FOREWORD

Forgiveness seems to be in the air, or at least in the media at the moment, both personal and political, as leaders try to overcome the hatred and anger caused by military action and civil unrest. Effecting reconciliation by letting bygones be bygones is regarded as a positive approach to overcoming entrenched positions and mutual hostility and distrust. Forgiveness is one of the noblest attributes of human kind and a major tenet of the Christian faith, but it is also extraordinarily difficult to exercise, since it seems to run counter to the instinct for revenge and natural justice. 'Turning the other cheek' and 'an eye for an eye' are hardly compatible responses to injury.
In this issue of The Link we look at forgiveness both generally and specifically. Terence Skene's essay looks at forgiveness as a tool of social and political reconciliation and harmonization programmes. In a more general approach, "The Spirit of Pickwick" deals with forgiveness in literary terms and at a personal level. "In the Deep Mid-Winter" also deals with coming to terms with an unpalatable situation and seeking some form of resolution.
Harmony through worship and music is Sue Good's topic in "Community and Music".
"A Memoir of Iraq" describes domestic and social harmony in the Iraq of fifty years ago, a more positive view of that troubled country than we are currently accustomed to.
Bill Stephen 's (not the Editor) article "Safeguarding" reflects upon the work of the Children's Panel system to restore harmony to family relationships which have been seriously damaged and stability to disrupted young lives.

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THE TECHNOLOGY OF FORGIVENESS

By Terence Skene

To start with, several quotations from the King James Bible.
(1) John 1:8-9. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
(2) Matthew 18: 21-22. "Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven."
(3) Luke 11:4. "And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us."
(4) Luke 23:34. "Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and cast lots."
All of us are aware of how difficult it is to live up to the ideals promoted by Jesus of Nazareth. Handing over one's coat to a robber or turning the other cheek to an assailant is expecting a great deal of human nature and yet it is clear that at the centre of his teaching, Jesus places this concept of forgiveness. His final dying act is to forgive the men who have made him suffer and who, ironically, appear to have been quite unmoved by it, as they turned to divide up his clothes amongst them.
Suffering is the sole begetter of forgiveness and almost every religion has its own interpretation of suffering and atonement and each of these can be seen as preparing the way for some form of forgiveness.
Within Judaism, human forgiveness is expected to imitate divine forgiveness and considers "forgiveness to be a moral duty."
The Islamic approach tends to seek justice as a way of addressing peace, forgiveness and reconciliation. Buddhists identify the causes of both suffering and happiness and actively pursue the ones leading to happiness as a way to avoid suffering and mental afflictions. Forgiveness facilitates this process.
Although forgiveness occupied a prominent part in early Christian teaching the Protestant churches, instead of promoting it as a powerful tool to solve human conflicts, saw it chiefly as the vital element in God's dealings with sinners. God would forgive penitent sinners.
Thus forgiveness has been regarded as an attribute of God, an ideal for human beings to aim at but extremely difficult to achieve. As with other religious ideals, prayer and meditation were seen as the principal method of attaining it, and its value was to be spiritual more than practical. As with most religious admonitions, there are no detailed instructions as to how forgiveness operates or what may be involved in practising it. However, secular society is increasingly asking the question, "How is forgiveness possible?" In a world that is splintered by violent wars, low level conflict, terrorist activity, racial, religious and economic discrimination and strife, forgiveness is now being seriously studied as a means of healing political antagonisms and hatred. More than sixty books - non-religious books- have been published in the last ten years exploring the process of forgiveness and how it may be applied to resolve conflicts between individuals, groups and nations.
We have seen the misery such antagonisms create in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Yugoslavia, Africa, Indonesia, India, Central and South America and in the former Soviet Union. Forgiveness and reconciliation are now regarded as sound ways of preventing the transfer of hatred from one generation to the next.
The most outstanding attempt to use forgiveness to heal serious political and civic wounds, was South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission founded one year after the establishment of democracy in that country. We shall return to this later.
Much time and effort has been spent over the past ten years or so, by psychologists, sociologists and educationists in trying to unravel the very complex evolutionary process that allows a victim to move from feelings of anger, hurt, hatred and vengeance to an acceptance of what has happened, recognition of the humanity of the offender and a willingness to love and, therefore, forgive that individual.
There is, obviously a very close relationship between anger, revenge and forgiveness. It may be claimed that the two responses to anger are revenge and forgiveness and the level of either will depend upon the individual victim's attitude to justice. Some people may say that they can forgive a perpetrator if he or she may be punished to the same degree as they offended. Others may say that they will forgive if they have returned to them what was taken away from them. Another may only forgive if forced by others to do so, or because his or her religious beliefs demand it or to keep the peace. However, none of these is genuine, unconditional forgiveness. Genuine forgiveness is given freely without any expectation of receiving anything in return. The forgiveness of Jesus on the cross. The forgiveness which is inspired by love. The victim says he or she cares truly for each person and the hurtful act does not alter that sense of love. This is the attitude that keeps open the possibility of reconciliation and closes the door on revenge.
Forgiveness is an act of will. By freely choosing to show compassion and forgiveness in the face of suffering, the victim breaks the cycle of guilt, shame and rage, and opens up a possible route for hope. This is seen as a gradual process, evolving through various stages, in which the victim, with help, among other things, is encouraged to confront his or her anger and hurt, to understand that vengeance does not achieve a peaceful solution but simply perpetuates the conflict and involves other innocent victims, to be willing to explore forgiveness as an option, to feel compassion for the offender and to be aware of emotional release as a result of forgiveness.
It has been suggested that forgiveness is an admission of weakness; that suppressing the desire for vengeance is in a sense allowing the offender to get away with it. Forgiveness has been seen as a humiliation, an admission by the injured party that he or she is inferior to the assailant. Forgiveness, it has been claimed by no less authority than the German philosopher Nietzsche is submission; and leads to loss of face and status. On the contrary, however, forgiveness emerges from strength and in certain circumstances demonstrates great courage. One admires unreservedly those remarkable people who have suffered some great loss as a result of a terrorist outrage when they say that they forgive the perpetrators. Respect and awe are the reactions such magnanimity of spirit inspire in us. To root out hatred and stifle the impulse to revenge oneself requires extraordinary spiritual strength; to forgive without an apology shows extraordinary self-confidence and assurance, because it emanates freely, without prompting or compulsion from a spirit that is at peace with itself, secure from any sense of betrayal, lingering bitterness, doubt or regret about the validity of what it is doing.
It has also been suggested that to forgive is to forgo justice but this is not so. Forgiveness is a personal thing and operates side by side with the exercise of the legal system. An offender who has been punished by due legal process may indeed be forgiven by the victim without this interfering in any way with the punishment handed down by the courts.
The process of reconciliation, which aims to bring antagonists together and is a more political exercise than forgiveness, may very well allow the due process of the law to be interrupted to achieve an agreement. We have seen this happening in Northern Ireland where convicted terrorists have been released in a courageous but controversial attempt to secure a peaceful settlement of the troubles there. This peace process, however, is being. driven by the power of the State, but its continuing existence and lasting success depend upon the ability of the different communities to forgive the injuries of the past, a process governments may facilitate but only individual citizens can deliver.
Similar reconciliation processes in other parts of the world have declared amnesties for individuals and groups who may have deserved punishment for their activities but who have been guaranteed freedom from prosecution. This is always a risky strategy and tries to maintain a fine balance between the demands of justice and what is required to achieve an end to conflict and bloodshed. While it may temporarily create a climate of bitterness, as it did in Guatemala, it is also argued that it creates the conditions in which forgiveness may eventually take root.
In defence of this practice, which is always highly controversial and incomprehensible to many people who feel that the guilty are simply allowed to go free, its supporters point to the events that occurred in Rwanda in 1959 when the Hutu Tribe overthrew the government of their country which had been dominated by the Tutsis. The Hutus claimed that they had been victimised, discriminated against and deprived of all their rights by the Tutsi administrators and overthrew them. There were no attempts at reconciliation and for the next 40 years both sides became locked in a struggle for supremacy that involved the United Nations, neighbouring Burundi, Zaire and Tanganyika and caused the deaths of a million people. Each side was responsible for atrocities; each side and the International Community set up courts to punish individuals accused of war crimes and genocide. Each side saw itself as being victimised by the other and the outside world and became  obsessed with the past and the need for vengeance and redress, a situation which forgiveness and reconciliation cannot be achieved and violence only contained by the presence of peace-keeping forces. It is now recognised that each of the warring groups has to change completely the views they have of themselves and separate themselves from the negative influences of the past.
In Lebanon, which still suffers from fifteen years of civil war in the 1970's and 80's, an elaborate forgiveness ritual has been developed to try to resolve the enmities of the past. Those who. have committed acts of violence are encouraged to confess and seek forgiveness by entering the house of the slain person, asking for the protection of the house, formally admitting to the killing and requesting the host's mercy. If the apology is accepted the offender's head is shaved and he is dressed in new clothing to signify his "rebirth".
This ritual, which may be accompanied with some form of restitution, such as the payment of money, is socially acceptable and its practice restores the offender to a sound legal footing. Such a ritual is individual to Lebanon and may not be effective in another culture, but it demonstrates the desirability of evolving a procedure that ends a process of mutual accusation and recrimination by incorporating forgiveness into a socially acceptable and legal framework.
The most courageous and significant use of this approach was in South Africa in April 1994, when by act of parliament, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up, one year after the establishment of democratic rule. Its operations lasted from December 1995 to 31st July 1998. It was instituted. for "the people of South Africa to transcend the divisions and strife of the past, which generated gross human rights violations and a legacy of hate, fear, guilt and revenge. And to build a future based on human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence." The Commission consisted of three Committees, one to investigate Human Rights abuses between 1st  March 1960 and 5th December 1993;  the Committee on Amnesty and the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee. Such an innovative approach was bound to be controversial and recruited many critics of its organisation and procedures.
For instance it laid emphasis upon uncovering the truth of the many politically inspired acts of violence and injustice committed during apartheid. This process would facilitate confession and apology which would, it was hoped, lead to forgiveness and acceptance by society without any form of punishment. This approach was bitterly criticised because it was claimed that criminals were going unpunished and that truth depended upon who was telling it and that it was no guarantee of reconciliation and forgiveness because it would not necessarily relieve the sufferings of the victims. However, others, including many victims felt that hearing the truth was more important than having the perpetrators punished. (This point was also made by some of the families of the victims of the Lockerbie tragedy, during the trial at the Hague.)
The Commission was certainly not set up to understate the severity of the suffering of the victims of apartheid, not to trivialise or to take for granted their forgiveness. It cannot be compelled by act of parliament; it is an individual's act, prompted by an individual's free will.
People engaged upon this work say that the Forgive and Forget response is not to be encouraged, because it does not recognise the severity of people's suffering nor the effect this has had upon them. A more positive approach is to remember the past but to forgive it and focus on the present and future instead. Another way to achieve forgiveness is to discuss the offence in detail analyse it, acknowledge it and then try to forgive it.
The whole concept of forgiveness is a very complex one and reflects the inconsistencies of the human heart and the subtleties of the human mind. However, it has now moved out of the hallowed gloom of the temple into the light of the market place where it will be expected to play its part in keeping the peace in a turbulent world.
Perhaps what we need to make Christianity work after all is not theology but a methodology. Jesus was prepared to forgive his executioners on the basis of their ignorance. Perhaps in the future our knowledge of and ability to apply the technology of forgiveness may outlaw such suffering for ever.

