peregrinations with st. chad

the song of all creation

2012-01-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

i wish i were a better listener. if i were, i could hear he song of all creation where ever i might be. but since i listen poorly, i have left the coziness of my little cell in the ozarks, where the song of the sea is captured in layers of limestone, for the newer shores of the pacific northwest, where the ocean beats still incessantly against the rock.

i love that in greek the nicene creed speaks of the father as the ποιητὴν, the poet, of heaven and earth. i never really came to appreciate all that meant until i spent several years mostly in a small kayak, bouncing on the rhythyms of the waves. there is a basic beat under it all, a beat that is perhaps best understood in the notion that john the beloved disciple 'listened to the heartbeat of god'. j. philip newell has a wonderful book with that title, which i recommend.* but out on the face of the deep, the waves often seem much more complicated than that. rhythym piles up on rhythym, and sometimes it all seems very violent. i well remember one noon off point wilson, where the pacific ocean has to decide whether to north to vancouver or south to seattle, and fights about it, that i thought 'this is a good day to die'. but instead, i just rested in the waves and recognized that there was a pattern, even if i did not see all of it, and that i did not need to see all of it. but to fight it would have meant almost certainly a cold death.

it is because of that experience, particularly, that i am always interested in people who see the world in terms of waves. particles are fine, in their place, but it is the waves that seem to make their places. so, poems such as psalm 96, 'o sing unto the lord a new song; sing unto the lord all the whole earth' seems to me not so much a call to write new music but to listen to the new song that the holy one continues to write, so that we may 'learn it by ear'.

it was this joy in the song of creation that made me happy to find an essay by frank a. mills about the song underlying creation in his understanding of celtic creation, so happy i thought i should share it.**

*http://www.amazon.com/Listening-Heartbeat-God-Celtic-Spirituality/dp/0809137593/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326749554&sr=1-1

**http://www.christianityceltic.com/pdf/The_Oran_Mor%20_A_Song.pdf

a footnote to my apocalyptic summer, in the depths of winter

2012-01-09T21:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce1bvAu8s60&noredirect=1
(embedding disabled)

christmas morning

2011-12-25T09:31:00.001-08:00

it is 9:30 on christmas morning, and i probably should be napping. last night, at midnight, amidst the songs of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, the word became flesh on altars around the world, as eternity broke into our time. "when all things were in quiet silence, and night was in the midst of her swift course, thine almighty word, o lord, leaped down from heaven out of the roal throne, alleluia.'

and he who abhored not the virgin's womb condescended even to my tiny oratory. i was up 'til 2:30, some of the time wandering under the stars, which only occasionally peeked through the clouds which covered the sanctuary. then at 6:00 i was up again, for vespers and lauds and the shepherd's mass, the mass at daybreak. and it is in the gospel of that mass that the text which keeps me pondering, which keeps me awake, occurs. it is one of my favourite lines in all of the gospel: 'mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.'

there is a tendency, it seems, to assume that once mary said 'let it be to me according to thy word,' all would be clear to her. but apparently not. i suspect her life must have been like psalm 119, which i pondered for a while last night before the night was half spent, a long song of continual witness and supplication, hoping to understand this word that had been made flesh within her. i wonder if she is still pondering these things in her heart.

for another tendency we have about mary, it seems, is to make her our lady, the queen of heaven, some of us even calling her mediatrix, while forgetting she remains the maid of galilee. her story is the stuff of madeleine l'engle and charles williams, the story of a poor girl from a backwater town who gets swept up in the salvation of the world in a way that absolutely requires her full involvement.

pondering these things reminds me of what an entirely amazing event we celebrate at this time of the nativity of our lord. it is indeed the beginning of the recreation of the world, and in a way we mortals would probably never expect. for god takes flesh, while remaining very god of very god. in that flesh, the gift, the substance, as the preface of the feast says, of his mother, he will return to the right hand of the father. the holy one is forever changed by this event.

