Hotbird405: What’s important

We came together a while back to bury an elderly member of the farming community.

As is usual in these cases the Church was packed full, every farming family for miles around was represented including those for whom this would be their only reason for coming to the Kirk.

After the service, when the committal had been carried out at our lovely local cemetery, a newer member of our community, not long arrived but realising already that this occasion was as much part of village life as any of the other things we come together for, spoke to me quietly.

That was very nice, he opined, but the person delivering the tribute didn’t seem to say very much about the deceased.

On the contrary, I said, look at what was actually said and what was not said.

Our friend was born and brought up in this community and received the benefit of his education at the local Primary School. Apart from a period when he accepted employment elsewhere in the county he lived a long life here, working on both his own land and on the land of others.

You may think, I said, that his achievements did not amount to much, and indeed you would be correct in observing that he never became rich, in the accumulated wealth sense of the word; He certainly never became famous, except that he was widely known throughout Argyll, and he never put any of his thoughts or knowledge into print.

However, I pointed out; Look at what was actually said, the things that were considered important by his peers.

A man who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of nature all around him, who was able to spot and enjoy things in nature that others might miss. A man who was a fine shot, whether it be for competition, vermin control or provision of something for the pot.

Above all, he was recognised as a man who could plough a fine straight furrow on undulating ground.

As personally I have never even mastered the art of driving a tractor, I’m told by my farming friends that this requires a high degree of skill and experience, as well as an innate sense of one-ness with the land under the plough.

To my questioner I was able to say, do you now see that what was said about our friend was all-embracing and important? These were the attributes that made him the man he was, not much use to the life he led for him to have had the capability to be a captain of industry or a brilliant academic mind.

This is what’s so important about our communities, our towns and villages, our mainland and islands.

Everyone has their part to play—and no-one is any the more or less important in the scheme of things.

Hotbird405 ©

The image above of a champion plough is from The Powerhouse Museum and is in the public domain.