By Rev Leslie Milton of St Andrew's Church, Musselburgh

I WAS on holiday a couple of weeks ago and on one of the days I went to the local amenity site.

There I found lots of people who, like myself, were pretending that clearing out the house was the next best thing to being in some far-off beauty spot.

A few days later, I went out on an early morning cycle.

As I came out from Musselburgh Lagoons towards the mouth of the Esk, I saw the magnificent sight of all the seabirds, the swans and the geese gathered at that point where river meets sea.

It occurred to me then that my best holiday this year could be to live in my own place as though I were a tourist.

In my own hometown, I can still be awed by unexpected beauty, delighted by the simple things that sometimes familiarity overlooks.

I can take time to appreciate things that normally the hurry and the care of life make miss.

Maybe being a tourist at home will help me love Musselburgh and East Lothian more.

As a Christian, I know that my faith is not about denying the difficulty and pain that surrounds us.

People of faith look to see the possibility of God’s love reaching out to them, and from them to others, when life is hardest.

Living with faith is about seeing the world in a way that expects to find hope.

I know that recent months have been hard for people in so many ways.

But I also have heard so many people say that they have seen more clearly what is important to them and the people they love because they have needed to slow down, to live more simply, to keep closer to home.

Perhaps we have an invitation to reflect on the things that we have seen in a new way over the past months, things that we have appreciated and enjoyed.

Perhaps we can all find hope in a promise we make to ourselves: we will enjoy the good things we have seen around us in new ways, and to hold onto the positive changes we have made in these hard times, even when our lives return to ‘normal’.