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THE SPIRIT OF PICKWICK

By Essie Wise

Charles Dickens has been accorded much of the credit and not a little blame for the way in which we celebrate Christmas nowadays. Praise in that he won for Christmas a prominence that it had previously failed to achieve as a major winter festival and censure that he had ignored its religious significance in favour of prodigal consumption and secular jollity. His contribution to the institution of Christmas is found in "A Christmas Carol" where there is some emphasis upon having a good time. Mr Fezziwig, for instance, clears his warehouse floor for dancing every Christmas Eve, commissions a fiddler or two, provides large quantities of steaming hot punch for refreshment and royally entertains his workforce, until they stagger home at midnight punch-drunk and worn out but blissfully happy.
Scrooge's nephew, a penniless newly-wed is also given to partying where eating, drinking, singing, dancing and high jinks occupy the young people to the exclusion of anything else. The Cratchit's Christmas Dinner has become the template for millions of such dinners ever since, gin punch starter, followed by roast goose, and a rich Christmas pudding to end with.
Among all these revellers, only the lowly Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim think to pop into a Church on Christmas morning, so I suppose it is fair to say that wassail wins over worship.
However, years before he produced "Christmas Carol", Charles Dickens had already introduced his many fans to the delights of conspicuous consumption and yule-tide skylarking in a setting which was to be repeated over and over again in countless numbers of Christmas cards. The definitive Dickensian Christmas appears in "The Pickwick Papers" when Samuel of that ilk, his indispensable adjunct, Sam Weller, and the members of the Pickwick Club ecstatically embrace the delights of a traditional rustic Christmas in the depths of rural England at Dingley Dell Farm. The Dingley Dell jolifications come as a revelation to town-bred sophisticates. However they had acknowledged Christmas in the past, if they ever did, this was how it had to be celebrated in the future and where Charles Dickens led others have cheerfully followed, including Hollywood, TV and the whole commercial bandwagon....eat drink and be merry as long as you have pennies to spend.
Dickens of course neither intended nor could he have foreseen the excesses of a 21st century Christmas when he billeted Samuel Pickwick with the hospitable gentleman farmer, Mr Wardle, and his numerous female relations, in an ancient, timbered farm-house as picturesque as any in England, with mullioned windows and bottle glass, thatched roof, and twisted chimneys. Icicles adorn the eaves, snow clings to the gables and frosty ferns pattern the tiny window panes. Dickens intention was to create a warm-hearted, friendly atmosphere to reflect both the personalities of his characters and the mood of his winter festivities. Outdoors, therefore, there is walking in the frosty air, skating on the pond and larking about in the snow. In doors, there is feasting, of course, on a prodigal scale, admittedly, but also dancing to two fiddles and a harp, carol singing and much friendly banter, all within a long panelled room decorated with holly, ivy and mistletoe, heated by an enormous log fire and lit by a forest of candles. They are all on pleasure bent certainly, but it is innocent fun and if some of them commit the odd folly, then, what of it, says Dickens, we are all human, and humanity and its comic propensities, are what this good-humoured story is all about. Dickens, of course is a consummate entertainer, but there is always a serious element in his work, as well, a tough sinew of social comment and moral precept, drawing everything together into an intellectually coherent whole. He is a great humanitarian, and his novels make a plea for compassion, generosity, understanding and justice. He also has a very high regard for the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
Outwardly "The Pickwick Papers" and "A Christmas Carol" are very different works, one being a full length novel, the other a long short story; one is a comic masterpiece, the other is much darker in every way; one gads about all over the place, concentrating upon action, places, and in the company of a great many people; the other is an early exercise in psychoanalysis, exploring the state of Scrooge's soul, uncovering layer after layer of suppressed anger and grief to accomplish the healing process. However, each is a demonstration of specific Christian principles in action: in "The Pickwick Papers" forgiveness is the theme and in "A Christmas Carol" the aim is repentance as well as forgiveness, and in each case the resolution is achieved by virtue of a charitable action.
Samuel Pickwick and Ebenezer Scrooge as personalities have little in common. Scrooge would regard Pickwick with contempt while Pickwick would feel obliged to denounce Scrooge as a mean-spirited, money grubbing monster.
While Scrooge is a bully, Samuel Pickwick is a victim. He is in late middle age, comfortably well off with no dependents and, having retired from business, wishes to spend his days pleasantly in the company of a few companions, exploring the towns and countryside of England, by stage-coach. (In our time, he would be addicted to bus tours.) He is short, very stout, quite bald, wears pebble-glass, gold-rimmed spectacles and dresses in a style that was decidedly old-fashioned in the year 1827 when the story takes place. He is incredibly good-humoured and charitable, is very companionable and feels at home in any company. He has an infectious chuckle which Santa Claus may have plagiarised along with other of his attributes. He is frequently a little pompous, but is easily deceived as he takes everyone at their face value assuming everyone is as honest and honourable as he himself. Neither suspicion nor distrust ever lodges in his mind and he believes that his status as a free-born English gentleman will protect him against all dangers. Scrooge on the other hand is a loner, living a bare, loveless existence, in cold, drab surroundings. Having been rejected in childhood by his father, bereaved of a beloved sister, and disappointed in love, he turned against humanity and sought fulfilment in the acquisition of wealth, within the law, but otherwise ruthlessly,. pursuing his debtors for the last ha'penny of interest and if they defaulted, having them confined in a debtors' prison. He was respected as a sound, if uncharitable, man of business, and while no one dared try to cheat him, no one, apart from his young nephew and his clerk, Bob Cratchit, would ever have been moved to show any concern for him. Disdain begat coldness; indifference begat dislike; ruthlessness begat hatred.
Pickwick's naivety and good-nature, while winning friends everywhere, also made him accident prone and a target for the unscrupulous. While his journals are replete with his comic misadventures, and he is quick to see the funny side and to forgive and forget, there are two ongoing strands of plot that drive him out of all charity. One concerns a personable rogue, Jingle, a strolling actor of sorts and his miserable servant, Joe. Jingle's ploy is to ingratiate himself with unmarried ladies of means, propose marriage with the sole intention of acquiring their fortune and then decamping to practise his fraudulent scheme elsewhere. Pickwick, who has much of the knight errant, in him, upon discovering this unpalatable truth about Jingle, whom he had originally embraced as a boon companion, sets out to expose him which he successfully contrives to do, although not before Jingle entraps him in compromising circumstances in a school for young ladies, much to his acute embarrassment. Pickwick, however, is prepared to face any personal inconvenience in pursuit of justice, a determination which eventually lands him in a debtors' prison in London.
Owing to a misunderstanding, Pickwick's landlady, Mrs Bardell, imagines he has proposed marriage to her. Two unscrupulous lawyers, Dodson and Fogg, learning of this, and that no marriage has taken place, persuade the lady to sue for breach of promise of marriage. Pickwick is outraged by the lawyers' opportunism and sharp practice. The case goes to court, and because of circumstantial evidence provided by his friends, who are as naive as Pickwick himself and who are easily bamboozled by the opposing barrister. Mrs Bardell wins the case and is granted a large sum in damages and the costs of the action. Pickwick is incensed both by the bias of the jury and the dishonesty of the case against him. Although he is well able to pay the damages and the costs, he refuses and is imprisoned in the Fleet prison. His friends plead with him to reconsider, but he refuses to bow to injustice and to enrich the pockets of the tricksters, Dodson & Fogg. Anger obstructs forgiveness.
The Fleet prison is a terrible place, crammed with people whose only crime is poverty and who must live out hopeless, pointless lives, as few have any means of repaying their debt. Pickwick discovers that Jingle and Joe are also inmates and both in parlous condition. They are both starving to death, since having pawned and sold everything they possess, they now have no money to buy bread. They are both very weak and are in utter despair of their lives. Pickwick is appalled by their circumstances, and although they have done him and many other well-meaning and innocent people great wrong, he is deeply touched by their plight and immediately provides them with food and clothing. He also arranges to pay their debts which amount to a very few pounds, has them released from prison and pays their passage to the West Indies where they are to start afresh as honest, hard-working citizens. Although their past history would suggest that this is unlikely, Pickwick believes in the essential goodness of humankind, and that once repentant of past misdemeanours and given a second chance, the most hardened criminal will mend his ways. Dickens is aware that this is a very optimistic attitude and that in many cases it is unjustified, however, be believes that it is Christian to forgive and to trust, until events prove otherwise.
Although he can pay for many privileges, including a room to himself,. his incarceration in the Fleet is far from pleasant but he steadfastly refuses to yield a penny to the egregious Dodson and Fogg, until one day it is brought to his attention that Mrs Bardell and her young son have been admitted to the Fleet on the order of those black-guards, Dodson and Fogg, who claim she has failed to pay their costs. Gallant as ever, Pickwick, decides that his former landlady bad been deluded and imposed upon by these unscrupulous lawyers, and out of pity for her desperate circumstances, quashes his anger and forgives Mrs Bardell and agrees to pay the costs of the trial. Mrs Bardell, grateful to be free, foregoes the damages, hales Pickwick as her saviour as she condemns Dodson and Fogg as her persecutors, and Mr Pickwick leaves the Fleet, having vindicated his stand against injustice and proved his status as a Christian gentleman.
Forgiving Dodson and Fogg is a much more difficult task and he has to treat them to a heated condemnation of their villainy, before he can bring himself to dismiss from his mind their role in his discomfiture.
While Pickwick forgives, Scrooge has to earn forgiveness the hard way. His four-poster bed in his bleak, draughty bedroom becomes the psychiatrist's couch as the Spirits of Christmas, step by step, force him to review his past life, to confront what he has since become, and to speculate upon his future, should he continue upon the same path. He is reminded that once upon a time he was deeply loved, and indeed still is, would he but admit it. He is forced to contrast his own misanthropy with the spontaneous compassion of others for complete strangers. Finally he is shown that his unscrupulous treatment of others would ensure that he would receive no mercy when his defences eventually were undermined. However, it is the fate of Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit's invalid child that penetrates his hardened heart. Tim is a waiflike creature, with a winning smile and an innocent, enthusiasm for life which long ago had abandoned Scrooge. Noting the contentment and love of the Cratchit family, in spite of their straightened Circumstances, and the value they placed upon each other, he realised how much he had lost when he turned against the human race. As he contemplates a tombstone which might very well be his, he repents wholly and completely his past inhumanities and decides to rejoin the human race as a compassionate and responsible member. Having at last forgiven himself, he becomes reconciled to his nephew, assists the Cratchit family and interests himself in charitable works, the length and breadth of London.
A warm glow fills our being when we come to the end of these novels. We feel reassured that after all good triumphs in the end, but what we need to bear in mind that what we have been exposed to is the Christian message, that love, compassion, generosity arid kindness, if adhered to and supported, will in the end win through. Dickens knew well enough of our inhumanity to each other, having experienced it at first hand himself while growing up, but unlike other novelists and intellectuals of his time, be never became cynical and despairing of humankind. Evil in his novels may win battles, but in the end it never wins the war, the decent people see to that. Forgiveness is one of the greatest human attributes; as great as love.
As we prepare for the Christmas season, with its feasting and fun, most of it as innocent and good-humoured as the party at Dingley Dell, let us also pause for a while to think about the more serious demands our Christian heritage makes of us, love, compassion, generosity, forgiveness and understanding, so that when we claim that Charles Dickens was a Unitarian, we may also add with justice, that like him we are also committed humanitarians.

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When the special child was born, the spider was busy practising her spinning, so she missed the magic and the moment of glory given to those in attendance. The poor spider was crushed. What good was it to spin webs if she had missed the birth of the Creator, come in flesh and blood to earth? The spider hid in her cave and brooded on her useless life.

One day there was a terrible noise, women screaming, the clank of swords, horses' hooves pounding and soldiers' laughter and cursing. Late in the afternoon a young couple, a trembling woman, no more than fifteen and her young husband and their very young child crawled into the cave. The man was protective yet fearful, hovering over the woman and child, wrapping them in his cloak. She was weeping, and the child whimpered soft1y. They stayed all night, huddled together, their  arms wrapped round each other for warmth and comfort. The spider listened and heard the horror - the slaughter of the children, the wailing of their mothers and fathers, the wrenching fear. What could she do?

She did the only thing she knew how to do: she spun webs to comfort them with silken beauty. She recognised the child - it was the one of the stars and angels, the Creator of the universe, the maker of spiders. It must be saved and she had a plan. She spun, working feverishly all night long, swinging far and wide, over and under, overlapping, thick and sticky. When morning came with dew and dawn light, the web shone with shining glory. It was impressive, lovely - but would it work?

