Murdoch and Anne MacKenzie
  • In Memoriam Murdoch MacKenzie
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  • Copyright
This Collection of his Writings and Photographs is a Memorial
​to the Life and Work of Murdoch MacKenzie              
Advent 2006

Last
night a
half-moon
was smiling
through  the
bare branches of
beech, ash, birch and
rowan giving way before
dawn to the complaints of
a ‘moping owl’ bemoaning
the night’s lost opportunities
amidst the bare undecorated trees
of Advent in Argyll, gaunt and still
after Atlantic gales, and red squirrels
hoarding till the distant Spring with tardy
toadstools lingering longer than ever in the global
warmth. An Advent journey once again, ‘such a long
journey into the dead of winter’ yet laced with the recollections
of a year’s fast guttering flame, beginning brightly with Claire and
Mike in splendid Winchester, wed on the very spot where Mary Tudor
married Hapsburg Philip then College Hall  where young George of Fuinary
once wined and dined. A year cascading seamlessly through family treasures on
the Isle of Sark ,of MacKinnons and MacDonalds whose artistic genius now awaits
Christine’s return to Skye whilst dear Catriona’s Gaelic falls strangely silent in the memory
as does the Baltic Cruise with renewed  friendships in Helsinki to be succeeded  by the joy of
tuneful wedding bells in Edinburgh amid St Cuthbert’s warm embrace for Simon and Mary and
their guests from near and far. Next came Iona’s Gaelic week and autumn visits full of friendships old
 and new on Arran and Goat Fell with the new hip climbing fast and well and on to Heronslake’s abiding
 faithfulness in glorious Devon and Cornish Eden’s miracle, pregnant with promises of new life for trees and
forests no longer scarred but luxuriantly re-foliating a waiting world  revealing hope of what life might become,
an Advent  hope of which we  shared in Manchester,  Cardiff  and London, in exploring Britishness  in Milton
Keynes , Forty Years  On  at St Colm’ s and in  Glenrothes, a  Silver Jubilee in  Runcorn, with  Friends of  St
Cuthbert in  Edinburgh and the World  Church in Penrith, as  well as  the Churches of Argyll  and the Isles on
Iona,  celebrating  Oban  as a Fairtrade Town,  and not  least the Vigil at the  jagged gates of  Faslane’s folly.
With thoughts of Ruth teaching amidst the Vietnamese, of Iain on Primrose Hill, Hana and Benjo in Langside’s
Battlefield   School, Catriona’s  social  concerns in  Castlemilk, Damir  once again  enabling  immigrants,  and
Alexia  a  new sister for  Andrew and for Cara.  And now to  decorate the  Christmas  tree  and to  remember
friendships  old and  new so that  the branches  may be evergreen with  seeds of  hope and  angels  singing songs
of
Peace and
Love of
God
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