I am writing this night before we head down south to Manchester to pick up the flight for Italy and our holiday in Lake Garda.
I hope this story doesn’t come back to haunt me, but 20 years ago I sat in Glasgow Airport, about to head to Turin for study leave from the Church on ‘The Waldensian Church, Protestantism in a predominantly Roman Catholic Country.’
I think that was the official title!!
The time came and went for my flight and fear increased for the connection at Stansted. We were eventually told that there were ‘no pilots’ to fly the plane and were told that we would have to wait for a pilot to be flown to Glasgow. The plane eventually took off for the short journey to England but when I arrived at Stansted all I could hear was my name being called.
I ran through an airport that I was unfamiliar with and sat down in my seat – if looks could kill, from the other passengers!! I sat back and read a book, now relaxed that I was on my way to Italy and to a city that I had never been to, and looking forward to meeting Massimo Long, who was my contact there and had arranged accommodation, an apartment, to stay in, close to the Waldensian Church.
(As an aside, it was interesting, based on recent news, that outside the synagogue that I could see from my apartment window, stood a police presence.)
The plane landed and after security, I headed to the carousel to pick up my case only to discover that my case wasn’t there. It should have dawned on me that the minute I got to the plane in Stansted, it took off: we all know how fast cases are unloaded from a plane – my case was still in London!
So, my first task in Turin was to do some shopping, unsure when my case would actually arrive. Three fascinating weeks were spent there, initially forgetting that August was the wrong time to visit an Italian city because the Italians in the North head South for a holiday.
On one of the Sunday mornings, I stood and sang hymns in Italian, to well-known and recognisable tunes that I knew so well from Scotland and in the afternoon, I conducted worship for the English speakers and held a communion service. Interestingly, the Waldensians knew how to use a building well because the Pentecostal community worshipped in the evening – thus a variety of styles of worship and liturgy were offered at different times – how the Church of Scotland could learn from this.
As I sat in the airport in Turin ready to come home and wondering if my bags would make it with me, along came the whole Juventus football team, with stars like Alessandro Del Piero. My camera had been packed away – these were days before mobile phones and selfies, so I missed out, despite that experience.
I suppose that is what a holiday or break is all about, leaving your baggage behind. A vacation is a time to let go, to switch off from the daily routines and demands, the kind of thing that Christ tries to tell us to do by passing on that which weighs us down, to him.
We are about to head into the specific remembrance time, moments in November as the seasons change – those who have left more than their bags and baggages but their very lives down, so that life would be lighter and brighter and more peaceful than the world they experienced.
I don’t think we often appreciate what others have done for us, and as we know from our present time, we still have a lot of learning to be done. It is with a degree of hopefulness and prayerfulness that the ceasefire in the Middle East will hold and other areas of our world would settle down and we would value and be grateful for the sacrifice of many.
May you get the chance to stop, reflect and remember and take the chance to lay your burdens down to the Christ who died for you.
Your friend and minister,
George C Mackay