With the morning light came the soldiers, climbing the hills behind Bethlehem of Judah. searching for runaways, those that had sought to escape the slaughter the day before. From cave to cave they went, systematically combing the caves in search of mothers and children. They came to the cave where the young family was hidden, barely breathing. A soldier yells. "I'll check this cave. sir", and the answer comes. "No, don't bother. Look at the entrance to the cave and all those spider webs! No one has been in there in ages. Try some of the others." And they move on.

When darkness came again, the family set off info the night The spider decided to go with them and hid herself in the fold of the lady's garment. They travelled for weeks to a foreign land far from the terror. But the lady never forgot. Every night she wept for the children that had been killed. And she wept in fear - they had wanted her child - when they came again would they get him? The spider would seek to comfort her, Each night she would spin a web, intricate or simple, but each night a different pattern and shape, trying to delight the woman when she arose early in the morning to pray. The spider, of course, died eventually, but passed on the story to her children. And even today her descendants spin their webs in honour of the weeping lady and their relative who saved the child from death by spinning her web of freedom.

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COMMUNITY AND MUSIC

By Sue Good

Can you imagine life without music? I find it very difficult to do that. It's not just something pleasant to listen to, or exciting to perform, but music itself is incredibly powerful. Even such an unlikely advocate of music as John Calvin acknowledged "music's well nigh incredible power to move us whither it will". The ancients thought that it was all bound up with astronomy and mediaeval people involved God in the picture, with the idea that his planets created a perfect cosmic music as they moved. Man's job was to fit in with this harmoniously vibrating universe.
Yet earlier on, we read in the Old Testament they had perhaps a more prosaic view of music, although still respecting its power. 

If you set aside the biblical terminology of evil spirits, and substitute "play a Mozart CD" for David playing the harp! you've got a modern-day music therapy treatment for a depressed patient. We may know now that music releases seratonin in the brain, but the biblical physicians knew that music had power to penetrate the mind when other forces failed and we're really not much nearer than they were to knowing exactly why. We also know that we can absorb music through our skin and our bones, feeling the vibration it makes, which is the only explanation for remarkable musicians like Evelyn Glennie. who may also be profoundly deaf.
I wonder if vibration is also the key to our different musical tastes. Do we all vibrate on slight1y different frequencies? Does that explain why some people are captivated by jazz and others can't enjoy it at all? Or are the vibrations connected with folk memories, which could be why the old pentatonic or five note tunes that went out to America in the sixteenth century were received back with such enthusiasm by the Scottish churches for their recent ecumenical hymnbook called Common Ground. The idea of this book was that it would include the whole worshipping community, although, I don't think that that extended as far as the Unitarians. I've tried this morning to focus on the music of communities, and I'd like to look now at two in particular - one in Scotland and one in France. 

The island of Iona has Christian connections that go back many centuries to when St Columba landed there from Ireland and founded a monastery that became a place of pilgrimage for the European Christian world and also a burial ground for many Scottish and Norwegian kings, including Macbeth and Duncan, according to the legends. The abbey had fallen into disrepair until George Macleod, a Presbyterian minister, rebuilt it in 1938, and established the Iona community there. His community was controversial, calling for various church reforms and for disarmament. It was also ecumenical and lay men and women from all denominations could join. They were bound together by a five-fold discipline of prayer, meeting together, economic sharing, planning of time and working for justice and peace. Members of the community continued to live in their own homes and only came together on Iona occasionally, perhaps for a week or two once a year. The emphasis on justice has continued and there have been many contemporary hymns, prayers and dramas written by their worship panel, which is called the Wildgoose Group. The two songs we sang this morning were written by the two best known Wildgoose authors, John Bell and Graham Maule. Both songs are set to familiar folk tunes - "Streets of Laredo" and "Bonnie Lass of Fyvie" and it is a feature of Wildgoose hymns to use strong, well-known tunes wherever possible. Most also have a down to earth, practical sort of note that is typical of the way Wildgoose authors view Bible stories. Traditionalists tend  to find them rather irreverent, particularly when their songs concentrate on reform and justice for the poor. I remember one organist commenting that John Bell's hymns read like a social worker's manifesto. Personally I think that they sound more like some of the Unitarian hymns I've discovered since coming here. But judge for yourself: here are a couple of verses from one of them:

You can see why they don't appeal to church-goers who don't like their religion to be tainted by politics. The strong justice and peace emphasis also shows in the way the Iona Community has encouraged the spread of songs from many different countries, usually the ones we think of as lesser-developed. There are songs from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Guatemala, Argentina, Korea and Mexico in Common Ground, the hymn book I mentioned earlier. They are usually up-beat numbers, the sort of thing that people enjoy singing. But to balance that, the Iona services have a very reflective side. The founder, George McLeod, was influenced by Russian Orthodox Christianity, with its extensive use of symbolism and he imported at least some of this into the worship on Iona.
Symbolism also figures in the worship of the other group I want to speak about today - the truly ecumenical community called Taizé, after the name of the village in Burgundy where it is situated. Taizé nowadays is a modem day place of pilgrimage and thousands of people visit it every year. Flora Munro, who is the Church of Scotland minister in Portlethen has been there every summer for the last 12 years. She takes groups of youngsters, the majority of whom are not churchgoers and she says that in all that time not one of them has come back saying that the visit was not worth doing. Many of churches, just to continue the way them join one of the, groups that are in most Universities and some local of worship that they learnt in Taizé. The founder of the community was Roger Schutz, known simply as Brother Roger. Perhaps you will remember that he died very tragically last August when a mentally disturbed woman stabbed him during a service in the chapel at Taizé. He was a Swiss Presbyterian who had committed his whole life to peace and justice. He lived in Taizé during the war and helped Jewish refugees escaping from the Nazis, until he was discovered and had to return to Switzerland. After the war he came back again. and founded his communi1y. It was ecumenical and international from the start and its chief aim was reconciliation in all its aspects. Young people flocked to Taizé to live a very simple life with the brothers, joining in regular worship and also in the domestic work necessary in a community. Flora told  me that last year her young people either washed up or cleaned the toilets during their fortnight's stay. So it must  be a very special place to exert such a pull that people young and old return again and again.

The thing that probably makes the deepest impression on the visitor is the style of worship. Like the Iona community, much use is made of symbolism:- crosses and icons, and above all candles, representing the prayers of the people. The psalms are used, as they are prayers that are common to all Christians. But above all there is the singing. Here's what the community have to say about the place of singing in worship:

The music in use at Taizé is the work of the composer Jacques Berthier, who was invited to create new music that could be accessible to everyone. Latin was used extensively in the repeated refrains, not for any  traditional reason, but simply because it is a foreign element for everyone, and therefore neutral. Many instruments have been used to accompany the singing, sometimes very simple ones like guitars and recorders, or sometimes a full orchestra and soloists often sing verses from the psalms while the refrain continues. However the music is always intended to be used as an active vehicle for prayer - it doesn't always work at concerts.

The best way to describe the songs is to sing them and in the service from which this address comes we finished with one of them:- Laudate  omnes gentes, if was a chant that was unfamiliar to most people, but after a very short space. of time we were managing to achieve a reasonable  rendition in harmony. Several people commented afterwards that they would like to sing it again another time, as the quiet, meditative effect had been very peaceful. 

