by Linda Duggan
October 2008
I've been helping at the food bank (EFS) for one year now, and have regaled the ladies and gentlemen with many of my stories. One lady suggested I write an article for a paper she was involved with. I thought that would be great. I'd just spent the last twenty years working with thoroughbreds and I had lots of stories. I also had a fabulous book written by an actual veterinarian from the 1800's. My idea was just to offer a few recommendations and advice from my illustrious vet, with his lyrical and articulate style. I was sure I could amuse my excellent audience. I was fully prepared to set about the task, when suddenly I discovered that the said article was for the magazine “Aspire” of St John the Divine. I was almost certain that would be a religious magazine. Perhaps I could somehow work all this into one fell swoop of saints and angels and horses, and everything would be just fine. I like a challenge as much as the next Christian, but I needed a proper spiritual theme. I wondered how on God's green earth I could include horses? The ideas steamed away in my head for about six weeks with no reasonable solution. Perhaps I could write about the spirited aspects of that well-bred horse, with his penchant for searching the clouds looking for weather, and his intent gaze earthward, watching the ground race beneath his hooves. Then I realized that my article was supposed to be “spiritual” not “spirited”. It was then that I decided to write about St John the Divine in the 1800's, the era of horse travel. At the end of the article I would also like to mention some other wonderful things I've learned from other books.
I'd ask you to picture our first minister, standing beside his horse, saddled and ready to go, wearing knee-high boots and looking like any cowboy I've ever seen. I think this image would have meaning for some of our current parishioners who may have had relatives who lived in that era and looked like that minister. They ALL had horses. Did the minister provide wonderfully profound religious answers to all spiritual questions and then hop back onto his horse and gallop away? People today might like to know a bit more so I looked into my veterinarian's book. With a vet's point of view, he complained bitterly about the treatment given to poor horses, who after all came from eastern countries where there were great deserts and intense warmth. He wrote that you could look anywhere and see the poor creatures in western countries huddled together for warmth in the snow. Some people might also like to know that in England a “gig”, which is a type of small carriage, cost 70 or 80 guineas, and that the only conveyance permitted to approach St James Palace on drawing room day was priced at 400 to 800 guineas. In contrast, here in Victoria the land purchased for building our church cost a meagre $800. So everyone walked or rode horses—how very interesting
But let us return to the modern day and other books. I have another book I like to read—my Bible. I read Kings and Chronicles and enjoyed reading about the measurements of the beautiful tabernacle that was built. It was enormous. In the back of the Bible I discovered the answer to a question that had always befuddled me as a young child; I believed that the Garden of Eden was not of this Earth. I believed that we couldn't even know how beautiful it was, for we had lost it. Well, I had an epiphany. I found that Eden was a very real place, according to the information in the back of my Bible. It was situated on the plain of Babylonia known as Eden in the Sumerian language. The Persian Gulf was considered a river, the “Salt River”. The Euphrates, Tigris, Kherka, and Karun flowed into it by separate mouths in the early days of Babylonian civilization.
I'd also like to touch on Iona, since our children have just returned from their inspiring pilgrimage there. In my book The Celts, I discovered that St Columba made Iona the spiritual seat of the Dalriada government and that the Book of Kells was started on Iona and later sent to Ireland to escape the Vikings. St Columba himself, while praying there on Iona, was surrounded by fire, and angels were seen to whisper in his ear.
And there you have it. God bless everyone and I will sing to you on Sunday, as I have just joined the choir.