and mary, too, is forever changed. an humble maid is overcome by the holy spirit, becoming the first of the living stones in which the temple of emmanual is built. that is a lot to ponder. if the pious opinion that she was taken bodily into heaven is correct, then it is, as job says, in our flesh that we shall see our redeemer. and this wonder is possible, not because of some great thinking of the likes of augustine or ambrose or gregory (any of them) or aquinas in some great university, but because of the cooperation of a young girl from the poor countryside.

the days were accomplished, that she should be delivered

2011-12-24T10:03:00.000-08:00

Like the dawning of the morning

On the mountains’ golden heights,

Like the breaking of the moon-beams

On the gloom of cloudy nights;

Like a secret told by Angels,

Getting known upon the earth,

the Mother’s Expectation

Of Messiah’s speedy birth.

Thou wert happy, Blessed Mother,

With the very bliss of Heaven,

Since the Angel’s salutation

In thy raptured ear was given;

Since the Ave of that midnight,

When thou wert anointed Queen,

Like a river over-flowing

Hath the grace within thee been.

On the mountains of Judea,

Like the chariot of the Lord,

Thou wert lifted in thy spirit

By the uncreated Word;

Gifts and graces flowed upon thee

In a sweet celestial strife

And the growing of thy Burden

Was the lightening of thy life.

And what wonders have been in thee

All the day and all the night,

While the angels fell before thee,

To adore the Light of Light.

While the glory of the Father

Hath been in thee as a home,

And the sceptre of creation

Hath been wielded in thy womb.

And the sweet strains of the Psalmist

Were a joy beyond control,

And the visions of the prophets

Burnt like transports in thy soul;

But the Burden that was growing,

And was felt so tenderly,

It was Heaven, it was Heaven,

Come before its time to thee.

Oh the feeling of thy Burden,

It was touch and taste and sight;

It was newer still and newer,

All those nine months, day and night.

Like a treasure unexhausted,

Like a vision uconfess’d,

Like a rapture unforgotten,

It lay ever at they breast.

Every moment did that Burden

Press upon thee with new grace;

Happy Mother! Thou art longing

To behold the Saviour’s Face!

Oh his Human face and features

Must be passing sweet to see

Thou hast seen them, happy Mother!

Ah then, show them now to me.

Thou hast waited, Child of David,

And thy waiting now is o’er;

Thou hast seen Him, Blessed Mother

,And wilt see Him evermore!

O His Human Face and Features,

They were passing sweet to see;

Thou beholdest them this moment,

Mother, show them now to me.

Fr. F. F. Faber (1814-63)

a review before the nativity of christ

2011-12-20T12:39:00.001-08:00

the eve of the first sunday of advent, i received a text message from a friend. he had a bible at work, but not a prayer book. what should he read for advent? isaiah. isaiah is the prophet of advent, perhaps even more than john the forefunner. so for the past weeks, readings from isaiah have filled the offices and the liturgy. they have been challenging and poignant. desperate and hopeful.

two years ago i wrote in my journal that, contrary to the school of scholars who search for some past- historical sitz im leben for isaiah, now, as ever, is his sitz-im-lebem. not much has changed in two years, except fear seems to be growing.

it is hard to know where to begin to discuss isaiah's work. he after all is the prophet who saw the glory of the lord even before the shepherds of the gospel according to luke. as the actual feast of the nativity draws near, in the time the eastern church calls the forefeast and the english church calls sapientiatide, the words of isaiah come even thicker, for instance, in the great 'o' antiphons* at vespers in the western rite.

so, as a sort of review for the nativity, i have been re-reading the whole of the book of isaiah today. it's a powerful read, especially in the jerusalem bible, which is made to be read but which does not so easily slip, in my mind at least, into the music of handel yet remains challenging poetry.

here is a sample, from chapter eight:

'. . . Yahweh spoke to me like this

when his hand seized hold of me

to turn me from walking in the path

that this people follows.

Do not call conspiracy

all that this people call conspiracy;

do not fear what they fear,

him you must dread.

