The ‘heaven-appointed task’

I think we all ought to have one. I think those of us who are older ought to help younger folks find their own.

Nan Shepherd, a remarkable Scottish writer, taught at the Aberdeen Training Centre for Teachers from 1919 to 1956. Instead of talking about her job or her career, she talked of her “heaven-appointed task.” She said hers was “trying to prevent a few students who pass through our Institution from conforming altogether to the approved pattern.”

Shepherd never married, lived her own life, thought her own thoughts, wrote her own books. She had a cottage in the Cairngorm Mountains and spent her free time there. Shepherd is one of those writers who can somehow convey what it is to be part of a place, rather than to be an observer passing by.

Robert Macfarlane has a wonderful chapter on her in his book Landmarks.

 • Source: Robert Macfarlane, Landmarks; London: Penguin Books, 2016, p. 56.