Children of the Mist
A memory keeps coming to mind. It was the first-ever prayer assignment I felt the Lord call me to, and it came with a promise. That promise has been haunting me of late. I was twenty-one years old. It was early summer. One night, at about 1.30 am, I felt the Lord ask me to go online and research different types of kilt. It was just a feeling, no voice, no thunderclap, only a gentle nudge that I had never felt before. It felt so different that it got me up out of bed. Remember the days of dial-up? When getting online happened through a strange barrage of sounds and pings; like submarines talking to each other.
I learned a lot that evening. It turns out there are two kinds of kilt. The grand kilt, filleadh mòr in the Gaelic (pronounced fil-a-more), and the little kilt, filleadh beg. All that made the grand kilt ‘grand’ was the fact that it had a built-in plaid. I stumbled upon the website of a mill shop in the Borders. It waxed lyrical about the story of the filleadh mòr, as the mill produced the two tartans used in the films Braveheart and Rob Roy. Two films in the mid-’90s that sent tourist numbers to the Scottish Highlands skyrocketing. I clicked on the link about Rob Roy, the page was titled “Children of the Mist.” There was an image of a quintessential misty Highland glen and anecdotes about the actual MacGregor clan’s exploits, minus Liam Neeson. It was in reading that phrase “Children of the Mist” that I instinctively knew I had found a key piece in this late-night treasure hunt. I didn’t hear a voice, but I heard a call, it was as if the Lord said,
“I want you to buy a filleadh mòr. When you put it on, I want you to become enveloped in your land. Then when you walk in the hills with me, you will lift your land, its people and their place before me. I want to come to your land and have the cloud of my presence fill meetings and glens once more.”
Honestly, I laughed. That’s just my subconscious speaking, I said. A subconscious bathed in the script of Braveheart, probably with a half-painted face in blue woad. And anyway, I thought, I’m a student. I can’t afford a kilt.
The following month, I went to CLAN Gathering. (CLAN: Christians Linked Across the Nation, was a charismatic renewal conference held each July in St Andrews. I learned so many biblical truths and experienced God and His Kingdom in incredible ways through CLAN). On the first night of the conference, a man walked up to me. I had never met him before. “I feel like the Lord has asked me to give you this,” he said, handing me an envelope with my name on it, before going back to his seat. The first worship song was starting. I opened that envelop and read:
Dear Howard,
I see you wearing an old kilt. It’s not like the modern version. It’s got a plaid that comes over your shoulder and connects with the kilt at the front. I feel that the Lord is calling you to pray for Scotland when you wear it. He wants to show you the things that are on his heart as you walk with him in the hills wearing this old-style kilt. Also, I feel like not many people are going to understand you. But know that the Lord is with you.
This note from a stranger confirmed the fruit of that internet search. Maybe this was the Lord and not my subconscious after all. ’That man,’ (I sense that is how he would like to be referred to in this story) was a parishioner in the church that I would later work at in Thurso. He is one of the most prophetic people I have ever met in my life. He’s a dear and humble soul. On three occasions, he gave me prophetic words based on what I had been doing the day before. I would feel the fear of God and the intimacy of God simultaneously reading those laser guided wee notes of encouragement.
Shortly after CLAN Gathering had finished, I was sharing with close friends in Kilmalcolm about the filleadh mòr internet search and the letter I received to confirm it. We were simply debriefing the conference, reflecting on all that the Lord Jesus was doing. Afterwards, a very precious intercessor who had been in that conversation got in touch. “Son, I feel like I am supposed to buy you this filleadh mòr of yours. The Lord’s been talking to me about it,” she said.
And sure enough, that dear saint was true to her word, I went to the tweed mill in the Borders and purchased nine yards of the Rob Roy tartan. I learned how you made DIY pleats and, gathered with a belt, become enfolded into the fabric of the kilt, and the land.
This blog post would sprout arms and legs and run away in length if I shared some of the adventures in God I had in that kilt. Let me come to the heart of what I want to say. Earlier this year, Charlotte and I returned to Scotland, spying out the land, battling our way through storm Ciara and later storm Dennis. We stayed overnight at the Dunalastair Hotel and there, wall mounted in a glass cabinet just outside the dining room, was the actual costume worn by Liam Nesson from the film Rob Roy. Same tartan different kilt. The memories came flooding back and that promise: “children of the mist,” in the cloud of His glory.
As if to underscore the learning, I woke the next morning in time to see the dawn break over a mountain called Schiehallion. Wind on the summit whipped up the snow into a fine cloud. Looking at this Munro, I thought about a book of Patristic Homilies on the Transfiguration of Jesus I had just read over the Christmas holidays. Often, those early church fathers spoke about that mountain in an allegorical way. In other words, there was a surface meaning, where Jesus and his three disciples climbed up that peak together. And there is another higher meaning, calling up those three apostles and the reader of Holy Scripture into something more. The mountain is a picture of ascending into heaven. Jesus is revealing to his disciples his divinity. It is a teaching moment for them, and us, all revealed in the eternal love of the Father lavished on the Son. It’s a foretaste of what’s to come in the fullness of the Kingdom of God. Looking out of my hotel room window, the mountain Schiehallion, clothed in that cloud, was shot through with luminous beauty. In the light of dawn, I saw Christ, lifted over the land, the Father pleased to illumine the beauty of his Eternal Son to all who would seek Him.
In these days of isolation, when your four walls and a diminishing bank balance might draw in around about you, lift your eyes to the hills and the heavens. Ask the Father to show you his dear Son. The Holy Spirit will teach you and help you to know Jesus. Set your minds on things above. If you are in Christ, then Zion is your true home (Hebrews 12:22-24), walk around about her, take a tour of this great city in prayer (Psalm 48:12-14). Like those three Apostles before us, let us become children of the mist. It’s when we have been on the peaks beholding Him that we will be able to see the darkest of valleys transformed in Him.
In closing, here’s an extract from St John Chrysostom’s Homily. Golden Mouthed John is just at the part of the story when the cloud has appeared:
“What happened then? Jesus himself said nothing, nor did Moses, nor Elijah; but the one who is greater than all, more trustworthy than all—the Father—let his voice sound from the cloud. Why from a cloud? This is always how God appears! For “cloud and darkness surround him,” and “he sits upon a light cloud”; and again, “he has made clouds his staircase,” and “clouds received him from their sight,” and “the Son of Man is coming on the clouds.” That they might believe, then, that the voice came from God, that is where it originated. And the cloud was bright. “For while he was speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold, a voice spoke from the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I take pleasure. Listen to him.’ ” For when he threatens, he shows a dark cloud, as on Sinai; for Scripture says, “Moses went into the cloud and into the darkness,” and “the smoke went up like steam.” The Prophet speaks of God’s threatening side when he says, “Dark water is in the misty clouds.” But here, since he does not want to cause fear but to instruct, the cloud is bright.”
Behr, J. (Ed.). (2013). Light on the Mountain: Greek Patristic and Byzantine Homilies on the Transfiguration of the Lord. (Vol. 48, pp. 76–77). Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press
