Scot's Wha Hae - Wahey!!

Being a Scot recently moved to America to marry, and thus a Scot who is now far more proud and fiercly posessive of his Scottish heritage, I decided the title of the Blog, "Scot's Wahey!", was a good one. Actually, I'd wanted to call it Scot's Wha Hae (Scot's Who Are), after the opening lines of Robert Burn's immortal poem which he wrote as an imagined air that Robert Bruce and his army marched against Edward's English army at Bannockburn in 1314 - a fantastic piece I remember learning at primary school (elementary, for my new American brothers and sisters!). The words are worth putting in this, my inaugral post:

Scots, wha hae wi' WALLACE bled

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led

Welcome to your gory bed

Or to Victorie

Now's the day and now's the hour

See the front o' battle lour

See approach proud EDWARD'S power

Chains and Slaverie

Wha will be a traitor knave?

Wha can fill a coward's grave?

Wha sae base as be a slave?

Let him turn and flee!

Wha for Scotland's King and Law

Freedom's sword will strongly draw

Free-Man stand, or Free-Man fa'

Let him follow me!

By Oppression's woes and pains

By your Sons in servile chains!

We will drain our dearest veins

But they shall be free

Lay the proud Usurpers low

Tyrants fall in every foe!

Liberty's in every blow!

Let us Do or Die!

Powerful, especially so for a Scot abroad! Give me liberty, or give me death!!! So I thought that would be a good start to my blog, and I also thought scotswhahae.blogspot.com would be a good and memorableblog address, but to my annoyance, somebody got there first. And to my greater annoyance, that someone has written precisely no posts - what a waste of a fantastic domain (as bad as the person who chose my first domain - blogaholic.blogspot.com - who hasn't used it since 2003!!) Anyway, with these depressing discoveries, I adapted my choice, and came up with Scot's Wahey!

Scot's Wahey seems to me a most apt title for a blog by the son of one of the greatest nations on God's good earth! Scotland is the home of invention: the telephone (Alexander Graham Bell), the television (John Logie Baird), the steam engine (James Watt), radar (Robert Watson Watt), refrigerators (James Harrison), and as all Star Trek fans are aware, teleportation (beam me up, Scotty!!) It is a home of medicine: the hypodermic syringe, quinine (George Cleghorn), anaesthetics (James Chalmers) and penicillen (James Fleming). It is a home of economics, from the foundational text , The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith) to the Bank of England! It is a home of literature, with the historical novel (Sir Walter Scott) and the greatest poet of the last 500 years (Robert Burns), Treasure Island and Jekyll and Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson) and Peter Pan (J M Barrie). It is the land of some of the most attractive and haunting scenery anywhere on earth, from the beauty of the highlands to the grandeur of it's castles, the evocative Isle of Skye to the splndid architecture of it's cities. It is a home of mathematics and the sciences: the decimal point and logarithms (John Napier) Scotland is a home of sports, from golf and the famous links courses, to football (trans: soccer), with Glasgow Cerltic, Glasgow Rangers, and of course, Kilmarnock (my local team!!) And for my new homeland, Scotland is the home of the Buick (David Dunbar Buick) and the US Navy (John Paul Jones)!! Indeed, if it is true that everyone I meet has sScottish ancestors here in the US, as I am told by everyone I meet, we are actually the founders of the United States. Scotland has an output of genius far beyond its size, so as I say - Scot's Wahey!!

However, my blog will probably be far less filled with things about Scotland than it will with things about my faith, and comment on Biblical themes or my faith in relation to what is going on in society around me. Scotland has a proud heritage of Christianity, from John Knox, to the Covenanters, to the many sound Christian theologians and pastors of previous centuries (Thomas Chalmers, Horatius and Andrew Bonar, Robert Murray McCheyne, Alexander MacLaren, Thomas Guthrie, Samuel Rutherford, David Livinstone, Robert Haldane, Sir Robert Anderson, and Mary Slessor) to the superb theologians and pastors, (such as Sinclair Ferguson, Alastair Begg, Eric Alexander, Donald MacLeaod, Douglas Kelly). A proud heritage indeed.

So welcome to my blog, and I'll try to write now and again when time allows!!

Angus