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A MEMOIR OF IRAQ

By Lili Levie

In September 1950, my three year old daughter, Elizabeth and I set out for Kirkuk, Iraq, to join my husband who was a quantity surveyor for the Iraq Petroleum Company. The charter flight in those days was a Viking aircraft involving a three day journey with two refuelling stops at Nice and El Adem and two overnight stays at Malta and Tripoli, Lebanon. On the third day we touched down at Basra then on to Kirkuk airport where I had a happy reunion with my husband, although Elizabeth was a bit wary of this strange man. She was eighteen months old when he went to Iraq.
It was hot! It was flat and the ground was hardbaked. In contrast, a mile from the airport, the gardens of Baba East were a riot of colour and the streets were lined with eucalyptus and pepper trees. We lived at three Beech Lane, Baba West, the last compound to be built by the IPC.
Our Bungalow was big, beautifully furnished and air-conditioned - my introduction to the "High life". Our gardens, back and front were full of absolutely nothing. Help was at hand, however, when the head gardener came to ask us what type of "treeses" we would like. We left the choice to him. Soon a squad of gardeners arrived and started digging with five breaks when they downed tools and got on their knees facing Mecca to pray to Allah. Come the spring, our garden was established. We had aubergines, okras, courgettes, peppers which were unfamiliar to me then, as well as marrows, tomatoes, melons, a pomegranate tree and the homely, comforting carrots, ingins, neeps and tatties.
Before I arrived, my husband had employed a cook-house boy called Isaac Nona, an Assyrian Christian who had been in the levies attached to the British Army after 1920 when Iraq became a British Mandate, so we reckoned Isaac was in his late forties. He was a trustworthy baby-sitter as well as an excellent cook, though I had my doubts about his culinary expertise when on the night we arrived he asked if I would like the beef cooked in castor oil! I said I thought not and anyway we did not have any caster oil. "Oh yes, Memsahib, we got plenty. I show you." Off he went to the kitchen to re-appear with a Pyrex casserole!
We did our shopping for dried and tinned foods at Spinneys Store. Fresh milk was unavailable to us for health safety reasons but we soon got used to powdered milk and good old Carnation. Bread and flour were full of weevils but a thorough sifting through a nylon stocking and the flour was fine for bread. For beef, lamb and eggs we shopped in the "souk"(bazaar) in Kirkuk town five miles away. The sides of beef were covered in huge flies but a good wash in a sink full of potassium permanganate solution killed all germs - we hoped. Whenever we stepped out of the car in Kirkuk, we were surrounded by little boys shouting "backshesh" but we had been warned to tip only the boldest boy who grabbed our basket and carried our messages. The fact that they all looked well-fed and were always smiling, somewhat assuaged our feelings of guilt. Begging was just a way of life.
The IPC employed hundreds of local men in various capacities and sent those who showed promise in their particular field to colleges in Britain and America.
In the souk we could also buy dress material after some good-natured price haggling. Rosa, a very talented dress-maker, only had to see a dress in a magazine to copy it exactly. The local tailor was equally skilled though not in the use of English idiom. The last skirt he made for me looked fine from the front-side, he said, and the backside was lovely too! He landed in jail for ten years for killing his sister's husband, but because he was the tailor to the Chief of Police, he was allowed to carry on his business in jail, though of course we could not avail ourselves of his services after that.
Arab men wore long white robes called djellabahs and red and white headdresses called keffiyehs. Women's virtue was a strictly protected commodity in the Arab world, hence the shapeless black abbas which covered them from head to foot.
The IPC Club provided facilities for every possible sport you can think of, the pool being particularly popular except in summer evenings when the huge flies came out in force. They gave a very nasty bite so we had to go armed with loaded flit guns.
We had a theatre-cum-cinema showing the latest films and an excellent amateur dramatic society, far exceeding many professionals.
Our weekends started on Friday which is the Muslim holy day. We usually had a curry lunch at the golf club followed by a round of golf and on Sunday we attended our own church which was shared on alternate Sundays by the Church of Scotland minister and by the Episcopalian minister. A bungalow was converted to a chapel for the Roman Catholics. I was a Sunday School teacher and when I left I was presented with a Bible inscribed by Canon B.Wilson, which I treasure. The landscape, flat or mountainous, determined the vegetation. In the North there were oak, pine and walnut trees, and in Central and South Iraq, lemon, apple, pear, olive, fig and pomegranate trees. In the South there were the date palms and Iraq at that time exported 80% of the world's dates.
Sheep, goats, camels, donkeys and gazelles were all part of the desert scene. Less welcome were the scorpions, snakes and jackals, though I never saw a snake or a scorpion all the time I was in Iraq, but my husband and I, on our way home from visiting friends, one night, came face to face with a jackal. I as terrified but my husband said to stand still, and sure enough, after what appeared to be an eternity it toddled off across the desert. We were once caught in a swarm of locusts, another unpleasant experience. The air was thick and the road was inches deep in them. We could feel the crunching under the car wheels so we gave up our picnic plans and headed for home. There wasn't a leaf left on the bushes next day. Geckos, small lizards, seemed part of the family, as there was usually one scampering up the walls or fly screens. Outside the towns and villages, the big, black Bedouin tents were a common sight. They are a nomadic tribe living in the desert with their herds of sheep, goats and camels. In the Middle East, there are only two seasons - hot 120 degrees and cool 15 degrees F. In Kirkuk we did have showers of hailstones but never snow showers. Hailstones, like the flies in summer, were huge.
One morning, during our first winter, Elizabeth came into our bedroom and on looking out of the window, she shouted excitedly, "Mummy, Mummy, come and see. It is raining snowballs," Camel thorn gathered in ever bigger balls and bounded over the desert and dust devils like tiny tornadoes rose into toe air. Wadis were dried up ditches during the summer but when the rains came in February and March, they became fast-flowing rivers. The desert then was a sea of colour with wild flowers, tulips, violets, hyacinths, tiny red orchids and masses of red poppies.
At the start of the summer, we sometimes spent a weekend at one of the IPC bungalows in Salahedin, Kurdistan. It was heaven to get away from the heat of Kirkuk to the cool of the mountain air. On the way we picnicked at Shequlawa, an oasis where old men sat under the shady trees at a chaikana (a primitive tea-room) and smoked their hubble-bubble pipes and drank very sweet black tea served in estekans, small waisted glasses. Further on we came to Arbil, believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited town in the world. The local houses were built of mud-brick and over the centuries as each town disintegrated, another was built on top, so that the Arbil of the 1950's looked as if it were perched on top of a huge bee-hive. On the way to Mosul, we were fascinated to see storks nesting on top of telegraph poles. My heart sank when I saw the approach road to Salahedin with its fourteen hairpin bends. Fortunately, ours was the only car on the way up. A stairway, not to heaven but to the land of Abraham and Jacob, where ploughing was done using hand ploughs and where blind-folded donkeys, harnessed to wooden levers, went round and round for hours on end, pumping water from deep wells.
