God
IS gracious! A blessing we take for granted is language, which has connected us
to one another from the time of the Garden of Eden. Humans are designed to be
relational beings and our biblical roots are deep, though not always obvious.
Perhaps
you’ve heard the old yarn about Bruce and the Spider and never giving up.
Once upon a time, at the tip of the 14th century, King of Scotland “Robert
the Bruce” is said to have hidden in a cave for three months after being
defeated in battle. While passing the time, he watched as a spider tried over
and over again to build a web before eventually succeeding. Inspired by the
spider’s determination, legend has it, the king came out of hiding to lead
Scotland to victory the first war for independence from England. He's a
national hero still today in Scotland. This Robert the Bruce of legend was
actually the 8th to bear the name and is connected to Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart”
story. My story, however, really begins with the 1st Robert the
Bruce of the 12th century…
Way
back in the 1100s, there was this other guy who’s gone down in history as the
first to bear the surname Johnestoun (or Johnstone), the now anglicized
Johnston (with or without the "t"), one John Johnston, the (pardon
the pun) John(ny) Appleseed of the Scots Clan Johnston, from which I
purport myself to be descended (dangling precariously by one gene strand from
at least 35 generations up). Robert the Bruce (the 1st), the First
Lord of Annandale, personally rewarded John for fighting bravely alongside him
during the Norman Conquest. John was granted the whole
800-some-odd-square-mile strath (valley area) of Annandale to govern
as lord.
John
was of the Norman lords arriving in Scotland in the 1100. At that time surnames
weren’t being used. They didn’t appear until about 1,000 AD. The first people
in Scotland to acquire surnames were the Norman Nobeles, who came from France
with William the Conqueror and were of Viking ancestry. John was known simply
as "John," the only name he had. Those lands became known as
"Johnstun" or "John's town" ("tun" from the
Celtic language translates to "town" or "lands").
The
Johnston Clan of Annandale held a chunk of turf on the southern edge of the
Scottish Lowlands, on the English border, about the size of Dallas County. And
they feuded a lot with their neighbors, most notably the Maxwell Clan to the
west. They must have made peace in the late 16th century, because a Johnston
son married a Maxwell daughter and they became my 11th great-grandparents.
Around
1630, there's a fork in my Johnston line that bows out a ways and then,
according to my hypothesis, reunites somewhere in the ancestors that follow a
guy named Gowain Johnestoun (aka Gavin Johnston) born in the mid-1400s. He’s very
likely directly related to the John that started it all, as were practically
all the Johnstons of his day. I just cannot find corroborative proof of his
father's name, which is a bummer since it puts my direct descendancy to King
Crimthann (who was the King of Ireland when Jesus was born) and, I suppose, my
kilt on hold for the time being...
Johnston
is my great-grandmother’s maiden name and it’s among the twenty most common
names in Ireland. Its roots are biblical, from the Hebrew name Jehohanan (“Yahweh
is gracious”), which consists of two elements, the first being Yehu, an
abbreviated forms of the Tetragrammaton YHWH (or Yahweh/God). The second
(-hanan) comes from the verb meaning “to be gracious.” There are 10 different
men in the Old Testament with that name, adopted into the Latin via Greek as
Johannes, later shortened to the anglicized form John, such a common name, such
a powerful message! God IS gracious!
As
a postscript, I must tell you of the Devil's Beef Tub. The 53-mile Annandale
Way, "a walk which gets under the skin of the landscape, offering the
walker glimpses into the history and hidden secrets of this quiet and tranquil
part of Scotland, parts of which have remained undisturbed for centuries,"
circumnavigates it. A pilgrimage to the Devil's Beef Tub (in my Clan Johnston
kilt, of course) is now on my bucket list.
That’s
it until next month…
Peace
be with you,
Pastor E.B.
