God the Creator
Thou hast changed us.
Christ the Redeemer,
Thou hast changed us.
Holy Spirit the Binder,
Thou dost keep us changed:
Even as our lives are bound together in Thee.
George F MacLeod, from The Whole Earth Shall Cry Glory.
As one trying hard to accomodate my books in a modest house, I have come to love slim books more than ever. Macleod's wee book of prayers is half a centimetre thick, and one of the gems of Scottish spirituality. I wouldn't part with it. He laboured over his prayers more than his sermons. There are prayers sketched on envelopes, on the back of utility bills, and even an occasional scrap of cereal packet - saved for the nation in the National Archives where his papers are held. They are holy fragments of a man's life, and even if Presbyterians don't do relics, and even less so us Baptists, these prayers, addresses, sermons and miscellaneous notes are amongst the treasures of the Kirk. I spent a couple of half days in Edin burgh going through them, and imagining this pipe clenching cleric hammering them out on a typewriter, or outlining them with a blunt pencil (making them a challenge to decipher), and sensing the spiritual passion of a man who made the vision of Iona more than a pipe dream.
The book is still in print from Wild Goose, and available on Amazon.
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