David McLean's thoughts, incorporating Life Is a Journey.

Why a pile of stones at the top of a hill? There can be a few reasons. In past days, when climbing to the top of a big hill or ben, the walker would carry a stone or a rock to leave with all the others which had been left by previous folks. This made the area, the official peak, or summit. This then had the result of making the height of the peak even greater, and every so often the maps would have to be reprinted to reflect the change. Then there is the cairn. An old Scottish tradition of making a 'mark' of significance in an otherwise desolate part of the landscape. This might have been used as a sign of respect, or for worship of old gods of the past. There are many many cairns on peaks of hills, Corbets and Munros in the Scottish hillsides, each one a remarkable achievement, because each person who climbed to the top, carried one stone! The combined effect is a cairn, or altar. The more who took stones, the bigger the cairn and the higher the peak became. It is a bit like making the hill artificially bigger!

Sometimes we try to make ourselves bigger than we really are. Just like the cairn does to a hill. I think we can be guilty of talking ourselves up, or even worse, talking others down to make ourselves look better. I once worked with a man who swore often in 'normal' conversation. It turned out that he thought it made him seem a bigger man than he really felt he was. In fact, he didn't need to do that because he was a very nice person underneath, but he couldn't see it himself! And don't we love to exaggerate? To make our stories bigger helps to make us feel bigger too, doesn't it? We all do it, and can become quite accomplished at it too! Do we need to do this? No! Our friends, those real friends and family, will accept us for what we are, and are not impressed by inflated accounts of our lives. I know from experience that smaller folks with big hearts, are much nicer to be around than big people with a 'larger than life' story to tell! We have all been close to someone who didn't need to talk themself up. Their life did all the talking for them, and we are happy and even blessed to have known them, to have loved them, and better still, be loved by them. Sometimes one of those 'little' people can make those 'big' people look very, very small! We all know someone like that, don't we?

Oh yes, the photograph! It's of a 'cairn' overlooking the River Clyde estuary south of Largs, and towards the Arran hills.