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Rector's Letter, July 2003 Dear Friends, Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards – to Edinburgh that is, on the train. That must be the way of life for commuters but it’s unusual for me. Sitting on the train looking idly out of the window I fell into a familiar pattern of thought. Who lives in all the houses and particularly the flats one passes on a train journey? I know none of them. What sort of lives, what sort of families, what sort of single people? Are they happy, are they sad? I’m always filled with this, perhaps unhealthy curiosity to know about the lives of all these thousands of people. Yet they are closed books to me and I to them. On the train itself one often meets someone one does know, and can pass the time in some way connected. But at other times one’s fellow passengers are total strangers. I think it’s the disconnectedness that both interests and alarms me. I have grown used to living in small towns, be it Blairgowrie or Dunblane where one knows and is known. Even in Stirling one bumps into people one knows. When I go to a really big town I find I have to school myself not to scan the faces in the crowds for someone to greet. Though having said that I did bump into Bob Fyffe, the priest from St John’s in Perth, in a street in Stockholm, and into another priest from Dundee in a church in Milan. But it is more of a long shot. Is it possible to go through life being disconnected from others? Is it not in the interaction between people that we find our humanity? Some folk are more naturally out-going than others and that’s fine, but is it possible to be totally disconnected both physically and mentally and remain real? Does one not drift off into illusion? In enclosed monasteries and convents people pray for the world – they are in no way disconnected. We cannot know more than a small fraction of people, and an even smaller number well. Yet without ties to others we are desperately impoverished. Friendship is something we often take for granted but it is one of the most precious of gifts. Both Abraham and Moses were called friends of God; Jesus calls us, his disciples even with all our faults, his friends. There is something in the friendship of God that is truly wonderful. Do we cultivate his friendship? Do we want to be connected to others and to God? It is circular, this friendship. We find Christ in the faces of others and through Christ we connect to others. I wish you all a friendly summer. Janice |