Gregory Scott Blog

Irish-Scotch Travel Journal Day – 9

Our day started with some trepidation as we were getting news from back in Houston that Hurricane Beryl was bearing down on the city.

We took comfort in knowing a friend was staying in our home, but by our Scotland afternoon friends back in Houston were waking to heavy rain and high winds as the hurricane unleashed its fury on the city.

As all this was happening back home, we were on the peaceful Isle of Iona. We anchored off the port at Tobermory, Isle of Mull, and took a scenic two-hour drive to the southern most tip of the island, where we caught a ferry for the 1 mile trip to Iona.

We were in Iona because of Columba. In 563 A.D., Columba left Ireland on his mission to take the gospel to Scotland. That plan included establishing a base of operations in Scotland where he could train up men of God and then lead and send them out with the gospel. Columba chose the Isle of Iona as his base. He established a monastery there that survived for the next thousand years.

Iona is only 4 miles long and 1 mile wide. It is far enough from Ireland that one cannot see Ireland on the clearest of days, one of the conditions Columba had for selecting his new base. Iona is also only 15 miles from the Scottish mainland, meaning Columba and his disciples could get there in a number of hours.

After establishing his posse on Iona, Columba and his disciples took missionary trips to the western and northern parts of Scotland where they brought the gospel to the Picts. The Picts were ferocious pagans, not unlike the Celts in Ireland. Some believe they were descendants of the same Celtic people group. The mighty Romans could never definitively defeat the picts in battle and so had built two walls across Britain’s northern frontier (Hadrian’s Wall in 122 A.D. and the Antonine Wall in 142 A.D.) to keep them out.

What the Romans, the greatest military empire in history to that time could not do, Columba and his disciples did with the gospel. There were others involved of course, St. Ninian, for example, but Columba gets the lion’s share of the credit.

Columba’s monastery on Iona produced a dream team of saints including Saint Aidan (a missionary to Northumbria who established the monastery at Lindisfarne), Saint Cuthbert (while not trained at Iona was heavily influenced by Columba), Adomnan (who wrote the Life of Columba in the 7th century and was the abbot at Iona), and Saint Machar (who established the church in Aberdeen, Scotland). The monastery also produced books, the most well known being the celebrated Book of Kells now on display at Trinity College in Dublin.

Irish-Scotch Travel Journal Day – 8

Saint Augustine’s Church (on the Wall), Londonderry, Northern Ireland

I’ve often said the existence keys is the best evidence we live in a fallen world. Keys are necessary to unlock locks, and locks are only necessary because people steal.

In terms of such evidence city walls run a close second. We’ve seen many examples of city walls in our travels: Jerusalem, Istanbul, Vienna, York, Dubrovnik. Today we added Londonderry to that list.

The irony is in Londonderry the walls could not defend against what threatened to tear the city apart following the Reformation. That threat culminated in “The Troubles” of 1968 through 1972, and more acutely on Bloody Sunday (January 23, 1972), where 13 civil rights demonstrators were killed by the police.

St. Columba and St. Patrick would have been shocked to hear “The Troubles” framed as a religious dispute amongst Christians. It was more political and cultural than religious. I never heard the leaders of the opposing sides debating salvation and the merits of monergism or synergism.

Our tour guide was careful to make clear that his use of the name “Derry” (the Irish Republican designation) instead of Londonderry (the UK/Unionist name), was not intended to be a political statement but a more convenient name for the city we were touring today. Fortunately, things have quieted down here since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and we no longer associate Northern Ireland with bombings and the IRA.

Key in bringing about that 1998 peace agreement was John Hume, a devout Christian who attended St. Columb’s (Columba’s) school, and St. Patrick’s College, where he studied for the priesthood before choosing a career in education and ultimately in politics.

Northern Ireland can be thankful Hume chose a career in politics rather than the priesthood, and more importantly that he choice to be peacemaker.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:9.

When we act as peacemakers, we are imitating our Father. Like father like son. The Apostle Paul spoke of this imitation of the Father when he told the Galatians that those who are lead by the Spirit of God are the children of God. Galatians 8:14. When we are led by the spirit, we imitate God, Who is spirit.

Irish-Scotch Travel Journal Day – 7

Maughold Village, Isle of Man, a hidden treasure

If you are looking for Christian history, the Isle of Man is probably not the first place that comes to mind. The Isle of Man is known as a tax haven for corporations, not a destination of spiritual pilgrimages.

When we were here in 2018, we toured Viking burials, the ruins of an early Christian church, and Castletown where John Wesley preached in 1777. Today we determined to do something different, and that led us to Maughold Village.

St. Maughold lived in the 5th Century A.D. in Ireland. He was a pirate, captaining a ship of pirates, that is, until he crossed paths with St. Patrick.

