walking in lent

 it has been an outrageously beautiful day and i have been on a peregrination, fancy talk for wandering around mostly aimlessly, looking at plants and the sky and rocks. i've been thinking about my and others' pretensions to being celtic. genetically i'm celtic, but the upheavals of the industrial revolution and migrations has made the l connections pretty weak. this  especially true  we claim some sort of celtic christisn orthodoxy. there's a whole industry of celtic christian books, and pricey pilgrimages to holy islands, but not many of us recite the psalter  up to our nipples in the cold sea water or a creek. i am given points for living in a tent, but it's a tent with carpet snd wifi.

so, i have to admit that my celticness is largely nostalgia. i like oat meal, and i'm no luddite. if i were, i wouldn't be writing on a kindle fire. i do agree with mcluhan that all our inventions are extensions of ourselves, although i don't find all the parts of ourselves h extending. my tablet seems to have advantages  scratching a message on rocks, but eureka springs is full of fat people, who extend their already bloated bellies with bloated suvs. i've extended my feet to wearing shoes, but i don't want to pass the plants and sky and rocks too fast to see them. even my bicycle seems too quick many days.

this is one of those days. some folks say lent means spring, in which case this is a very lenten day. i have for several years now had a lenten koan to chew as the days get longer. this year from psalm 117 (118): 'the stone the builders rejected, the same became the chief stone of the corner). and to help me chew i've been reading margaret barker's temple books. of the many theses about what 'original' christianity was and how it's changed/been perverted, i find hers  most compelling.  of course what  theories have in common with all the others is the lack of continuity of what we call christianity now and what jesus had in mind.


yet, this morning i began the day with morning prayer with the historic english liturgy of thomas cramner and miles coverdale, with readings from the authorized version of the bible. and, i asked myself, is there any value to my doing this beyond the nostalgic beauty of it? despite my and thousands of others repeating these prayers, and they are prayers with which i am in profound agreement, nothing much seems to have changed.

except the speed of change in the world. i also read today an interview with al gore, o is part of the growing chorus who notice the great opportunity humanity is facing for breakthrough to the plenty and justice prayed for in the book of common prayer and for systemic collapse and chaos. i look around and find only evidence that he is correct. gore says he's optimistic. maybe because i'm walking around  eureka springs, which prides itself as being a town where time stands till, i confess to difficulty sharing his optimism. and i am challenged to consider whether my indulgence in nostalgia is part of the force for collapse and chaos.