This is a small village.. and of a Sunday we're appreciative of the fact this is Scotland, and here most church's don't ring bells.. for we are just down the road from a church. One has found occasion to talk to to the tiny congregation about the weather, about the need to prune the rose bushes and mend the fence. But we never talked about God.
The religious aspect of one's life over here is understated.. personal.. certainly nothing one would find involved in any part of government..
Not so these days in the US tho..
The Bush administration hums to the sound of prayer. Prayer meetings take place day and night. The early settlers came to the States, in part, to practise their faiths as they saw fit...Since then the right to trumpet your religious affiliations - loud and clear - has been part of the warp and weft of American life.
Now this is not about the Bible Belt - or about the loopy folk who live in log cabins in Idaho and Oregon and worry that the government is poisoning their water. This is about Mr and Mrs Average in Normaltown, USA.
According to that faith there is such a thing as heaven - 86% of Americans, we are told by the pollsters, believe in heaven.
But much more striking, and much more pertinent to current world events, is the fact that 76% or three out of four people you meet on any American street believe in hell and the existence of Satan.
They believe that the devil is out to get you. That evil is a force in the world - a force to be engaged in battle..Much of that battle takes place in the form of prayer.
And nobody spends more time on his knees...back in metaphorical mode here...than George W Bush...He is famously born again - at the age of 40 it was goodbye Jack Daniels and hello Jesus. He has never looked back.
So while there are plenty of rational people giving rational advice about policy matters in the Bush White House there is also a channel, an input, from on high.
Doubtless the president and his people have been praying earnestly that Saddam Hussein might fall under a bus.
But if no bus comes..they feel justified in what they have decided to do.
Meanwhile.. Germany has told all it's nationals to leave Iraq.. they'll be shutting down their Embassy tomorrow..