Kurdish women dressed in bright colours and the men wore brown, woollen, baggy trousers and tops with a cummerbund and cotton turbans. Chappatis, unleavened bread, were mixed and tossed from hand to hand until they were about twelve inches in diameter and then thrown on to a red-hot stone in the middle of a mud-brick, bee-hive shaped oven.
Another hairy experience while still in Kurdistan, was driving through the Rowenduz Gorge. There is a spectacular waterfall at the head of the Gorge then a very narrow road leading to the border with Iran. The beer cooled in the water near the bottom of the waterfall was most welcome on our return.
We had three months home leave every two years and ten days local leave every year which we often spent in Beirut at the IPC guest house. There a cook-housekeeper and butler looked after us. Beirut was the Paris of the Middle east with beautiful shops, restaurants with food to die for, but what struck us very forcibly on the way from the airport to the town, was the sight of hundreds of Palestinian refugee tents. Little has changed.
One of our holidays in Beirut was spent with our friends, the Gartside family. We decided to go for a day trip to Damascus by taxi, a hazardous undertaking, as there are no slow drivers in the Middle East. Pedestrians crossed the road in groups as that way they were less likely to be mown down. On the way, we saw saltpans and the ruins of Crusader castles and we spent some time at Baalbek, exploring the famous ruined Phoenician and Roman temples.
At the border the Syrian guards ran true to form and kept us waiting for two hours before they allowed us to pass. In the meantime a hornet stung my hand and then Mary and I thought we would spend a penny. The toilet, unlike the usual Arab hole in the floor was a huge, black cauldron and the stench was horrendous. We fled back to the taxi and fortunately made it to the hotel loo in Damascus. There, we were served lunch by the biggest ebony-black waiters I have ever seen. After lunch we did the usual tourist sight-seeing of the city and I bought a length of the famous Damascus brocade, but by this time my hand was so painful, I was glad to get back to Beirut. All that night, little Michael Gartside, my husband and I were very ill with food-poisoning. Next morning the Lebanese doctor dressed my hand and then brought two half-pint tumblers of hot Epsom salts and standing over my husband and me, he said, "Drink, drink, drink,." I can recommend the cure!
Kirkuk town is about two hundred miles North of Baghdad, has the richest oil fields in the world and is also rich in natural gas. The Eternal Fires mentioned in the Bible were just outside the town and measured about twelve metres in diameter. Gas seeps, naturally to the surface from the underlying oil reservoir and spontaneously ignites. Before these gas deposits were identified, the area was regarded as having supernatural powers and women used to move the earth with a stick and if flames appeared they believed they would give birth to a boy. According to legend, these Kirkuk fires are the site of the Biblical burning, fiery furnace, into which Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, threw Shadrach, Meshak and Abednego. The only time the fires were extinguished was during World War Two.
During Ramadan, the Holy Month, Muslims are forbidden to eat, drink or smoke from sunrise to sunset. At the end of Ramadan, they celebrate Id al Fitr with a three to four day feast, not unlike a West Highland wedding celebration. Unlike some other Arab countries, some spirits and beer were readily available and enjoyed in Iraq. The local tipple was Arat, which is a bit like pernod in taste and turns white when water is added.
At Christmas we were given tea chests of fruit, chocolates and whisky and also live turkeys by local contractors. Before enjoying it we were told that it would be an insult to refuse these gifts. The good life had a downside too. The children had to go home to boarding school at the age of nine. Until then, they had an excellent education at the IPC primary school run by four very capable primary teachers from the South of England. No matter where the children originally came from they all ended up with very posh English accents. When Elizabeth went home, I kept busy by taking over Isaac's job. A friend was delighted to employ Isaac, but as time went on I could see it was not going to work out as no matter what his new employer, Barbara, did, it wasn't the way I did it according to Isaac. Eventually, he turned up at my husband's office to say he had been sacked. My husband phoned to say that Isaac was on his way. He duly arrived with his bundle of belongings and with a big smile said, "I'm home, Memsahib." I often wonder what happened to him and to our many Iraqi friends after we left in 1962, but there was no way of keeping in touch.
The Company always gave a cocktail party to which all personnel and their wives were invited to meet any visiting V.I.P.'s. Three I particularly remember were Sir John Cunningham, Admiral of the Fleet and British Ambassador, Barbara Castle MP, Douglas Bader who ferried planes from Britain to the Far East and who was a familiar figure on the I PC golf course.
Most memorable was being at a banquet in 1952 to celebrate the opening of the thirty- inch pipeline at which young King Faisel 2nd and Prince Regent were present. He was enthroned in 1953 and in the July 1958 revolution, led by General Abdul Farim Quasim, he and all the members of the Royal Family and Nuri Said, the Prime Minister were shot. The bodies of the King, the Prince Regent and Nuri Said were decapitated and their heads were carried on poles around the streets of Baghdad.
Soldiers started patrolling our streets with guns and fixed bayonets and a curfew was imposed from 11am and was gradually extended and lifted after a month. During that time, we were not allowed to write home but the company had got in touch with the London office who sent telegraphs to our family to say we were all safe and well.
Elizabeth had just arrived for her school holidays and like other children spent the time in the pool, but for the expat. men it was an extremely trying time. They were stopped two or three times going to and from their offices and they and their cars were searched. Some, like Johnny Dankworth's cousin, Derek, were jailed and beaten up on the merest pretext. One of our friends, who had his four-year-old son with him was arrested and held in Kirkuk jail for two hours because they said he had taken a gun from his pocket and not his sunglasses as he told them. Everything was an excuse to demonstrate their new-found power. The Iraqis were a friendly, hospitable people, but life was never quite the same again and my husband was not sorry when his time came to retire in 1962.
The women did lead a life of luxury and leisure but for some of us who were members of the Kirkuk Women's Working Party, it was not all self-indulgence. We worked during the year raising thousands of pounds, especially at our December bazaar for local children's charities and for equipment for the Kirkuk local hospital.
I felt my twelve years in Iraq were not entirely wasted.

