THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The A.G.M. took place as advertised in Aberdeen Unitarian Church on Saturday 6th. May 2006, at 11.00am. The Office-bearers and Committee Members were elected as stated above. There was an urgent need to appoint a Minister in place of Dr. Wicker who had retired at the end of 2005.

The Treasurer reported that funds stood at £527.98. The audited accounts and Annual Report had been submitted to The Scottish Unitarian Association for its records. It was decided that there should be no change in the current Annual Subscription. The Secretary reported that the business of the Fellowship had been conducted by means of "The Link", of which four issues had been distributed in 2005 and one so far in 2006. Reaction to "The Link" continued to be supportive. Following this Report the Meeting discussed the style, content and format of "The Link" and various innovations were suggested. It was noted that the S. U. F. website was attracting an increasing number of visitors.

The question of recruitment was debated at length; various suggestions were tabled. Cost, however, remained a  major factor in promoting the Fellowship by means of a advertising, for instance.

The general opinion was that the Fellowship was pursuing a worthwhile aim and viewed the future with hope and confidence.

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FOREWORD

Each of us has a story to tell and experiences to communicate, and so with this in mind we set out in this issue to reflect as widely as possible events in the lives of our contributors which we think will be of interest to you. The Revd. Cal Courtney who will shortly be taking up Unitarian appointments in Scotland, tells us how he became a Unitarian Minister, having started off his clerical career as a Catholic Monk. David Kelso reflects upon the process of integrating oneself into a new community, in his case, a tiny rural village in Calabria.

Arthur Bruce, in the first of two articles, describes his attempts to bring help and friendship to orphans in Bucharest.

Happiness and Contentment has suddenly appeared on the political agenda and primary school children in England are to receive lessons on how to be happy. Robbie Johnstone takes up this theme in his essay "Happiness". The accurate labelling of goods for sale is a current concern but Sue Good, in her piece, "What is in a Name" considers the all important question of how we label each other! Finally, what are we thinking about while we sit meditating in the garden during these bright summer days?

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The Dirty Business of Religion

By Revd. Cal Courtney

Religion, in some quarters, is a dirty business, dear friends. In others it is sterile, clean and all about good tailoring. The aborigines see divinity in the earth that is why the country is sacred to them. Hills and mountains and valleys are not explained away as geological theories. They are rather told as stories about human meetings with the Divine. The Celts also bent towards seeing God in nature. The rivers of these islands were usually named after the gods and goddesses who lived in them. The river that flowed past the bottom of our garden at home was named after the goddess Aine. For centuries it was Aine who gave the local inhabitants their trout and their drinking water and the evidence suggests that the people showed their love to the goddess by keeping her home clean and by only taking from her waters what they needed.

The North American Indians, having a similar understanding of God, expressed their sheer shock that the white skins could fire their guns gratuitously at the buffaloes and leave them dead on the prairies. But then, I suppose, the white skins don't tend to see God in the earth, they see God in the sky. White skins tend to look up for God while older religions look down.

One of the last jobs I undertook as a Catholic monk was to lead the singing during a parish mission in Ireland. Parish missions were something that the order I belonged to, the Redemptorists, did a lot. They involved the mission team going into a parish for two weeks. The first week was spent visiting every home in the parish while the second week saw mission masses being said up to three times a day. During these masses the Redemptorist preachers would deliver specials sermons. In the past these sermons earned the Reds the title of Hell Fire Preachers, but by my day the Reds had become a very liberal group in the Catholic Church and 1 imagine that even today there would be much in their sermons that I could agree with. (I can remember my father telling me that when he was a young lad in the 1940s he used to really look forward to the penultimate night of the mission because on that night the Redemptorists would always preach about sex. Then he slyly added, "anything 1 ever learned about that subject 1 learned from them.")

Back to my story! My job was to warm up the crowd. Twenty minutes before mass would start 1 would come out and go through the hymns we were going to sing. 1 would tell a few stories and crack a few jokes to get everyone in a happy mood. The more experienced preachers would tell me what jokes to say as they could judge the crowd better than me. In fact one night Fr Tommy Hogan told me to tell the joke he had told me in the pub the night before. Naively 1 did so only to discover later that he was having me on and never meant for me to take his instruction seriously. He thought 1 would intuitively know that the joke he had told me was too risky, but they were the days when 1 automatically did what priests told me to. No points were given for initiative in my experience as a Catholic monk.

This last mission 1 worked on had been a great success, but on the final night the organist made a mistake as she played the introduction to the Hosanna, which was to be sung during the consecration. 1 was on the altar, ready to lead the singing and the note she gave me to start on couldn't be sung by a eunuch, never mind a tenor. The altar boys had a little giggle and 1 admit 1 smiled myself, so did many other people. After mass, however, one of the leading lights in the parish came barging through the vestry and went into the altar boys changing rooms and started to shout at them about being a disgrace to the church because they had giggled on the altar at the most sacred of moments. These were in fact great little lads who gave their time freely to the church and I was not willing to put up with her anger so I told her to leave them alone and keep her poison to herself. Some rage boiled up inside me and I told her to leave the vestry and stop pretending to be God's spokesperson. It was a thoroughly nasty experience and it has stayed as a vivid memory in my mind.

That woman suffered from the neurosis that afflicts so many people who worship the God in the sky. Religion that focuses only on the transcendence of God easily becomes moralistic and rigid. Religion that comes from above easily becomes ideology. It offers nothing but a one-size-fits-all approach to world. These are the rules, it tells us, and everyone must obey them. This attitude has resulted in spiritual tyranny for countless numbers of people and the tyranny comes from the repression that is required by the lawgiver in the sky.

I don't want to suggest that we ignore the transcendence of the Divine. I'm simply stressing that transcendence is only one side of the story. A religious life based solely on transcendence will drive you demented - it certainly drove me demented. It gave me ideals I couldn't live up to, not because I was morally fickle, but because these ideals had nothing to say to a life lived in the glorious and beautiful dirt of human life. In my experience, a spirituality based solely on transcendence cannot help us to cultivate love in our lives because it is too removed from the day-to-day opportunities which invite us to love.

I sometimes suspect this is why so many religious people, like the woman I mentioned, are angry. They are angry because religion from above cannot help them to cultivate bonds with others. Prescribing rules and norms often prohibits the transforming power of the Divine because rules and norms easily become straight jackets in which we struggle to respond. Religion from the sky puts barriers between us and our creator. It tells us that God will love us if.... The neurotic anger of religious people is an anger forged in their experience of wanting to feel loved by God, but being unable to, because deep down that lawgiver in the sky is so unworthy of their love, only they can't bring themselves to say it.

Sometimes this anger is well disguised behind calm words and lofty ideals, but it creeps out in manipulative behaviour or, when turned inwards, in self-destructive deeds. So, we might ask, is there another way. Is there an ingredient to balance the potentially harmful over emphasis on transcendence?

Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote:

God won't be in life like a bright morning.
We have to go down into the shaft
And through the hard work of mining
Bring up the earth's abundance.
We have to stand hunched over
And in tunnels dig him out.

When I came across this verse it struck me as a description of my Unitarian faith. In adulthood I have found myself in so many tunnels, hunched over, digging for God. And I guess that is where I find God. Mining my way through past ordeals, distress and damage is how I encounter an honest God. Yes, I have had those experiences of Divine transcendence, but it is by meeting God in the tunnels that I learn to love more tenderly because I learn that I am loved even in those dark places.

What does mining for God do? In the words of Rumi:

It tears the house down to discover treasure
And then with the same treasure
Builds it back more beautiful than before.
It cuts off the water, cleans out the riverbed,
Then makes fresh drinking water flow through it.
It pierces the skin to take out the arrow shaft
And then new skin grows over the wound.
It razes the fortress to the ground and seizes it from the enemy
Then raises up a hundred towers and ramparts.
Who can describe the action of the Matchless One?
What I have said is only what I am allowed to.
Sometimes God's action is like this, sometimes quite different;
The work of religion is nothing but astonishment;
Not the kind that comes from turning your back on God.
 But the kind that comes from being wild with ecstasy,
From being drowned in God and drunk on the Beloved.

Mining is a dirty business, dear friends. There's little room for ego in the tunnel and this is what Rumi is inviting us to consider. God is not an ego-stroker. Much of the pain that comes in the religious life comes from having the house pulled down, comes from letting the ego be annihilated and this is a very painful experience for all of us. But learning that we are loved beyond ego, in fact learning that there is a life beyond ego is what allows us to be more tolerant of ourselves and others.

I have no rational explanation as to why I feel loved by God. I have no rational description to offer in terms of what God is. I can only tell you that I have felt it. I have felt the presence of a love at the heart of my life that escapes any rational interpretation I have thought of. That love was felt not while looking at the sunrise over the Himalayas. It was felt in a mine, while I was on my knees in the dark. It did not propel me to go out on the streets and shout about it. It simply encouraged me to accept a little bit more of myself, and by learning to do that I have been encouraged to offer that little bit more acceptance to other people. The fact is I have stopped being surprised by the enormity of the issues we all grapple with. I have seen enough calm and collected people reveal their stories of internal conflict to know that we are all like that. We all have dark nights, doubts, hatreds and confusions. We are all struggling in the mine. None of us are perfect. I don't mean that in a flippant way. I mean it absolutely seriously. We are all dealing with serious inner conflicts and sometimes we think we are on our own. We are not. We are united as much by our inner struggles as we are by the likeness of the human form. If there's one message I try to offer to you all each Sunday it is the message not to give up, not to succumb to self-loathing or self-rejection, because we are all like that. We are all like that. We are all like that. No matter how calm the sea, to misquote Melville, no mater how calm the sea, there lurks under the shinning azure surface creatures of the deep.

Like the white skins we have to look up and honour the transcendence of the deity. But like the aborigines and Celts and North American Indians we also have to look down and around. We have to smell and taste and feel until we smell and taste and feel God's love for us - it is never far away. Then, and only then, will Unitarian churches stop being conversation classes for those who don't want to be convinced, and instead become places of transformation wherein we live our lives as a response to God's. endless love for us. "When We allow that knowledge to shape us, we will be brought to places we didn't have the wisdom to wish for. "(Moore SRp.133)

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A FOOT IN BOTH CAMPS

By David Kelso

You know what it's like when you move house? Lots of little things seem different. Neighbours are less - or more - friendly, or maybe it's just a different kind of friendliness. (What do. we mean by friendly?) In some very settled communities, you can remain an incomer for thirty years or so. If you're a church-goer, you find that the minister (or whatever) has a different style, that members of the congregation are more, or less, involved in church affairs than you are used to. Similarly at the local school: in lots of little ways it operates differently from what you are used to. If you have changed jobs, again, there are so many differences between your old workplace and the new: you're not quite sure whether it's because it's a different part of the country, a different organisation, or just different individuals that you are working with. Then, as you settle into the community more widely, you discover that your new locality has a different feel to it from where you have come from. There are innumerable jokes about the difference between Edinburgh and Glasgow (You will have had your tea? and all that kind of thing); they're only funny because they are based, however loosely, on truth - Glasgow and Edinburgh are different, as are Aberdeen and London and Los Angeles.

Call it culture, if you like. Every community, large and small, seems to collect little shared ways of doing things. Where I live, we put our bins out on a Monday evening. To make life easier for the binmen (Oh dear, do I have to say "binpersons"?) we usually put each beside the neighbour's, in twos, then in the morning, whoever comes out first brings in both, for the neighbour and themselves. Just a little thing, but it's expected. If a newcomer refused to do it (having discovered how it works), people would be a little miffed; by joining in, one joins the club. In Glasgow, in the age of the tenement, there was a whole culture around the sterheid, to do with lending and borrowing, providing moral (and practical) support in times of difficulty, solidarity against the enemy (employers, landlords, authority in general). The more often you move house, the more aware of these things you become. If you never move house - rare nowadays? - then you probably suppose that the way you and your neighbours live is normal and most people live more or less that way. And if you move a lot, you become aware of ever more subtle differences between communities, things that previously you hadn't even noticed: attitudes towards one another's pets (and children!), concern (or lack of) for old folk and those living alone, respect for privacy, invisible alliances within the neighbourhood group, and so on.

It's interesting enough, moving from the West of Scotland to the East, then to Central Scotland and now to Clydesdale, between Greater Glasgow and the Borders, as I have. Friends who have moved to England (usually the South, usually because of work) are full of stories about differences between life in the North and life in the South. But if you spend a lot of time abroad, as I do, it is even more fascinating. For five years or so now, I have spent several months a year in Calabria, in the extreme south of Italy. I now have a little house there and am more or less accepted as a local fixture. When I say "accepted", I don't mean as a genuine local. No, no, I am accepted more like the local priest, or the policeman (carabiniere) or anyone else who is around a lot without actually being born and bred. I am (I am told) il professore scozzese (the teacher from Scotland), which has some of the same connotations as the absent-minded professor or the man from Timbuctoo. I can chat to anyone - and chatting is the principal industry of that part of the world - so I've had plenty of' opportunity to do a bit of amateur anthropology. It gets you thinking.

