January 25

IF, like many another person, you’ve ever felt homesick, take heart from this tale.
Jenny, a Scottish writer of our acquaintance, once found herself alone and homesick in the volcanic hillsides high above the tourist beaches of Tererife. Persuaded against her will to visit an old Canarian mansion on January 25th, she was absolutely astounded to find the words of Robert Burns beautifully inscribed around the four cornices of what had, in years past, been the nursery dining-room of a Spanish nobleman’s magnificent home:
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.
The story went that the words of the Selkirk Grace had helped ease the burden of homesickness felt by the family’s young Scottish nanny in the early 1800s. For Jenny, the poet’s words, still shinning brightly in that distant setting, gave her renewed hope and cheer.
May they also bring light into your life … that is my hope for you.