Trinity

Today seems to have been full of photographs, stories, contact, celebration and grim news, both local and international. More, in fact, than the trinitarian title would suggest. It was, however, Trinity Sunday - our church's dedication day. At this morning's rather splendid service it was announced that this is our 175th birthday year, though the actual day falls in September. The congregational singing was terrific - I love feeling it surge behind me from where I sit at the front - and the sermon was one of the best Trinity sermons I've heard in all my years here. We also sang a hymn I wrote many years ago (not the tune - I wrote the words to fit one I love) and it still gives me goosebumps to hear it sung. Afterwards there was a buffet ... 

As for the photographs: there was a great collection of glamorous photos from last night's Leavers' Ball, where Catriona and her friends posed elegantly and with a maturity that I'm not sure I've attained yet, followed by a rather less polished one from a 5am plane and a sunny tour of the apartment in Corfu - what an adventure, really. And in the other side of the family, older grandson Alan arrived in Rwanda in the middle of the night and spent the day meeting local youth (and some very small children) with whom football training has already started, along with some traditional dancing, all on the bright red earth under a startlingly blue sky. 

There were also family phone calls celebrating Father's Day and my daughter-in-law's birthday, so dinner was late and I'm back to my bad bedtime habits. It was, however, just lovely.

My extra photo illustrates what seems to be a tragedy here, though nothing has yet been confirmed: an air-sea search for someone who seems to have gone overboard from a ferry. Both ferry services were cancelled for the entire afternoon and early evening, and a helicopter made detailed sweeps of the firth all afternoon. The trace of its search is one of the photos on the left, along with the unmistakable sight of a Western Ferry way off its usual course and the helicopter passing and then overhead as we walked along the East Bay for some air before dinner. 

I'll not even mention the more global misery that is happening these nights. I don't know how rulers such as we see ordering mass killing ever sleep.