Search by author: Tracy Niven

Tracy Niven

Community service

A Companionship contribution from Kitty Macintyre, Honorary Pagan Chaplain. When the weather is kind, I walk down to the village for fresh bread a couple of times a week. It is a brisk, mile-long walk along a main road…

Happy New Year!

Happy new year! I hope you have had a relaxing and refreshing time over the Christmas and New Year holidays.  Days in St Andrews were often murky and wet, but sometimes there was a crispness to the air, and lovely…

Advent 25 – 25 December 2021

Merry Christmas! It is the day of celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.  And it is the final day of this year’s Advent Calendar.  The theme has been St Andrews, reflecting that so much of the past couple of years…

Advent 23 – 23 December 2022

Good morning, We are putting the final touches together for tomorrow’s services of Carols by Candlelight. Usually that candlelight is in St Leonard’s Chapel, but this year we have moved the services to St Salvator’s…

Advent 22 – 22 December 2021

Good morning, Behind today’s window are some meditations from King Creosote. Kenny Anderson, as he is also known, was brought up in St Andrews, attended Madras College, and lives in the east Neuk. He has released more…

Advent 20 – 20 December 2021

Good morning, With just a few days before Christmas, we turn now to celebrations of the festival. Scotland was profoundly affected by the Reformation, which took hold of the nation in 1560 and dominated culture until…

Advent 19 – 19 December 2021

Good morning, on this, the fourth Sunday of Advent. A fourth candle will be lit on advent wreaths, and church services will see nativity plays, with youthful sheep and shepherds, kings and angels, Marys and Josephs, if…

Advent 18 – 18 December 2021

Good morning, We open today’s window in our St Andrews-themed Advent Calendar just a week before Christmas. Christmas carols are in the air. They are piped in Tesco and Morrisons, though there’s more Santa Baby than…

Advent 17 – 17 December 2021

Good morning, We turn today to one of the most significant stories in the infancy narratives of Jesus – the adoration of the Magi. These were the astrologers, or wise men, from the East who observed a star rising,…

Advent 16 – 16 December 2021

Good morning, A final window today on the shepherds and angels. Here is an angel in St Salvator’s Chapel, playing bagpipes, looking down from the night-sky, perhaps a particularly Scottish member of the heavenly host…