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IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER

by Bill Stephen 

"Jingle bells, Jingle bells, jingle all the way. Jingle bells, Jingle bells, jingle all the way," we chanted as we played 'Ring-a-roses' in the snow, galumphing around in our own little blizzard, the fine white powder rising like dust from our stamping feet.
"Look at me!" squawked Eddie, his voice, on the cusp of manhood, "I'm swimming!" He dived into a tall snowdrift, flailing his arms and legs, and quickly disappeared in a mini avalanche. We all piled in after him, tumbling about like dolphins in this magical, white sea, our whoops and shrieks rising like sparks into the still morning air. We leapt from crest to crest, sometimes floundering over our heads, sometimes rolling over and over making of ourselves huge snowballs, until eventually exhausted and breathless from shouting, we lay back in the snow as the silence swooped from the dark aisles of the forest to settle  over us.

I had never been in such a beautiful place. The pale, blue arch of the sky slipped down to touch the jagged rim of the pine wood. The sunlight gleamed in the windows of the Great House and flowed like clear water along the branches of the bare oaks that lined the park. A group of three redwoods, looking as if they had just stopped to chat during a morning stroll, cast long shadows, like three thick pencil strokes, across the shining lawn, up the grey stone walls of the house and were lost among the gables and chimney pots of the roof.

Eddie grabbed a handful of snow and helter-skeltered towards our snowman erected before the pillared entrance of the mansion. The others followed and delivered a volley of snowballs at our chubby snow idol. Being the youngest of the gang, I arrived behind them, and launched my solitary missile. Like a full moon, it rose to its zenith and as it sank towards its target, a tall figure with a long, white face and empty eye-holes, emerged, ghostlike, from the doorway into its path. "Run!" shouted Eddie. "It's Dr. Slaight! It's old Slaight!"
Menace filled the air. Eddie started along the furrow left by our giant snowballs when we made the snowman; the others slipped and slithered in his wake, taking all the bliss and exhilaration of the morning with them. The sun dipped behind a cloud. A black shadow sped across the land. Cold panic gripped me. "Come on, Billy. Run!" Eddie, having reached the avenue and our route back to the village, paused briefly to rally his followers before plunging into the mirk of an oncoming blizzard. The figure, with his blank eye-holes fixed on me, reached up, caught my snow ball in a gloved hand, and strode towards me....

Much earlier that morning, Robert Slaight had sat behind his desk in the Old House, contemplating his reflection in the darkened window pane before him. His face was long and pale as wax. His forehead seemed pinched at the temples. His eyes were shadowed, deep set, and the skin was drawn tightly across his cheekbones and jaw. "Cadaverous," he thought. "Skull-like. A Death's Head."

Why had he turned them away empty handed; without even seeing them? Hailstones rattled against the window. His neighbour, Adziel, Bert Fowlie, the garage-man. The Schoolmaster.. ..Mac..... ...something or other. The pond had been frozen for weeks. The ice would bear well enough. A Christmas Bonspiel. He'd never cared for the sport himself. MacTagart, that was the name.... the Domine.. A thin, spindly man. Like an old larch twig. He'd never thought of him as a curler. Narrow shoulders. Surely he could never swing a stone. The curlers themselves would be alright, but the whole village would come with them, and their kids with their noise, shouting and barging about, breaking branches off the trees, lighting fires....1Ie couldn't be bothered with that.

He looked again at the buff coloured paper under his hand. For four days he had been ignoring it. He ought to do something about it but lacked the will to act. His was the responsibility, right enough. But what was the point?
The hail had given way to soft, mealy snow which was clinging to the glass, diffusing the light as if the room had slipped under water.

