CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: Novel’s story has a message of hope for those in need

Charlotte remembers a Sunday School picnic when she was a child in the Chilterns.

On a hill-top, she tells Jack, “we all sang ‘We have an anchor.’” She adds that this was “strange because we couldn’t see the sea.”

Charlotte and Jack are characters in Eighth Moon Bridge, Skye-based writer Angus Peter Campbell’s new novel told as if in Jack’s words.

Though apparently set largely in the late 20th century the novel, published by Luath Press, has the feel of myth or fable.

Jack spends his formative years on an indeterminate Hebridean island linked to the mainland by a bridge, with its legend of Olghair MacKenzie, and hidden treasure.

In this Eden, he experiences both love and loss.

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He moves to London to play for Chelsea, but finds a lack of integrity in professional football, an emphasis on profit rather than joy.

He co-founds an ethical business, but wrestles with the compromises that involves.

Eventually he returns to the island, choosing to live there simply.

Eighth Moon Bridge is a wonderful book: marvellous writing imbued with such grace and gentleness.

It is never sentimental, but the loveliness and pain of it brought me close to tears.

Who, having read it, will ever forget Sally?

It reflects our sorrows, affirms our joy and challenges our values, and we draw what we need from its many themes.

Everything is part of the One it insists. Relationships matter.

Jack is clearly immersed in the island’s Christian tradition, for many of his words echo phrases from the Bible.

I wonder what the significance is of this, and of the specific references to Jesus?

Jack’s dad recounts the story of Jesus walking with two of his friends who believe their Lord is dead and buried. Not recognising him, they speak of their grief and dashed hopes.

“We had hoped,” Jack’s dad quotes, adding, “It’s the most powerful bit in the whole Bible.”

In hindsight Jack realises that this couple walking already had what they hoped for - the man they sought was already walking with them.

I may be wrong, but I think Jack sees a significance in that story which he doesn’t share with us.

I think he has, in the novel hidden treasure in plain sight so that Jesus walks through its pages with us as we read.

“Who can help us in times of need?” says Jack at a crisis point, echoing words from the Bible, where the answer is unequivocally “God”.

It seems to me that the Jack which Angus Peter has created points us to Jesus Christ as the goal, the treasure, the spiritual water more precious and enduring than gold.

And that’s why Charlotte’s Sunday School could sing “We have an anchor” even though the sea was far away.

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