The first big difference is FAMILY. When I first went there, I was slightly puzzled that everyone - yes, everyone - asked me, perhaps their second or third question (after What's your name? and Where do you come from?), "Do you have family here?" or "What about your family?". In the early days I supposed they were concerned about my being on my own but it gradually dawned on me that it goes deeper than that: I am only a full personality when I am put in my family context. Gianni isn't just the local clown; he is the postman's son, and highly amusing. Clementina may be a misery-guts, but more important, she is the mayor's sister-in-law, widow of an unpopular local landowner, and childless. And so on: You are who you're related to. And in a village of less than 500, everyone is related to at least half the population. Last year my three (grown-up) children came to see me (and check on all these far-fetched tales); now it all fell into place - the villagers could see that I had my own family setting and from then on every conversation included a reference to my children, their health, their careers (and, hey-ho, the likelihood of grandchildren in the near future...). I was no longer just the odd teacher who lived on his own, read more than is good for you, and walked when he could have used his car. No, now I was the father of Andrew, Judy and Anna remember? (and then they can go into microscopic detail about my children's appearance, clothes, habits, careers and social skills).

There are lots of other differences that I have become aware of over the years - religion, law-and-order (how do you mean?), truth-telling, loyalty / dependability, sex, gender (No, not at all the same thing!), wealth, death... but what really interests me is how much I have learned about myself and about Scotland/Britain by living there. What's the saying? "See the world - to understand your own country". Take Rules for example. Now we take it for granted that rules, within reason, are a good thing and (other things being equal) are to be obeyed. Makes for an orderly, predictable way of life. Not so in Calabria. Rules, for the most part, are made by Them, for the benefit of Them and their ilk (back to Family again) Them being the absentee nobility who have ruled Calabria for over 2000 years. So, ignore the rules as best you can and make your own arrangements, to suit you and your ilk. That includes tax, traffic, building, planning, David Kelso, Brussels ........ but not Church rules (that's another matter). And, very often, it works. Traffic is chaotic - No, it's not, it's just different from Oxford or Dundee or Cologne. They simply improvise and make the best of the ill-regulated situation they find themselves in.

So, who's right? Is there a best way of life? I think not. All over the world, human beings (or hooming beings as my daughter used to say) have come up with an infinite variety of solutions to the challenge of getting by on this planet. Each solution, traditionally, has worked well enough, though rather less well when exported to another setting (the British in India, the Russians in Lithuania). And each of us has grown up to fit, more or less, the way of life that we are born into. That doesn't make it right, it just makes it our way of life. So, living as I do, in two very different cultures - with a foot in both camps - I am all too aware that almost nothing I have taken for granted should be taken for granted. Let's just re-examine some of these old, familiar assumptions. Maybe we have a lot to learn from other ways of life, be they Calabrian or Welsh or Polish or Muslim .......... ?

So, have you had yer tea?

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HAPPINESS

By Robin Johnstone

Happiness: we rarely feel it
I would buy it, beg it, steal it
Pay in coins of dripping blood
For this one transcendent good
(Amy Lowell)

So what is happiness? Aristotle called it something that belonged to the self-sufficient. Albert Schweitzer, defined it as nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Others provide quotes that put happiness into a more meaningful context. For example Bertrand Russell, the English philosopher, mathematician and 1950 Nobel Prize Winner, made the point that "happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realisation of the world in which we live". Robert Louis Stevenson claimed that "there is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow enormous benefits upon the world". In an attempt to define the source of happiness, Helen Keller made the point that "Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for others and then for ourselves".

The Dalai Lama, asks us to consider it this way; "we humans are social beings. We came into the world  the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others". The Dalai Lama also adds "When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace".

But, have we any evidence that the pursuit of happiness is anything other than trivial. Clearly our predecessors did not regard it as trivial, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence. Admittedly for many years, indeed many decades, the belief of governments was that wealth would bring happiness. But experience now shows that is only true up to a point. Numerous studies show that once basic needs are met, happiness does not increase. In Britain, incomes in real terms have trebled since 1950 but happiness has not increased one iota. The euphoria created by, for example, a lottery win, evaporates within a year. Although young people are more likely to be happy than the middle aged, it is older people who are the most satisfied and happy with their lives.

From a societal or indeed government point of view the pursuit of happiness is no longer considered frivolous and trivial. Research shows that happier people are healthier, more successful, harder working. They also are more caring and more socially engaged. This is why, last year at the Royal Institution, in London's Mayfair, three senior academics debated the subject "Happiness, the science behind your smile". On the same evening, just a mile away, at the London School of Economics, the economist Lord Layard and the psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud were debating the Politics of Happiness. Such has become the importance of the subject that one of Britain's leading Public Schools, Wellington College in Berkshire, is introducing in September of this year lessons in well being and happiness for its 14 to 16 year old pupils. This is no gimmick; it is a serious attempt to pass on, to school pupils, the results of scientifically-based studies on happiness carried out by psychologists at Harvard and Cambridge and by economists on both sides of the Atlantic. Studies, for example, which show that people who keep a daily record of five things for which they are grateful, are happier, more optimistic and more likely to achieve their goals than those who don't; a case of what, in a religious connotation, we recognise as "counting our blessings"! Other research, shows that regular physical exercise is as effective in generating happiness as antidepressants. Of course not everyone goes along with this attempt to teach happiness. There are those who go along with Freud's view, that "the intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of creation". Others, while accepting the desirability of greater happiness doubt if the key to unlocking it can suddenly be found. Before the recent upsurge of scientific studies of happiness, they point out that for 3000 years prophets and philosophers have been struggling to reconcile the material with the moral in the pursuit of happiness. Yet there has always been a strong association of happiness with religious faith; some of it appearing to be almost intuitive as for example in the song "Happiness, happiness, it's the greatest gift that I possess; I thank the Lord that I've been blessed with more than my share of happiness". Although such sentiments clearly embrace the scientific fact that there is a strong genetic component to happiness, I doubt if Ken Dodd, the singer whom I most associate with this song, thought of it in that context. It seems, far more likely that 'thanking the Lord for happiness came from the Biblical association, as portrayed in Matthew Chapter 5. This, you will recall is the famous "sermon on the Mount" where Jesus, in the company of his -disciples and a great multitude of people, listed eight blessed attitudes known to us all as the beatitudes. The dictionary definition of beatitude is, of course, blessedness or happiness. So who did Jesus say would receive the blessings and happiness of heaven? They were the poor, the meek, those that mourn, the merciful, the peacemakers, the pure of heart, those that thirst for justice and those that are persecuted. Herein we have the established link between happiness and religion. Few would argue with those who claim that our attitude has a direct bearing on our lives. It doesn't need scientific proof to convince us that it is important for our physical well being, mental health, social relationships and spiritual peace. Psychologists are quick to point out that positive attitudes promote happiness and success in life whereas negative attitudes are associated with failure, pain and sadness. Many Christian Psychologists who have studied what they regard as the main elements influencing both the secular and spiritual expression of happiness argue that of the many books that aim to improve our lives none is more powerful than the Bible where attitude is taught as the foundation of all our needs. For some eminent writers the linking of happiness with religion was obvious yet, for them, both were too profound to be subjected to reason. Thus the English essayist, novelist and poet, G K Chesterton put it this way "Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised". Wolfgang von Goethe, the German poet and novelist, who predated Chesterton, by more than a century, clearly had similar thoughts when he wrote "The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly revered what is unknowable". Despite the profound nature of happiness, indeed it may even be because it is so profound, the quest for happiness has had a major influence in moulding the ethical codes and moral standards of societies throughout the world. The 18th Century German idealist philosopher, Immanuel Kant, who did so much to influence ethical thinking claimed that it is not God's will merely that we would be happy but that we should make ourselves happy. To that end Bertrand Russell made the assertion that 'A world full of happiness is not beyond human power to create; the obstacles imposed by inanimate nature are not insuperable. The real obstacles lie in the heart of man, and the cure for these is a firm hope, informed and fortified by thought". And here in Scotland, your own David Hume, 18th Century philosopher and author of An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals published in 1751, wrote "The great end of human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators".

But in terms of his influence in incorporating the pursuit of happiness into ethical standards and moral codes the English philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, probably had most impact. He introduced the philosophy of utilitarianism, which in essence means that with regard to the making of laws, this should be done with the aim of achieving the most good for the most people. Indeed in his writings, entitled "Principles of Morals and Legislation" published in 1789, he says this about happiness; "The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation".

So where, in this link between happiness and religion and the ethical codes and moral guidelines that have emanated there from, do we as Unitarians see ourselves? Well we can't claim to be in the "Happy, Clappy category, can we? It does however seem to me that we are at one with sentiments expressed by the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, in a birthday letter to a young daughter of one of his close friends. This is what he wrote:-
"Create all the happiness you~ are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul". In all their writings, Bentham and the other eminent philosophers throughout history consider 'community and friendship', central to our happiness. To be able to live and operate in communities where there is a real sense of friendship, trust and belonging is a major contributor to our happiness. Eminent philosophers also rank personal freedom as a key component of happiness. Thus Unitarianism, based as it is on freedom, reason and tolerance, again provides another essential ingredient for happiness. And finally, everyone who has studied the subject of happiness, agrees that a very important ingredient of personal happiness is the ability to appreciate what we have, in other words, count our blessings. That is the sentiment expressed in these anonymously written words which give thanks for friendship, that key component of happiness.

"There's a miracle of friendship
That dwells within the heart
And you don't know how it happens
Or where it gets its start
But the happiness it brings you
Always gives a special lift
And you realize that friendship is
God's most perfect gift"

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WHAT IS IN A NAME?

By Sue Good

Many Of the first names that we are known by have linguistic origins that are buried deep in the past so it would be quite difficult for us to live up to the original meanings. For instance, there are people who according to their name meanings are: mighty; pure; a bear; a rainbow; manly; God's gracious gift; shining fame; a farmer; a pearl and a defender of men. I wonder if you would recognise from those descriptions Donald, Kathleen, Arthur, Iris, Andy, John or Jean (their names mean the same), Bert, George, Margaret and Alec. Recently I discovered that, as well as being a Unitarian for most of my life without knowing it, I have also been a keen student of onomastics for many years, without ever knowing the word. It's quite an ugly word, originating I think in the United States, but it just means the study of names and their origins.

Now I have always been fascinated by names and by the stories behind them. When I was quite young I wanted to write stories and I remember starting a whole string of them, always with the naming of the characters. I'd spend ages over that, but when I had everyone named, I would lose interest and somehow the stories never got written. But the fascination of names has never left me and every now and then it crops up for a spell.

There's a great deal of magic associated with names throughout history and this especially applies to the names for God. In Judaism the name was so sacred that it was forbidden to pronounce it outside the Temple, so the correct pronunciation has been lost-the original texts in Hebrew only included consonants. Modem scholars conjecture that it was pronounced "Yahweh". The Jews had one other interesting name prohibition - it was said that a man's soul would be deprived of its rest after death if his name were bestowed on someone else during his lifetime. I don't know whether that worked for women too, although I rather doubt it.

In Islam, there are reputed to be 99 names for God, such as Al Rahim - the merciful; Al Basil' - the all-seeing and so on and it is the custom to recite the list of these, rather like the litanies I was used to in my Catholic tradition. Legend has it that there is also a hundredth name, one that men may never know in this life, but that is known to the camel, which is supposed to account for it's disdainful look.

The idea of a sacred name also extends into Christianity with the name Jesus. Many prayers, particularly in evangelical circles will finish up with the words "in Jesus' name we pray" or something similar. My old catechism and prayer book specifically say that the name Jesus means Saviour, but here we have a difficulty, since etymology suggests rather that Jesus is simply a variant of Joshua, meaning "God is. generous" and was a common name at the time. I also remember being taught to bow my head every time the name Jesus was spoken - it's a habit that dies hard and even yet in Songs of Praise programmes that come from Ireland, you can sometimes catch the instinctive ducking of the heads when the name is mentioned.

But the religious is not the only area where names are considered to have some sort of magic. In lots of traditional fairy stories both fairies and leprechauns are very averse to telling humans their names. And there's the classic fairy story about the strange little man who spins straw into gold and wants to take the Queen's baby unless she can guess his name. Eventually she does - it is Rumpelstiltskin and as soon as she utters it, he cannot hurt her. So the idea that knowing a person's real name conveys some sort of hold over them is a powerful one. There are tribes, usually ones where there is minimal contact with the outside world, where a person's real name is only known to their closest family members. And that brings us to how you get your name in the first place - from your family. Again there are many traditions and prohibitions, especially in close-knit communities as opposed to the more free and easy naming customs now operating in most western countries. In many parts of West Africa it is usual to give a baby a name that denotes what day of the week it was born. For instance, boy babies born on a Friday are called Kofi and girls Afua and for a Saturday baby the names are Kwame and Amma. One different African custom that must result in more original names is the one that says babies are given the name of the first thing the mother sets eyes on after the birth. Another story, as far as I know a true one, tells of a particular tribe that named all of its members from a publisher's catalogue that a white traveller had left behind. The chief took what was thought to be the best name for himself and he was known as Oxford University Press.

The two lady cocoa farmers who visited Aberdeen during Fairtrade Fortnight both had the given name of Comfort, which is very common in Ghana and one of the Ellon Traidcraft representatives was telling me that she too had a Fairtrade pen friend in Ghana called Comfort. The Traidcraft lady's name is Joy, so all the bulletins that appeared in the church magazine about the link were headed "Tidings of Comfort and Joy".

Throughout history, women seem to have come off rather badly in the name stakes, which I suppose may come as no surprise. In some of the patrician families in Rome, girls were not even named at all. Then in the middle ages in Britain, girls were often given the same names as boys - the name might appear in Latin records as a feminine, but girls were commonly baptised and known by the boy's version, as in the famous mystic Julian of Norwich, who was in fact a woman. The name Nicholas in particular was still common as a girl's name in Scotland at the end of the seventeenth century. I wonder whether this tradition might have anything to do with the fact that before the Reformation St Nicholas had been Aberdeen's patron saint. It was in the eighteenth century that the fashion grew in Scotland for making feminine forms of masculine names, quite regardless of euphony. Some of the ones recorded were Abrahamina, Adamina, Aeneasina ( which is almost impossible to say), Davidina, Jamesina, and Stewartina. It is probably just as well that most of these have now died out.

There's another area of names for girls that consisted of calling them after various virtues and qualities that they might be supposed to possess. So you get Faith, Hope, Chality, Chastity, Mercy, Verity, Patience, Prudence, Felicity, Honor, Constance, Temperance and so on. The only boy's names I can think of in the same vein are Felix, Victor and Hilary, which you can use for either sex.

In the Catholic tradition, even up until fairly recently, you were supposed to name your child after a saint, on the assumption that he or she would then emulate that saint. I believe there was a Saint Susanna, who was a Roman maiden martyred for her faith and I'm afraid that I never had the least intention of emulating her. You could also choose a saint's name for yourself when you were confirmed and these days the bishop who confirms you will ask what saint you have chosen and expect you to know something about his or her life. I have to confess that my chosen saint was Paul, I think rather more because I had a friend named Pauline than for any religious reason and as he had some rather restrictive views about women, I can't help feeling it was a bit of a mistake. Perhaps the same sort of thing happens to nuns who choose another name when they take their vows. I can distinctly remember a nun called Sister Hilarion, who you might have thought with a name like that would be jolly and laugh a lot, but was actually pretty grumpy.

Other denominations may not police their names quite so thoroughly, but I do have an Episcopalian friend who says that the priest at her baptism refused to baptise her. Her mother wanted her to be called Jerry and the priest wouldn't have it. They apparently all went into the vestry and fought it out and Jerry's mum had her way. The only down side of that was when Jerry went into hospital for a minor operation and found she had been allocated a bed in the men's 'Ward. It is a fate that befalls lots of people with ambiguous first names, of which there are an increasing variety. Consider Taylor, Madison and Cameron for instance, to say nothing of Brooklyn and Cruz.

The perception of names changes so much over even a fairly short time span that names are continually going out of fashion. There are some which are constantly popular and the list of boys' names tends to be more conservative than the girls', but despite a name's meaning, it can be jettisoned very quickly, particularly if it has unpleasant associations. For instance the name Alfred means "wise man" and the name Basil means "kingly" but both of them tend to conjure up negative images, not helped by being linked to television characters like Alf Garnett and Basil Fawlty. However glowing the real meaning, the names are unlikely to be chosen by parents, which seems to suggest that the actual meaning of a name is unimportant. I knew someone who felt that, so much so that she decided to invent her own names for her four children, using Scrabble tiles to shuffle until she found a suitable combination of letters, with what success I'll leave you to judge. Her first child was a boy and she named him Kreke - he was a sturdy individual kind of boy and the name didn't seem to give him problems. The next was a girl named Salien. I know at school they called her Salien the alien. The third was the one that had most name problems - he was called Tennion and  the kids at school followed him round shouting "one-yin, two-yin" etc. And finally there was Nyalia, quite a pleasant combination, perhaps the best of the lot.

If you really don't like your name, as a last resort you could always think about changing it. Sometimes in history that was done for you, particularly if you went into service. There was an episode in the classic TV series "Upstairs Downstairs" where a new maid was employed and her name was Clemence. It was decided that that was an entirely unsuitable name for a maid and that she would be known as Ellen. This is reputedly a custom that has lingered on in some gentlemen's clubs, where the servants are all given one name, often George, so that members never need to be embarrassed by not knowing what to call them. Which all goes back to the idea of the power behind possessing someone's name. Somehow that seems a total intrusion, that someone else could make such a personal decision. Yet even if we would like to make a change for ourselves, we seem to be reluctant. People often use names related to their own if they need to choose pen-names, for instance. One of the crossword compilers on the Scotsman is called Bob Warren and for his pen-name he uses Robert Conisburgh, which is a fitting cryptic clue for a crossword addict. Sometimes, though nothing will do but to have a complete change of name. Archie Leach, for instance, only really found success when he changed his name to Cary Grant and the same could be said for Arnold Dorsey, who made it big when he became Engelbert Humperdinck. There is an organisation called the Kabalarians who specialise in creating a balanced name for every person, suggesting that your choice of name influences your career, your relationships, in fact every area of your life. Naturally all this is wrapped up in great secrecy and having your name balanced and altered to give you a new life will cost you.

 I hope you have found something of interest in this tale of names. I've really only scratched the surface, but it is a fascinating subject and one that we all have a stake in, even if we don't think about it.

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ROMANIAN RETROSPECTIVE

By Arthur W. Bruce

When the Editor kindly suggested that I might like to do an article about my Romanian activities (covering more than a decade), I eagerly agreed. Then, in the cold light of day, all the feeble excuses started drifting into my mind. I even quoted the first sentence of an article I'd written in 1994 for The Gordonian (the school magazine of the College where I taught). This read:- "It is impossible within the confines of one magazine article to do justice to the impact made on me by my first visit to Romania". This, of course, was quickly countered by the ever persuasive Mr. Stephen's riposte that it need not be confined to ONE article! At which point I yielded to the inevitable; hoping that none of us would later regret the suggestion?

In September 1992 I'd been privileged to spend ten days in the company of a group of twenty or so extremely talented young musicians from Casa de Copti Nr. 2 in Bucharest. The details of those ten days in Aberdeen will follow later; suffice it to say that it strengthened my resolve. to be of assistance - born out of my reaction to an earlier TV programme.