As we know, Patrick was bold, and Patrick preached the gospel to Maughold, who repented and gave his life to Jesus. As evidence of his repentance Maughold in approximately 450 A.D. and probably commissioned by Patrick, set out in a boat from Ireland for the Isle of Man. When he arrived, he began doing what he apparently had seen St. Patrick doing in Ireland – making disciples.

Maughold founded a church there, in what is now known as as the Village of Maughold, and he baptized new believers at a well a few hundred yards from the church down the slope toward the Irish Sea. He later became a bishop and is now considered the patron saint of the Isle of Man.

So, today, we were on a Maughold mission. We rented a taxi and told the driver we would need him for about two hours. He drove us the ten miles to the Village of Maughold, about a 30 minute drive through some of the most beautiful country with some of the most beautiful vistas you can imagine.

The church there, besides being founded by St. Maughold, is also home to a number of early Celtic crosses, some nearly 1500 years old. We looked around inside the church and then outside at the crosses before I asked for directions to Maughold’s Well. I was told it was a twenty minute walk.

Irish-Scotch Travel Journal Day – 6

Today we transitioned from land to sea, car to ship.

As we transitioned modes of transportation we also began the transition from the study of St. Patrick to other Christians who have changed the world. As we will see, though, Patrick’s influence was an ever expanding ripple in the pond of Kingdom history, even after his death.

One example is Columba. Columba was born in 527 A.D. in Ireland. Columba was a disciple of Finnian of Clonard (470 A.D. – 529 A.D.), who some believe was a disciple of St. Patrick. Columba began as a pupil at a monastery, ultimately becoming a monk and then a priest.

Later, while at Movilla Abbey, Columba made a copy of a Psalter (Book of Psalms). The Abbot there, Finnian of Movilla (not to be confused with Finnian of Clonard) took issue with Columba’s copying of the Psalter and appealed to the local king to decide who owned the copy.

The king decided against Columba under the “calf from the cow rule,” a ruling praised in retrospect by intellectual propery attorneys everywhere. Columba, however, who was young, loved the Word of God, and was unfamiliar with the Copyright Act of 1976, was convinced the king had done a great injustice.

The same king then arrested a man who had sought sanctuary with Columba in the church, and had put him to death. Columba, like Moses who in his zeal rose up against the Egyptian, then purportedly instigated a rebellion against the king in 561 A.D.. Three thousand men died in the rebellion.

Columba was so convicted about the loss of life resulting from his youthful zeal, he vowed, as a penance, to lead 3,000 people to the Lord. As lofty a goal as this was, what Columba achieved later for the kingdom of God was far greater, but I will leave that for a later post when we get to Scotland.

The highlight today was our taxi ride from the rental car return at Dublin International Airport to the port in Dublin. While we were on the motorway traveling at 120 km/hr, Ann complained about her seat, which was slightly reclined. It appeared to the rest of us to be – as the English might say – in a comfortable position of repose. I would go so far as to say it was in a position of modest recline most would have found pleasantly unobjectionable.

Ann, however, persisted that she could not ride in such a position. When she was unable to adjust the seat, the driver offered to pull off the motorway and adjust the seat. Two other members of our team said this was unnecessary and tried to persuade Ann to relent. When she did not, the driver pulled off the motorway, into the grass, to adjust her seat.

He could not adjust the seat to Ann’s preference, so she moved to the front seat, next to the driver. When we were moving again, I asked Ann if there was anything else our driver could do for her. Perhaps get her a cappuccino?

After that though, Ann began telling our driver about our trip. When he said, “So, this is a spiritual journey,” I interjected from the back seat, “For some of us.” Ann, ignoring me, stayed on message though, talking to him about the importance of St. Patrick and his influence in Ireland in turning people to the Lord.

Irish-Scotch Travel Journal Day – 5

The emotional state of the GSB Team was much better today. I attribute that to no longer having to wear the sweatshirt I bought at the airport in Philadelphia that says “PHILADELPHIA” in big letters on the front. It was a constant reminder to the group of Day 1 of our journey.

At breakfast Ann thanked me for the later start time on our itinerary today. As she described it, “We don’t want to put too much pressure in the system.” I was able to read between the lines. This was a shot over the bow, the first sign of the rebellion that inevitably happens on these tours as I try to keep us to the itinerary and certain members of the team want to sleep later and shop more.

The big stop of the day was the Giant’s Causeway. The Giant’s Causeway is amazing. “Yes,” you might say, “but what does it have to do with the kingdom of God.” Well, it was created by God, and that makes it fair game for this travel journal. As the Apostle Paul wrote the Christians in Rome: