Moments of great calm ...

That title is the opening line of a favourite poem by R.S.Thomas, and is apt for describing the atmosphere we found this afternoon when we went for a walk along Loch Striven. What wind there was came from the East and so didn't reach us at all because of the hills beside the road, and the only noise was the faintest of ripples from the sea-loch and the croaks and calls of the odd bird on the water. I really took the photo for the marvellous reflection of the mooring platform next to the fuel depot pier and the humour of its apparently bent legs, but on reflection (sorry!) I realise that great calm was something I was actively seeking because of the turbulence of some areas of life just now. 

I was thinking about the nature of authority in essentially voluntary activities - those areas of life in which we appoint people to make decisions for us in order to give us the kind of life/ethos/activity we desire. So we have politicians elected, we pay for people to organise our worship, we give the local choir director or dramatic producer authority to tell us what to do and to make the necessary conditions in which we do it. And sometimes, as with the current crop of Westminster rulers, we (as in we the public) get it wrong, employ the odd bad'un, the passing incompetent, the wilfully manipulative, the power-seeker. And then we all suffer and can't get rid of them until they allow us another vote. Or whatever. 

So we need these moments of great calm, and we need our unrippled sea and our quiet woodlands, and the ancient peace of the standing stone of  a distant legend.