My only hesitation, however, in accepting their invitation to make a visit to the Orphanage, lay in my fear of the unknown. How would I cope with the conditions which I might find there; or, indeed, what about the seventy or so other boys who did not play instruments? Whereas the ages of the players ranged from 12 to 21, the ages of the rest ranged from 7 to 18. I could only hope and pray that the wonderful rapport between the group and myself (plus the apparent easy rapport I'd always had with my pupils) would somehow help me to survive.

Now (with apologies to Tam 0' Shanter) ..... "BUT to our tale:
Ae summer day, Arthur was happily on his way, Fleein' fmely, by plane (Tarom), In two short weeks he flew back home!"

In July 1993, having heard and read various accounts of air travel to Romania, I boarded a Tarom flight from London to Bucharest with some trepidation. I was certainly glad that I'd flown before, since the condition of the old Illyushin plane gave the impression of being held together by chewing gum and string. In contrast to these misgivings, and contrary to what I'd been given to expect, I found the food extremely enjoyable. I was also very impressed by the fact that all the flight attendants were most attentive; but there was one moment when my usual self control almost collapsed! I looked up from my paperback to thank the stewardess as she went to serve my meal. Unlike the slender sylph - like young ladies of most airlines, this lady was of "ample proportions". She had, however, the most incredibly attractive eyes, and a bubbling personality. In spite of having read about this phenomenon in accounts of East European travel... it still stretched my self control to its limits (particularly since I had not had the benefit of witnessing the approach of this truly warm human being).

The other thing which I'd read, and heard about from friends, was the less than smooth landing technique of some East European pilots. Some jokingly called it "coming down the Russian Steppes"! - and our pilot was obviously a graduate of this particular Flying Academy. This was truly nerve racking, and as we descended I tried to take my mind off it by taking some pictures through the window.

 I gradually became aware of having difficulty seeing but, after checking both the window and the viewfinder, I found that there were tears streaming down my face. Somewhere in the depths of my subconsciousness I distinctly heard the words" it's great to be back"!?! This, of course, ought to have alerted me to expect a fortnight of very odd experiences; because (in this life) I had only ever travelled in Scotland, England, Ireland, France, Belgium and Germany.

The next surprise came when I discovered that we had to leave the plane via a stairway lowered beneath the tail unit. Then on emerging from the shadow of the plane my arms were very painfully stung by the intensity of the sun.

Even although 1993 was "post Ceausescu" I was very surprised and intimidated by the strong rifle-carrymg police/military presence at every step of the way through the airport.

Because I had decided to take my fiddle with me (as requested) m getting through customs turned out to be a traumatic experience. EVERY single part of the instrument was subjected to intense scrutiny whilst they demanded "the papers!" This particular violin had been given to me many years earlier by the grateful parents of one of my pupils and, as as result, I had no "papers" to support the instrument. After a very lengthy debate it was agreed that they would allow me to take the instrument through... but ONLY if I allowed them to stamp it in two places. Faced with the dilemma that refusal would mean being unable to play with the group - and the even more sinister thought that it might be lost in the following fortnight - I was forced to witness the sacrilege of my beloved instrument acquiring two round, purple, indelible-ink stamps!?

On emerging from this nightmare I was met by the older members of the group from Casa de Copii Nr. 2 (or as they called it Casa Doi - meaning Number 2 House). They were driving what they called "The Romanian Jeep"; which was in fact a 4 wheel drive Renault made under licence by Dacia. It had been bought for the Casa by a group of Irish Volunteers, who had ta!1:en the boys under their wing. Some of these men only had two weeks annual holiday, but they chose to spend them helping out at the Casa with repairs etc. (both inside and out - including painting some wonderful cartoon murals). Some years if time permitted, they would take ALL the boys to the Black Sea or to the Mountains for a few days!

The very strange emotion which had overcome me whilst landing returned and increased with every kilometre of the journey into the centre of Bucharest. I can only describe it as a wonderful feeling of Homecoming?!

The ,joy of meeting up with the group again was quite exquisite, marred only by the absence of Laurentiu, their leader (but more of that later).

My apprehension concerning the remaining seventy boys proved to be needless, since within 24 hours of having landed at Otopeni airport, I found myself forming in the region of a hundred friendships (boys and staff) which, despite their instant nature, were of I~ warm, trusting and lasting quality. It was incredibly moving to be sought out by these young strangers and trusted with their thoughts, worries and fears (of which they had plenty). But! must admit that I had not expected to be treated as a father confessor, even though this had dogged all of my teaching career - and indeed my whole life! This situation, however, was more delicate since (given their pretty good English and my very basic Romanian) we were trying to deal with subtleties. Additionally, they were most anxious that the Director and his Mafia (as they called them) should remain ignorant of the depth of our conversations.

  Therein lay one of the dilemmas of Romania... which in many ways has still not been dealt with. Removing Ceausecu simply paved the way for more possibilities of corruption; so suspicion and distrust still abound. It was very distressing to witness extremely warm, sensitive people suffering as a nation in the same way that an individual suffers from depression. Considering the variety of oppressive regimes which have ruled for the past century (and more!), it was necessary to avoid passing judgment but still be there to give support how, where and when jt was needed. In order, therefore, to help them it was no good saying "pull your socks up" or making silly gestures of help. Nor was it any good getting upset when they seemed to reject offers of the kind of help WE reckoned they needed. The greatest mistake we could make was to assume that WE knew what was best for them. That can be either extremely demoralizing or offensjve ... or both! They had to be reassured (as do patients suffering depression) that we were there unconditionally. If they seemed to be unappreciative of our efforts, or even vehemently rejected us, we simply had to "turn the other cheek" (NEVER EASY! ?)

The day before I flew home, having by this time convinced myself that I'd had an enjoyable experience (even if a life changing one!) I received a salutary shock. The previous evening, whilst sitting outside having a beer, the Irish lads were talking about "the other place", and were very surprised when I confessed my ignorance. Apparently 200 yards down the road was one of those places designated pentru handicapat (for handicapped), which they described as HELL! Many of these also labelled the children as "non recuperable"? Since I still had some small items (hats, toys etc.) I allowed myself to be "persuaded" to make a visit.

In spite of having been alerted to the young helper called "The Hammer" and the Cruella de Ville style Directrice, I was totally shell shocked by the experience. This establishment housed approximately 300 boys - supposedly 'sub normal'. They simply lacked attention and affection, not to mention more appropriate feeding and living conditions. There was also a distinct feeling that perhaps an increase in the pitifully insufficient numbers (and quality) of the staff might have worked wonders?