John Scott of Adziel had been angry when he left. His house-keeper had told them quite politely, "Dr Slaight is not prepared to allow you to use the ice-pond for a curling match. I'm sorry, Mr Scott, Good morning."
"Tell Slaight he's a miserable old...., he'd exploded at the house-keeper. Jockie Scottie, as fiery as ever. "D'ye hear, Slaight. Little wonder ye canna face us. Ye're a miserable old...." The door slammed on his expletive.
In forty years they'd never been denied the use" of the pond. They took it for granted. His father and uncle had been keen curlers. In fact, his father's curling stones were still at the front door.

He switched on the reading lamp and looked at the blotchy typescript on the buff paper. It informed him that His Majesty was requisitioning the Great House to billet troops and advised him that he had 30 days from receipt of this notification to remove his possessions and protect as best he could any architectural features that could not be removed, at his own expense. The marble staircase.... The marble fireplaces......The marble gallery...The Elmwood panelling... The chandeliers.... The moulded plaster ceilings....Remove or protect...How could he?. .Even if he'd wanted to. He'd never liked the place. He'd never lived in it. It had been built in 1821 to satisfy his grandmother's vanity, a laird's daughter with social and political ambitions and now, he who had neither, was expected to save it from the rough-handed soldiery. What was the point? His Aunt had lived there until her death in 1910. Then it had been let to a Hotel chain which had run it as a Hydro until they had abandoned it during the depression, since when, he and the world had ignored it. Now the government wanted it. Well they were welcome to it. It was his grandmother who'd demanded the ice-pond, so that her guests could have ice-cold drinks on the lawn at mid-summer. Now her house and her pond were making his life a misery.

He could imagine the conversation in Jockie Scott's gig as they trotted through the wood to the main road. He d been cursed from here to kingdom come, as a disobliging old hermit no doubt of it What of it? 

Nothing ever really matters. It is only our self-importance that makes us think it does.

All the same he really should walk over to the Great House and look around. Forty-five rooms! Why did she think she would need forty-five rooms? There was self-importance for you. Grandmother! What was she planning for? What kind of vision did she have? Whatever it was, he didn't owe it anything and he certainly did not share it.

He turned off the light and restored the room to its underwater gloom. The windows were now sealed with snow and the world beyond no longer existed.
Seventy years of life had led him to a stone wall. He found no satisfaction or fulfilment in contemplating his seventy years. For forty years he had served the British Empire as a veterinary surgeon in East Africa, Egypt, Palestine and India. Right enough, he had gained the respect of his peers and won honours and awards; but now that was all in the past, as if it had never been. It meant a lot at the time, but he could take no joy in the memory of it, not now. There was nothing he wanted to do. No inspiration, no energy, no curiosity, no vision. There was just blank wall and beyond it, oblivion.
He reached for the set of keys which had also lain on the blotter for the past four days. No one had entered the Great House since Harry Milne, the Factor, retired nine months ago. Conscience, his sense of duty, perhaps, had been nagging at him for days to examine the place. He sighed. Well, now he would.

Well wrapped up against the weather, he stepped into the courtyard, where the recent hail storm had concealed the traces of Adziel's disturbing visit. The grim facade of the Old House was plastered with snow but the family crest above the door and the date 1627, were still visible. He had been born in this house and if he had loyalty to anything it was to its ancient stones His grandmother had refused to live in it. She said that it reeked of barbaric customs and outmoded values. She detested it so much she had a pine forest planted around it so that it would be for ever hidden from her view as she passed up and down the avenue to her fine new mansion.

Dr Slaight took the narrow path through the wood from the Old House, past the stone circle, now couched in snow and let himself in at a rear door of the Great House. Having negotiated the labyrinth of corridors in the domestic area, he at last stood in the hall at the foot of the marble staircase. It was a magnificent feature, he had to admit. Step by marble step, it ascended in a gleaming white spiral from the marble pavement of the great hall to the first floor marble gallery and then upwards to the second floor where it became a conventional (white painted) wooden staircase. Slowly he climbed to the marble gallery that formed a perfect circle around the stairwell, and now breathless, seated himself on the sill of one bf the tall windows overlooking the front lawn.
He looked about him at the elegant balustrade, the plaster mouldings above each carved door-frame, the figured wood of the door panels, so meticulously matched. He admired the craftsmen's skill. So much care, dedication, love had been spent creating this building. His grandmother's dream house. It was her whole being. It gave her life meaning and purpose. It was her faith. He could understand that. But she had been dead for sixty years. Did she expect her descendants, him, to continue to revere her faith? He thought his situation totally absurd. He was 73 years old, a mortal creature, nearing the end of his allotted life-span, in a meaningless universe. If life had any significance then he, himself, had to provide it. But he couldn't. What was the point? The question stubbornly repeated itself. Over and over again. Everything passes away. Even this Great House, in spite of all the energy and skill devoted to raising it and to making it beautiful, would not survive the fickleness of fate. It, too, would go, in time. Preservation is a delusion. Promise always gives way to disappointment. To exist is to be deceived. All experience ends in oblivion.

During his reverie, he had been aware of alien sounds penetrating the silent house. He looked out upon his wintry domain, at the broad avenue lined with rhododendrons bordering the perfect, white disc of the ice-pond, the ancient trees in the park, the tower of the Old House, visible and defiant above the tree-line, and there on the lawn, half a dozen village kids, larking about among the snow-drifts as if they were at the sea shore on a warm summer's day. Their uninhibited joy, the sheer abandon of their animal spirits, their prodigal expenditure of energy as they gambolled and capered, self-absorbed in their games, captivated him. His gloomy thoughts were driven from his mind. He watched. They took everything for granted: their energy, their agile limbs, their fitness, their right to exist. Experience was not a thing to be contemplated but to be lived. They believed in the blue sky, the brilliant snow, the wide open space, the sharp air tingling their faces and the life force surging through their veins.. They trusted life implicitly. They whooped and cheered out of the sheer bravado of feeling alive and strong on such a day. Their triumphant celebration of living shamed his bitter, wizened spirit. He, himself, had made his universe the hopeless, burnt-out, derelict thing it was. Life would continue to flourish in spite of his diminishing lease of it. His grandparents in their wisdom knew that much, when they built their Great House and planted their trees.
It was more than self-importance; more than a memorial to themselves, it was also a recognition that others would come after them and would enjoy what they had created. The craftsmen were not simply making a record of their skills to win posthumous applause, but were creating beauty to be enjoyed long after they had gone. They were generous. He had been dismissive of life because he had felt life was abandoning him. That blank wall, he had erected himself. Life was all around. He had only to reach out to it.

Feeling suddenly elated, he searched out the key of the front door. "I'll give them the surprise of their young lives," he chuckled to himself as he returned to the great hall. The door opened remarkably smoothly and he stepped on to the porch just as a tiny snowball came floating towards him. He caught it and walked down the steps to a small child clad in a navy blue trench coat and an enormous balaclava helmet, hand-knitted in black angora wool, out of which peered two bright, anxious eyes.
"This is yours, I think," and he tossed the snowball back at me. His voice was dry and thin, like the rustle of withered leaves; I was struck dumb, terrifed.
"D'you know the story of the Snow Queen?" 1 did not respond. "I think the sliver of ice in my heart may be melting, thanks to you." This was beyond me. My thoughts were focused entirely on my own immediate fate. When was he going to cast a spell on me? Or lock me up in his dungeon? He took me by the hand. "Would you like to look inside my snow palace?" and led me past our snowman, up the steps and into the Great House.

"Oh!"
It really was a snow palace. Everything was white, as if carved out of snow, the walls; the huge fireplace, the staircase that climbed to the sky, even the very floor. I had never seen anything so beautiful. A vast, pure, white space that stretched beyond the tall windows across the snow lawn to the trees and the white snow clouds above. 1 was awe-struck.
He broke the silence. "D'you like my snow palace?"
I realised he had been observing my reactions closely. I nodded, still looking around me. "Heaven's like this," I said, trying to place it in a context of angels in white gowns among snowy white clouds.
"So you think Heaven's like my house?"
"Oh,yes."
" D'you know, I've never seen it in that way. Thank you, young man. Heaven, eh? Then, I suppose, I must be God."
Then he chuckled.
At the front door he suddenly shook my hand and asked, "Have you seen a Bonspiel?" Having never heard the word, I shook my head. He rubbed his hands together. "Well, well, maybe you will," and seemed very pleased with himself.

