The narrow channel that separates the north coast of Scotland from the Orkney Islands is called the Pentland Firth. Here, the powerful currents of the North Atlantic surge into the North Sea.
It can be rough.
As intrepid a traveler as I like to fancy myself, I have one rather significant Achilles Heel.
I get sea sick.
I wish I didn’t! I wish I was one of those folks who get to smile knowingly and look on while the land-lubbers turn green and vomit into a paper bag…
But no.
I can’t claim to have sea legs. I have to content myself with being one of the poor suckers curled up in the corner trying valiantly not to lose my lunch. I guess I am a land-lubber at heart. It’s true that my heart sings with gratitude when I get off the high seas and stand on solid ground.
We are land animals aren’t we?
Still…
we’d spent gobs of money and endured a long procession of planes, trains and automobiles to get here, so I wasn’t going to let a passing gurgle stop me from going out on deck to take in my first look at the Orkney’s.
And Cary was cool as a cucumber. Her tummy was fine. Her only struggle was trying not to laugh at me.
So we went out on deck.
At first, our interest was drawn by the sun that seemed poised on the surface of the Atlantic, its light muted by the edge of a long high cloud. The wind, on this side of the boat, was fearsome, and we found we had to white-knuckle the rails and bend our knees to gain some small measure of confidence. I could not look away from the brooding abyss below. It seemed impossible to me that somehow this ship – this insignificant piece of flotsam – could move through this ocean without being splintered. In that long moment, the ocean was beyond compromise – a dire force, certain death, the inescapable presence of eternity, right there.
From early childhood I have been drawn to, and terrified of the ocean. The salt air, the rhythm of the surf, the seagull’s throaty complaint, the unimaginable depth. My child’s mind was confronted by, and could not tame the fact of the ocean. Before I knew about mortality, the ocean was my first fumbling awareness of death. There are no terms that are not its terms.
Cary and I did the comical, lurching dance that was necessary to cross to the other side of the ferry, and there we beheld, for the first time, the massive cliffs of Hoy rising out of the sea. A daunting bulwark facing northwest against the force of the Atlantic, Hoy is the westernmost, and tallest of the Orkney Islands. We would not actually get to Hoy for several days, but these forbidding cliffs – rising nearly 12 hundred feet up from the pounding surf – were our first thrilling glimpse of the Islands. 
The cliffs caught the last light of the sun. Seabirds wheeled in the air, tiny specks against the great bulwark. I would later learn that the red sandstone that form these cliffs are probably from the Devonian period – some 380 million years ago – when the landmass that is now Scotland, was a desert plain located below the equator.
In places, the ancient cliffs were lost in low clouds.
The wind
The ocean
The cliffs.
The evidence, before us, of stretches of time, impossible to imagine.
Cary and I were silenced by it all.
Eventually, though, the wind got to be too much for us.
“I’m going in,” she said.
I followed her.
We sat down among the other passengers.
Cary sighed. “It’s just too beautiful,” she said.
**
When, a few days later, we actually set foot on Hoy, it felt, at first, a little anticlimactic.
The Island itself is sparsely populated. Other than its spectacular geologic features, the islands claim to fame was the role it played during the second World War when it had been a strategic battery position, with big guns placed to protect the Royal fleet from German U-boats. Linksness – the town where the ferry docked boasted little more than some nondescript lowlying buildings, and a museum dedicated to the War effort.
The road left town. There were almost no trees, so one could easily follow the contours of the mountains as they rose up around the winding, single lane road. The peat bogs and tough weatherbeaten heather gave the glens a deep green texture. Here and there, the water table broke the surface, causing elegant little ponds to appear in the shoulder blades of the land. A lone electrical line stretched from lonesome pole to lonesome pole across desolate heath. It was a windy place that might let you walk through, but would be reluctant to let you stay.
Al, our guide, pulled the van to a stop. He liked doing this – surprising us with little interesting asides. With a nod of his head he indicated that we should take a look out the left side of the van.
“That’s our Betty, out there,” he said.
**
I would like to grab onto something in the scripture passage that Rikki just read for us.
This reading survived the centuries as the Epistle of James – though it is not really known who wrote it. Like the surviving works of the Apostle Paul, this was originally a letter that was written to one of the early churches, sounds like advice.