The Hammer and his fellow helper brought out about 50 of the boys and lined them up along the wall of the building. In spite of the fact that they were allowed to sit on some sort of bench that ran the length of the wall, I still found it a very chilling sight seeing these obviously terrified, shaven-headed youngsters being dragged out for "inspection". It stirred so many memories of black and white film images ofWW!

Meanwhile Cruella was subjecting me to a piece of "psychological one-upmanship". When she realised that my Romanian was VERY basic she assured me that she did not understand a word of English... so we would have to converse in French. Her French was very good and mine was extremely rusty, which gave her the upper hand. As I suspected (and later had confirmed) she could have conversed in English but that would have meant her being in the weaker position!

At one point, however, her attitude seemed to change and she tried desperately to make me stay - since it appeared that I had been able to achieve what she called "a miracle". Some sort of calming or healing effect seemed to have taken place - which they had apparently never experienced (not even for a couple of minutes!)...a fact which the Irish lads confirmed to me later. Although I had initially been very wary of this woman, I had to admit that even her attitude had changed and there was a distinct change in the boys! They weren't even doing the usual "nudging etc." that kids do to each other. I was now in a truly difficult situation. I knew that I'd used healing on some of the boys in Casa Doi (and on a couple of the Irish lads); and the boys had tried to tell me that I'd had an effect on how they felt and thought. But I'd only expected my visit to the handicapat to be for information.

Then the boys sitting along the wall were told they could come and meet me , and that SOME of them would get small gifts. They simply swarmed around me, but with no pushing (or whatever) and I felt so humiliated by the paltry amount I'd been able to bring. I was engulfed by what I can only describe as a loving warmth.

These so-called "incurables" were even communicating with me in English (cf. Directrice!). I was totally unprepared emotionally for this experience and found myself struggling to cope. On the one hand I had my wife, family, home, teaching post and my loyalty to Casa Doi. On the other I had my conscience being bombarded by the strong emotions created by these young people surrounding me ... and by their Directrice who seemed to think that I could, and should drop every thing and devote my time to them. The 200 yards back up that road were the longest, saddest and most emotionally confused I had ever (and possibly shall ever have) travelled!

In trying to fit this first visit into the confines of one article I have had to omit many things. I hope, however, that I've at least given you some idea of the impact that it made on me; leading eventually to my buying a flat in Bucharest 5 years ago. Perhaps in the future I can fill in some of the gaps, and also try to show what changes have developed in my 13 years of contact.

At the airport I had a series of "nightmares" including a lengthy battle to get my fiddle out of the country!

During my return flight I was very upset at having had to leave the boys and was still extremely disturbed by my visit to "the other place". At one point I was suddenly seized by the urge to grab a pen and the notepad I'd been using as a diary. Quite inexplicably the pen seemed to take off on its own and I found myself pouring my emotions on to paper. When I'd finished I found myself looking at a poem about an episode with one of the boys. Later in the flight almost the same thing happened except that it took longer, and I felt that I was having some input which I'd certainly not had in the first one! On the journey from London to Aberdeen I was prompted to make a third attempt, which was more of an attempt by myself (if that makes sense?). The first poem was included in the article for The Gordonian and I should like to include it in this one.

I Wept

I wept in the streets of Bucharest,
I wept many times: and for reasons most strange.
Tears of joy, Tears of sorrow, and Tears filled with anger-
As emotions collided throughout a wide range.

A joy so sublime, at the wonder and beauty,
Amidst all the sadness, despair and neglect.
Corruption was walking the streets with impunity
What should I highlight? One has to select.

Nicolae was abandoned - we're walking together,
We pass by a beggar - I'm learning control
But my friend slows me down and, with tears in his eyes,
Says" Arthur - this person has
NOTHING AT ALL!"

We have loaves in the bag (since the boys always hungered),
And Nicolae rends my control with his plea -
"Please, Arthur, we've bread in the bag - He has NOTHING,
Please, let us give SOMETHING -
Please do this for me!"

How could I refuse - but how could I relate?
The control I was learning was shattered.
What could I do? - (I felt so inadequate)
NOW I was facing the real thing that mattered.

This was the part of the children that reached me.
This was the heart of the children who cared.
When you have nothing, you value reality.
Trivial moments expand when they're shared.

These orphans "so tragic" - Those orphans "so pitied"
They are life's teachers - Their dignity soars.
How dare we insult them with great condescension!
Theirs is the greatness, and loudly it roars!!

My ears ache from hearing it (albeit silently) -
They are too proud to be shouting out loud -
But the strength of the silence (so wondrous in dignity)
Rings far more strongly - They will not be cowed!

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THOUGHTS IN THE GARDEN

By Bill Stephen

Peter Gatt claimed to be a garden enthusiast. but not in any conventional sense. Warm summer evenings would find him seated on his garden bench looking out to sea and admiring his garden which as far as anyone could tell consisted of a few clumps of tansies and marguerites, a wilderness of nettles, the pebbles and shingle of the shore, the rocks, the blue green sea, as dear as crystal and the sky.

"What is a garden?" he would say, "but a place of refuge, a place of pleasure, a place of beauty where you can feel at one with Nature and allow your imagination to roam at will."

He had spent a life-time in the merchant navy, been captain of several great ships, sailed around the world many times, served in two world wars, been torpedoed in the North Atlantic in 1943 and now well over seventy he had come home to the Seatown, his birthplace; to end his days in peaceful contemplation. "You see, what you college lads don't realise," he would say to us, "is that a garden is a different kind of reality from your normal existence." He paused for our reaction. We didn't react. "Look", he continued, "a garden is a kind of theatre. You have to experience it. You have to engage with it. In a sense, be part of it. You see it has to communicate with you. Now, this garden of mine, this stretch of beach; these rocks, the sea and that sky, well, they all speak to me. Yes, yes", he waved a hand at us to be quiet, "and you'll want to know about what," Peter had a short way with interruptions - "Well I'll tell you if you'll give me a chance. You college lads have no patience. Look, come here." He moved to the edge of the brae. "See those large pebbles? See how they are all perfectly smooth and round. There's not an edge on anyone of them. Now why's that?" We tried to answer, but were quickly silenced. "Notice that they are all arranged in neat rows. And after the big pebbles come the smaller ones and after them the shingle at the water's edge. Now why is that? Now, you'll say 'That's the sea's doing'. 'Right', says I, but then I ask, 'Why does the sea do that?' He looked at us, but we knew better than attempt an answer, "Because of the influence of the Moon. So you see the moon rolled all these pebbles up on the beach. But what made the moon do that? Force, laddies, force. Gravity is a wonderful thing. It keeps everything stable, everything is in balance. I look at my garden and I see..... balance! I see harmony! I see perfection! Nothing can change these laws. If I were here a thousand years ago or ten thousand years from now, these laws would still be in operation. That's what I see in this garden. Eternity." He sat down again and looked at us speculatively. We were unmoved.

