I watched him carefully rotate the wooden stick on the lathe. Wood-dust was accumulating and falling in mounds like snow. As he turned the stick I saw the indentations appearing. It was beginning to look like a spurtle. I wondered about the care and attention that goes into making something with your hands; it gives the thing being made meaning. I didn’t know what a spurtle was when I started watching the documentary about the world porridge-making championship called The Golden Spurtle (2025). The wood-turner was Charlie Miller “chieftain” of the competition who has been running the event for 30 years. The Golden Spurtle event happens yearly in a small town in the Scottish Highlands called Carrbridge.
When I watched this documentary made by Australian director Constantine Costi it felt like I had travelled back in time. Here were a small group of committed people in a town of around 700 who came together every year to put on an event that celebrated something uniquely Scottish – porridge. Nosh that we might think all too common, transforms into a culinary delight over three days of the event. There were women and men in the kitchen washing pans – non-stick were easier of course, others more difficult to clean. The competitors were nervously making the porridge; it must be stirred in the right way using the spurtle, with just the right amount of water, using the best oats. It couldn’t be too gluggy. Not too watery either. All of this was watched by locals sitting in the hall where the competition happens. Happily, at the same time there were also whisky tastings in the hall. The whole event is merry, playful and at the same time taken seriously.
What stood out to me as I watched this heart-warming documentary is how grounded the people who organised the event were. The Golden Spurtle competition is an event that gives a community something to do together. We know that can contribute to our well-being. Connection, purpose and engaging in shared activities counters loneliness and can be good for our mental health. But I felt like there was something more happening. It seemed that the group of people who organised this event each year were taking part in something bigger than themselves. It felt to me that this participation tethered them to their land, community and history. And this forged their identity. It gave them a shared story.
Today we can mostly live untethered lives. Instead of being grounded in place and story like these people in Carrbridge, we “float”, like ghosts bound to nothing. Instead of connection, attachment and embodiment we bypass anything solid, we traverse boundaries and cheat time through technology that gets us things quicker. We are permeable rather than solid – unencumbered from anything that might restrain us. We are untethered – free and perpetually searching.
However as I watched these happy people who seemed to be so settled – the opposite of restless – I wondered how we could connect with some kind of greater story in our various contexts so that we might explore being tethered. What would that look like? Modernity has made us suspicious of meta-narratives and perhaps that suspicion is warranted. But I wonder if it has also flattened our imaginations. When we dispel overarching myths, wave off Stories and larger narratives, can we lose our souls in the process? What does it look like to connect with something larger – beyond the individual self? Could participating in a shared larger story, even if it looks like a quirky event in a lesser known locality that celebrates the humble Scottish porridge, help us get our souls back?
Rev. Dr Karina Kreminski, Mission Catalyst – Formation and Fresh Expressions, Uniting Mission and Education. Karina also blogs at An Ordinary Mystic.