It sounds like someone asked James – or the writer called himself James – it sounds like someone asked him the question that you might ask a religious teacher – how to go about being a good person.
In his answer, James connects being with doing.
If you want to be this, then do this.
This doesn’t seem that groundbreaking.
As far as ethical theory is concerned, it sounds pretty straightforward.
To be good, do good.
But as basic as this sounds to us, this logic has not always been taken for granted in the Christian life.
You see, Christian thinkers throughout history grappled with the implications of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross.
If, in dying for our sins, Christ’s death effectively paid off our debt to God, do we really need to do good deeds?
If the debt is already paid, why bother?
This way of thinking finds a willing accomplice in the theological notion of grace.
The Christian view of the idea of grace suggests that God will help us – even bestow upon us the ultimate gift of eternal salvation – even though we do not deserve it.
If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
– psalm 130.
This is a comforting idea. None of us are perfect, right? Every one of us has done something, or perhaps several things, that we need to be forgiven for. So each of us would dearly love to believe in a God who is generous enough to see past our faults, and recognize our potential.
But as comforting as this is, it presents us with a theological slippery slope.
If God can be depended upon to forgive us, and Christ sacrificed himself on our behalf, then do we need to do “good works?”
Some Christians thinkers have speculated that in the end all we really need is faith. Faith alone is crucial for salvation. As long as you love God and have faith, you don’t need to bother with doing good things for other people. It would be nice, but it’s not necessary.
If you go too far with this logic, you end up badly undermining the ethical principles of Christian life.
Surely Christianity is, at its core, meaningfully related to the life and example of Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t sit around splitting hairs about this stuff. He walked around Galilee in his sandals, healing the sick and giving sight to the blind.
Who he was had everything to do with what he did.
Jesus did not act because doctrine instructed him. He did not excuse himself from action through some conveniently logical excuse.
He taught. He healed. He did these things because it was in his nature, as a compassionate person, to do so.
James’ advice is based on this example – an example that Jesus Christ lived out.
To be good, do good.
It’s simple.
Or is it?
**
Betty Corrigall was a young woman who lived on the Island of Hoy in the 1700’s.
As the story goes, she “fell under the spell” of a young man who worked on the whaling boats, who had his way with her and went back out to sea.
Betty soon discovered that she was with child.
At that time, it was not acceptable for a young woman to be pregnant and unmarried. This strict cultural rule was, of course, upheld by the church. We are not surprised by this – Christianity has typically played this role in society – this intolerance of human weakness that masquerades as piety.
In her shame, Betty decided to commit suicide.
She walked out into the ocean.
She tried to return to that immense, dreadful power that eternally pushes up against the cliffs of Hoy.
The wind
The ocean
Eternity.
But she was unsuccessful. One of the villagers saved her.
Determined, she soon succeeded in her tragic intent, hanging herself in a byre.
The community (once again informed by the church), could not stand for this either. Suicide was a worse sin than being an unmarried mother. But they had a body to deal with and the church refused to bury her. Finally, her body was put in a pine coffin and buried in an unmarked grave, far out on the heath, in a lonely spot that was not claimed by any parish.
Christ’s holy church judged her in life, and exiled her in death.
This, even though Christ himself taught us how to forgive by showing mercy to an adulterous woman.
Betty lay like this in a peat bank for nearly two hundred years, until the spring of 1936, when some local farmers who were digging in the peat, hit her coffin with their spade. They thought they had found treasure, but what they found was a young woman, remarkably well preserved. The peat kept her intact through the centuries. Betty’s story was revived in the community. She was buried again, still without a marker.
In the middle of the war some soldiers digging to install telegraph lines found her again.
Once again she was buried. Once again, without a marker.
It wasn’t until the late 1940’s that an American Christian minister, the Reverend Kenwood Bryant heard the story and approached the local town leader, and insisted that Betty be given a proper burial. Mr. Harold Berry of Hoy, agreed to do so, but it took him 27 years to finally survey the spot and have a headstone put in.
The gravestone, which is pictured on the front of today’s bulletin, simply says:
Here lies Betty Corrigall.
It is said to be the loneliest grave in the UK.
Amen.