"I don't suppose you'll have been to Japan." We shook our heads. "How old are you, sixteen, seventeen?" Without waiting for our reply, he went on. "By the time 1 was sixteen, I'd made a voyage to Japan as an apprentice deckhand. Now 1 have seen gardens in Japan that have almost no plants in them at all, just sand and gravel and rocks. What d'ye think of that, eh? Rocks and stones, and they call it a garden, and I'll tell ye, lads, they were the finest gardens 1 have ever seen. There's a city called Kyoto and they have a garden there that is absolute perfection. It consists of a number of rocks of different sizes, arranged in pairs, and set in a ground of sand and gravel. The shapes and dimensions of the rocks complement each other perfectly and the distances between the various groups is so well judged that everything is in proportion. There is complete balance. It is like a mathematical proof. It is exact. It is truth. God himself could not alter it without spoiling its harmony. 1 could have spent my life in that garden. It was so peaceful, so completely at one with itself and everything else. I felt that I could see through to the very couplings of the universe, to whatever it is that put everything else in place and holds it all together.. And it will last for ever. Now, Maggie Gatt can never achieve anything like that with her garden. She spends half her life titivating and fussing among her plants but she can never get the balance right. And it's never finished. You can't with living things.

Maggie Gatt was his sister and an obsessive gardener. He usually referred to her by her full name. She lived in the same street as Peter but a few doors along. She was a tall, spare women of very few words who kept herself to herself and showed interest in little else but her garden. It was not large but superbly well kept. It was contained within high stone walls and consisted of three broad borders and a flowerbed in the middle in which she had planted sweet peas and roses. The paths, paved with mussel shells, were like blue and white mosaics which shone like mother of pearl after rain. The borders were carefully composed with tall plants like hollyhocks, delphiniums and foxgloves at the back, lupins, phlox and sidalcea, in the middle tier and shorter plants like blue bonnets, pansies, bachelors' buttons and tom-thumbs at the front. The border which received most sun, the one along the back wall, was planted with white, blue and mauve coloured flowers; this was her cool bed. Another border was planted with soft, pastel colours, creams, dusty yellows, pale pinks and faded lilacs, all cushioned in silvery green foliage, a restful, contemplative arrangement which she could see from her bedroom window. Then by way of contrast, in the opposite border, she had a riotous mixture of reds and oranges and bright yellows, with red hot pokers, marigolds, scarlet salvias, purple and yellow irises, all jangling together, loud and discordant.

In the quiet borders she aimed at, harmony, drifts of complementary colours emerging out of each other, establishing themselves, then blending with the next shade and melting away again, so that the eye travelled along the display with exquisite pleasure undisturbed by any clash of colour. The creation of this effect had required a great deal of thought and skill. It was her masterpiece, and proclaimed her gardening philosophy, the creation of living paintings. The soil was her canvas; flowers were her colours; her borders were her completed paintings; and the garden was her art gallery.

Compared with her brother's wild garden of sky, sea and shore, Maggie's garden was artificial, Nature tamed and polished, brought under the yoke, a toy, a plaything. a form of human self-expression, by means of which she could fulfill her longing for beauty and her need to be creative. In taming Nature, however, she was also engaging with it, working with it, coming to terms with it, even to a certain extent, understanding it. She knew about the needs and habits of the plants she used. She structured her own life to be in step with the life cycle of the plants, and the reward for her patience was the opportunity to play a part in their unfolding life-story from beginning to end., She knew about weather patterns and the climate of her own garden. With nature she had entered into a relationship, a kind of covenant, a voluntary dependency, in which she relied upon Nature to be consistent and. grow the plants while she undertook to care for them responsibly. People who grow their own vegetables, for instance, are acutely aware of this partnership, where the duty of care upon the gardener is particularly onerous.

This commitment has a moral dimension that separates the true, hands-on gardener from the casual visitor or observer, whose role is simply to admire and enjoy the garden without acknowledging any deeper obligation to it. I am not saying that gardeners are more virtuous than other people, although several philosophers have claimed as much, but a well-managed garden cannot be achieved without the exercise of the virtues of selfdiscipline, patience, consideration, humility and a respect for life.

As Peter claimed gardening allows us to tune into a different kind of reality. Normally our relationships are with people but creating a garden engages us in a non-human world, the world of nature, and the more we discover about this world the more successful our gardening becomes. In doing so, however, we are serving another vital function, that of uncovering the very meaning of nature and our own relationship with reality. Because we are aware of ourselves and of a world outside ourselves, we are in the unique position of being able to reveal nature to itself. Although Nature functions according to set laws, as Peter said, it is unaware of these laws, except through us. We are part of Nature and part of the Universe, and, therefore, because we are conscious of existence, and try to understand its significance, the Universe is aware of itself. We are the unifying factor that brings together the myriad features of creation. The more we know and understand of our physical environment, the closer we come to uncovering the meaning of existence and the greater the understanding the universe has of itself. As Peter, contemplating the perfection of his Japanese Zen garden, seemed to imply, identifying and comprehending the unity that underpins all of creation, may be the ultimate destiny of humankind.

Unlike her brother, Maggie was not one to talk, but I gather had the same speculative cast of mind. My friend, John, being her next-door neighbour, he and I were allowed to visit her garden from time to time, and on one of these occasions, when responding to our appreciation, she said, "It's not me. Never me." That was that, until some time later as we were leaving, she allowed herself to say more, "It's a gift, a garden. It happens because whatever there is behind it, wants us to know that it is there. It uses me to show itself." This was spoken with great conviction and clearly meant everything to her but at the time its significance was lost upon me.

Now, of course, I realise, she was sharing with us a deep spiritual insight. Her gardening was a kind of spiritual exercise. She was allowing herself to be used. She was the human link between the source of creation and our world of the senses. The colours, shapes and fragrance of her flowers gave material form to the spirit of creation that would otherwise be invisible to us. She realised that things not of our making must be already in place for us before we can do whatever it is we are doing. Existence, creation, is a profound mystery. When we plant a garden we lend our hands, our mind, our energy so that that mystery may be demonstrated, even if it cannot be explained.

A garden may demonstrate mathematical perfection; it may be an on-going work of art, but most of all it is a gift, the epiphany that reveals the relationship between human kind and the source of all creation. Both Maggie and Peter Gatt in their different ways had uncovered this truth while meditating in their gardens.

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