Next morning the village was agog with the news. There was going to be a Christmas Bonspiel after all. That miserable, old recluse had had a change of heart. Curling stones were unearthed from chicken coops and byres, wood sheds and barns, entrance halls and door steps, and were wheeled in barrows and dragged on sledges over the bridge in a long, straggling procession to the ice-pond where brooms, brushes and besoms, shovels and spades and a horse-drawn snow plough were already stripping the smooth, ice pavement of its mantle of snow. A half-moon section of ice was soon winking in the sunlight. Scarved, gloved, coated and booted we converged on the pond, some loaded with curling stones, some shod with skates, others pulling sledges and the rest simply content to stroll upon the water. While the curlers cast their stones, scrubbed at the ice with their brushes and roared encouragement, the skaters glided to the far end of the pond, pirouetted and skimmed back again, and we, greatly daring ran out to the middle, to harvest the icicles that fringed the edges of the little island, ice spears, like unicorn horns, with twinkling points.

Later we visited the Great House which was open for the afternoon. A log fire blazed in the hearth of the monumental fireplace in the great hall, casting a honey-coloured glow on the white walls. ." Ash wood," Jock Shirran, the forester, was explaining to the Minister, "makes the best fire-wood. The old mistress, Dr Slaight's Aunt, would never burn anything else. Her friend, Miss Mary Garden, you know, the opera singer, who used to come here in the old days, said it was the only wood smoke that didn't irritate her throat."

We climbed up to the marble gallery and sat on the window sill. As we looked over the park where we had played the day before, daylight gave way to moonlight, and the world became a patchwork of silver and black. The figures on the pond were now dark shapes wheeling and spinning on a silver plain and the avenue had become a gleaming blade on a black velvet cloth. I was so moved by the beauty of the evening, young as I was, I think I wept.

A solitary figure was standing at the edge of the shadow-line watching the people in the great hall, flitting to and fro past the windows, like shadows, in front of the dying fire. We watched as the shadow slowly crept on to the lawn and enveloped him. I can't say I ever saw him again.

On that Saturday, between Christmas and Hogmanay, that sad old man gave me and many others, I am sure, a vision of beauty and joy that has endured for more than sixty years. I hope our happiness, in turn, shed some light and warmth upon his lonely, loveless existence. 

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SAFEGUARDING

By Bill Stephen*

In Scotland, in the early 1970's, the Children's Panel System was devised to better address the problems of children in difficulties. It has proved to be highly successful. Panels of three well trained lay people discuss, at length, the situation of young people and make decisions regarding the best interests of each child. If a Panel feels that it does not have enough information to make a decision, it may call for a safeguarder to investigate the case and produce an independent report for the next Children's Hearing. Similarly, if a case goes to court for facts to be proved, a sheriff (or judge) may also call for a safeguarder report

Thus, safeguarders have to go to people's homes to interview those who will be able to contribute relevant information. The homes vary from the clean and tidy to the absolutely sordid, and, unfortunately, the same applies to the interviewees. I often have to deal with drunks (even in the afternoon) drug abusers, paedophiles, angry adults and children, liars and con artists. But I also come across, in the most unlikely places, some very genuine people trying hard to do their best for the children in very difficult situations.

All reports must be honest and responsible. In one house I sat down on the settee and a needle and syringe rolled out from the side to rest against my leg. Since then, when I go to a house where drugs are misused, I sit on a hard chair because "I have a bad back". Similarly, I usually refuse refreshment "because I have diabetes". In one particularly filthy house, the mother took a dirty mug from a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, rubbed it with her hands and offered me tea. Diabetes is always a good excuse. I must be careful not to offend, as these are tense situations. Some house smells are indescribable and the number of times I have come home, put all my clothes in the wash and had a shower - well, enough said.

So why do I do safeguarding? The payment is poor and there are many much more enjoyable things I could do in my retirement. The simple answer is I believe it is God's Will to do this service for children and adults requiring help. I was brought up in a good Salvation Army home, but it wasn't until I was nineteen that I accepted Christ for myself and His forgiveness for sin. God has given us tasks and responsibilities and what I do for children and adults I know is His will and that He gives me the strength to do it.

So what do I get up to? (Names and details are altered for anonymity.) Here is a small selection of what happens.

Physical Violence.
Big Bertha was a huge, fierce woman, on the glue, alcohol and drugs - actually the only one I've met on all three. She was feared even in the tough neighbourhood where she lived. She would chase a neighbour down the street, kitchen knife in one hand and her baby under the other arm. At the time I met her, she was using a crutch, as she had hurt her leg trying to kick down a door to get at someone. At a Children's Panel. I grabbed the crutch in time to prevent her hitting the social worker. I recommended that the child be put in short term foster care until the situation be resolved. A few months later I was in the cemetery in the middle of town when, too late, I saw Big Bertha stagger out from a group of alcoholics, sitting drinking on a gravestone. "Hello, Bill," she shouted, "come and have a drink with us." I didn't take the drink, but chatted to her for a few minutes to keep her sweet. It was a long time before I went back to that cemetery. 

And then there was the little madam who was into alcohol, sex, drugs, stealing from home, lying, permanently testing limits, blaming others, associating with a bad lot and smoking and she was still only thirteen, when I came on the scene. After a bad incident, her mother, who had been fighting to get control over her, hit her. She ran away and ended up in a children's home, where her behaviour deteriorated (if you can imagine that). Police were regularly involved; she got pregnant, wanted back to her mother, who refused to take her back. There was no happy ending. Mother and daughter were two very strong characters and nothing would change them.

Mother's boyfriend
The boyfriend was a drug addict and a sadist. He put his partner's little girl round the doors begging for money and he also sold all her toys. All for drug money. At the slightest excuse he put her into a dark cupboard over night with no food, drink or toilet facilities. At other time he thrashed her with a belt, borrowed from her mother. The little girl went to a relative, the mother disappeared and the boyfriend got a cell for a few years.

Then there was the mum who didn't believe that her live-in boyfriend had been downloading indecent pictures of children, about five-hundred pictures, mainly of girls but not completely. She didn't believe that he had been charged with offences against a girl or that he was going into chat-lines to talk to children. Her lawyer and I had to show her some of the pictures and the police charges before she accepted it.

Truancy
There was no physical or mental excuse. The boy just wouldn't go to school. He would be taken to the front door and he would walk out of the back door. I went through all his school records since the age of five. In those nine years, his attendance had been 29%. And he and his mother had got away with it until then. 

Alcohol
Mother had been on drugs and alcohol since she was fifteen. She and her boyfriend had been arrested in a police drug raid. The baby, conceived during a prison visit, was put with foster carers. Boyfriend went back to prison. Mum was homeless, so she moved in with a much older man and paid for her accommodation with sex, but when he demanded kinky sex, she moved to a hostel for the homeless. She now has no child, no friends, no future and is living in a fairly seedy hostel which she hates.

And then there was the little seven year old girl who came home from school most days to find her mother in a drunken stupor on the floor with one or more men with her. She would try and drag her mother on to the settee and get rid of the men. She was really wide open to abuse. The Children's Panel decided to put her into foster care immediately, an easy decision. But there were few dry eyes in the room when the little girl sobbed, "But who is going to look after my mummy?"

These are just a few of my cases. I haven't mentioned the sexual abuse of a baby a few months old, nor the transvestites I have encountered or the male and female prostitutes I have spoken to or the alcoholic mothers who took too long to control their habit and their children refused to return home. Evil-doers and adults with weaknesses cause a great deal of misery to children. Panel members, social workers and safeguarders are working hard together behind the scenes to make things better and normally get it right but have to suffer pointing fingers if something goes wrong or when the public thinks there is something wrong. And the rewards? When a teenager stops you in the street and says, "Hello, Bill. Remember me?" That make it all worthwhile.

(This article is a summary of a talk delivered in Aberdeen Unitarian Church in October 2005.)

*(Bill Stephen is a member of the Salvation Army and not the Editor)

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