Musings from the Merse
Saturday, May 17, 2008
A VISION FOR DUNS
A distinguished Eyemouth man has written to the Berwickshire as follows:
Duns was described in a recent tourist handbook for Scotland as a “sleepy rural town hardly worth visiting and hence rarely visited”!
Yet Duns is full of history!
Duns Park is probably where the Scottish army assembled in 1318 before assaulting Berwick at the time held by the English.
Duns Castle was granted by Robert the Bruce to his nephew the Earl of Moray and rebuilt in 1320. The town was created a Burgh of Barony by James 1V in 1490 and Duns Law was the camp of the Covenanting Armies in 1640.
No history! Not worth visiting?
This letter is the result of “Thought for the Week” which reminded us that Duns is the birthplace of one of the great scholars of history.
Why should Duns not create a new history and become a great intellectual centre perhaps eventually a university town like towns even smaller? Duns to become a town known for its reputation for philosophy as its son Duns Scotus was but this time embracing many ways of thought – a centre not only for Christian spirituality and its mystical traditions but for all the religious movements past and present Zen Buddhism, the Upanishads, Guru Nanak, Sufism, the Kabbalah, Taoism, Bahai and many more.
Most things begin in small ways, often very small ways but always with a vision.
I would beg the people of Duns to create such a vision! Create history - a future - a new history, and one suitable to our times when very many young people are looking to things spiritual. Man does not live by bread alone. The young dream dreams but so should their elders.
The University of Duns-The Scotus Ecumenical and Way Out Faiths Centre, 'Dingers Outthink A, the new town motto-how the tourists would flock in!
There's a thought! Better than just dwelling on the wretched Reivers?
And no mention of Jim Clarke.
(The image is apparently of Duns Scotus in deep cover waiting for the Reivers to go past on their way to Ye Olde Dunse Civic Weeke)
Labels: Duns Dings A, University of Duns
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