminded of our spaceman travelling between two stars with a can of Irn Bru pushed into his bag. Imagine if on his way he stopped on a faraway planet and stumbled across a single blade of grass, it would make headline news all-around the world… that is the value we put on life…how much more precious is the life of a child caught up in the crossfire of a battlefield. Sorry I’m not sure how I got from a crumpled-up coke can, to a far away planet and then back to a battlefield... I just know we could be so much better... I pick up the can and stick it into a side pocket of my bag… our spaceman had better do the same when he has finished with his can of Irn Bru. It starts to rain; I look again for the rainbow, it’s not there any more. I dig out my coat, put up my hood, push my hands into my pockets and pick up the pace a little… the hostel is no more than an hour away.

It is mid-afternoon when I reach the hostel at Laggan. The rain knowing that it had made me properly wet decides to stop. I step into the hostel… more than a bed I am hoping the guy sat behind the reception will allow me to use the drying room, I would be happy to sleep in the bike shed I’ve just walked past…the guy looks up at me... I say hello... not much more than a moment later I am given keys to a bedroom… ten minutes later I’m in a hot shower… ten minutes after that I’m in dry clothes hanging wet clothes up in the drying room … another ten minutes and I’m in the dining room with a mug of tea in hand… a couple from a town called Stafford are asking if I would want to share dinner with them. I tell them I have nothing to bring to the table. ‘’Yes, we know…Clement the guy behind reception told us something about your adventure’’. It was good to share a meal and spend time sat around a table talking; I was once stationed at RAF Stafford, to hear stories about the place was both good and strange at the same time.

After dinner I go upstairs kick off my trainers and lay on the bed for a while, my head full of memories and faces from my time spent in Stafford... it would be good to be able to put your arms around a memory. 

The rain starts up again… how good it is to be dry and in a warm room listening to the rain tapping at the window… sometimes we forget about being grateful for the smallest of things. 

It’s getting a little late but still too early to go to bed. I decide to go out and take a walk (yeah I know…how daft does that sound). I pass Clement in the hall and I again say thank you, he brushes the thank you to one side. I step outside and walk past the bike shed…glad that I am not sleeping in that place. I walk up the hill a little, if this was a novel, I would talk about an incredible sun set or a night sky with a billion stars… but it’s not, the sky is as grey as it has been all-day only a little darker. I don’t sit down the ground is to wet, instead I lean up against a tree reflecting on the day… 

I wonder at how the contradiction within us came about, we have the desire to do the right thing; we are moved by the kindness of people and by the beauty of creation and yet many times we do the things we know to be wrong. We rage at the senseless killing of innocent people, there is no beauty in a battlefield or watching a child die through the lack of a vaccine. If both good and evil are the two sides of how we were put together then we would not have a conflict with inside of us… we would find joy in both what was good and in what was evil… but we know that not to be true. Our conscience is for ever fighting against what we know to be wrong. Our true and original nature is one of goodness that desires love, truth and beauty. Something went wrong… there are a number of stories out there to try and explain what it is that went wrong… Pandora’s Box, the fall of Adam and Eve and plenty of other stories. Many of these stories are close to being as old as mankind itself… maybe we should not dismiss them so easily... the bottom line is that something went a miss… humanity was broken we had lost something...

…and with those thoughts still inside my head it begins to rain again I push myself up of the tree and head back down to the hostel… I will not let despair get the better of me, I know that love is stronger than hate... and what has been lost can be found and what is broken fixed.