Thank you, fair Kenneth.
“He has saved my soul, and he will never hear the end of it.”
Rev. Kenneth McDonald (Ban), Lochcarron.
Beautiful turns of phrase describe the life of followers of Jesus from previous generations who lived in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, those who “walked at the fringe of another world” or “lived with the secret of the Lord.” Rarely would they share their intimate encounters with the living God, and never in a way that drew attention to themselves. I am privileged to have known an evening in the home of Rev. Kenneth and Mary McDonald on the shores of Lochcarron. All I can describe it as was like a night spent in God, it has gloriously haunted me ever since because I believe I witnessed the truth of the verse in Malachi 3:16.
“Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.”
I couldn’t possibly comment if a book of remembrance was written, but that night, I felt the attention of the Lord, being in the company of men who feared God. As a twenty-one-year-old fresh out of university, I had just started working as an assistant to the Rev. Kenny Borthwick, and this was our first ministry trip together. Kenny Borthwick had been invited to speak at an event in Lochcarron, and the Rev. Kenneth McDonald, whose nickname was Kenny Ban (fair-haired Kenny in Gaelic), was our host. On walking up the front path of Kenny Ban’s garden, I saw an image in my mind’s eye of the burning bush and sensed the anointing of God to the degree that I knew we were entering holy ground. I wanted to take my shoes off. Sure enough, here was a home where God had been made welcome to dwell.
It was a blessed church meeting. Kenny Borthwick spoke well, and I remember feeling so grateful for the opportunity to work with and learn from him. The ‘after meeting’ back at the McDonald’s home was just the three of us, the two Kennys and little me. Yes, this 6 ft 7” man felt very small indeed. That meeting went long into the night as we talked of God and his ways into the wee hours. How gloriously small we all were before the face of God’s magnificence.
Saved during the Lewis Revival of 1949-52, Kenny Ban shared his testimony and other stories from the revival and then times of revival in his ministry in Applecross. Listening to him, I heard (and saw) what can happen when people get hold of God, and God gets hold of his people. Here was a man who didn’t just know about God but had intimate knowledge of him, and every part of his being longed for God. Kenny Ban shared that he had recently been diagnosed with cancer. “However, it’s wonderful!” he exclaimed, “for I know that this will be the thing that will serve me into the presence of my Lord, and I’ll see him face to face!” This man didn’t fear death. I saw that he knew this experientially; this was not empty bravado.
In every story, Kenny Ban’s words were grace-filled, and the look of the man was so arresting. A light seemed to shine on his face, or was it coming from his face? I’m unsure. I can still see that light as I write this over twenty years later. His nearly eighty-year-old eyes became so clear and childlike as he spoke. (Don’t let anybody tell you the lie that holiness is a stuffy and boring thing, something that curtails your freedom. No, not at all. Quite the opposite, there’s a beauty about holiness unmatched by anything, a beauty mingled with a deep-seated joy). At one point during the conversation, Kenny Ban stopped talking altogether, and we sat in a prolonged silence. With tears gently flowing down his face, he returned to us and said in a low, reverential hush, “He has saved my soul, and he will never hear the end of it.”
We stayed the night in the McDonald’s home. In the morning, I woke to ‘hearing’ in my mind’s ear the distinctive voice of the Rev. Duncan Campbell (the minister who preached during the Lewis Revival) reading two scriptures. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” and “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in that holy place?”
Over the breakfast table, our conversation naturally returned to the things of the Lord. A neighbour and friend of Kenny Ban’s popped in to join us, and it felt like Jesus was seated around that table too, “where two or three are gathered.…” The neighbour shared with us that last winter, his car had hit ice, spun off the road and plunged into Loch Carron. Convinced that he wouldn’t get out of the vehicle alive, he made his peace and was excited by the prospect of going home to be with his Lord. Then he felt a heavenly hand reach into the car and pull him out. With wonder, this man chuckled and said, “O’, he’s still got things for me to do here before that day.”
It came time for us to head back home to Thurso. Kenny Ban reached across the breakfast table and placed a hand on Kenny and me. I will never forget his hand resting on my hands as he prayed. I see now that the ministry that God has called us to at Greenwood had its genesis over that breakfast table in that moment of blessing. It’s not that I want to be a clone of Kenny Ban, longing for a bygone age and previous revival. There was only one Kenny Ban in his unique Kenny Ban-ness, and nostalgia can make you blind to the present holy moment. Instead, it’s remembering the beauty of a face beholding the Lord and the Lord beholding him. The memory of the light on Kenny Ban’s face has marked me. I want to know God like that, keeping his company, knowing his ways. All ministry begins from and returns to such a place.
This summer, for three weeks, we ran our first-ever “pilot’ theological summer school at Greenwood Retreat: The Seer School of Prayer and Theology. I thought about Kenny Ban often as I prepared the material for it. At the school’s heart is a desire to learn how to behold God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is the end goal of all Christian discipleship: our glorious inheritance in Jesus at the end of the age is seeing God and participating in his matchless beauty. Therefore, our life in the here and now is an apprenticeship towards that end. All our thoughts about God (theology) flow from and return to the worship of God (doxology). It takes God to show us God. By the Holy Spirit, he leads us into all truth. Truth, who is a person, the person of Jesus Christ, comes to kiss our countenance that makes our eyes twinkle with joy, and we become as children entering into the delight and kingdom of our Father in heaven.
God willing, there will be future theological schools and retreats at Greenwood Retreat in 2024. If you want to know more about these events, please subscribe to our newsletter.