He is the sanctuary and the stumbling stone

and the rock . . . .'

the temptation is to go on further. but instead, i invite you to make your own forefeast/sapientiatide review in these last remaining days before christmas. Isaiah's vision of the glory of the lord both resonates with that of mary, the mother of god, and with that of the shepherds, who were sore afraid:

'The mortal man will be humbled, man brought low;

. . .

'Human pride will lower its eyes,

the arrogance of man will be humbled.

. . .

'Human pride will be humbled,

the arrogance of man will be brought low.

Yahweh alone will be exalted

on that day,

and all idols thrown down.

'Go into the hollows of the rocks,

an ino the caverns of the earth,

at the sight of the terror of Yahweh,

at the brilliance of his majesty

when he arises

to make the earth quake' (2:9, 11, 17-19)

* http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7315A1D2C76F0BAC&feature=mh_lolz

these things i command you, that ye love one another

2011-12-19T07:59:00.000-08:00

about three years ago, a friend enticed me to facebook. i signed up with trepidation, fearing it would eat my life. there is always that possibility, but mostly i have found it a good thing. i have become 'friends' with a wonderful variety of people, not only those i know from physical meetings, but also others, with whom i am now 'virtual' friends and with whom i share interests, and also books and music and prayers and real matterial-through-the-post-office correspondence.

but facebook has also made me even more aware of what a broken and sad world we find ourselves in these days. yesterday, the fourth sunday of advent, as we 'prepare' for the coming of our god and king, a friend shared the above picture with me. there are many ways we continue to slaughter the innocent. alas, much of our preparation for the advent of the creator of the stars of night consists of getting and spending.

also yesterday the longest discussion amonst my facebook friends consisted mostly of a group of 'christians' telling other 'christians' that 'their' church as bereft of the spirit, or lacking in sacraments, or invalid. i was reminded of the collect from the american book of common prayer which prays, 'open our eyes, o lord, to see thy hand at work in all creation.' surely all creation must include all of the church, whatever a pope and a patriarch of constantinope said to each other a thousand years ago. i mean, how were the people in tintagel to know that in 1054 they must decide whether the holy spirit was now acting through leo or michael.

and i was also reminded of a hymns by one of my favourite if sentimental poet, christina rosetti: love comes down at christmas. the link is to a setting by reginald o. morris, sung by the choir of king's college, cambridge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAjB0GVpleg

looking for avalon

2011-12-13T18:06:00.000-08:00

'the glory of the lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.'

some days theme themselves. this has been such a day for me. it was one of those days of beauty peculiar to the northwest corner, with the temperature hovering around freezing and the clouds hovering around 1500 feet. it has been the feast of st. lucy and st. herman, two holy people known for great vision, in lucy's case more so after casting out her physical eyes. and it was a day i read maggie ross' blog post http://ravenwilderness.blogspot.com/2011/12/blog-post.html in which she considers the lines from one of last sunday's hymns, '... shine forth and let thy light restore earth's own true loveliness once more.'

it might seem that a day when the cloud covered the sanctuary, so to speak, would be less revelatory than one in which the sun shines clearly. but often that is not the case. to veil is often to reveal. if you doubt this, compare the dance of the seven veils from salome with the dance of goldie hawn fromlaugh-in. (if you're too young to know of laugh-in, i'm sure youtube can clue you.)

it was a day i found myself out of oatmeal, so, with ross's blog and ponderings about the day's saints dancing in my head, i set off down highway 101 the three miles to my neighborhood walmart. i know: walmart! but if wisdom still 'crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors', there is no place more better described by those words than the local walmart.

walking along highway 101 can be a little disturbing. one disturbance is the situation: my 155 pounds of mortal flesh, pacing along at 3 mph., is constantly being approached by masses of steel and silicon weighing 2500 pounds and much more, whooshing by at 63 miles per hour or more. anyone of them could knock me to 'kingdom come'--in heaven, hopefully--at any instant.

more disburbing, and this is spoken to in ross' blog, is the way the drivers of those vehicles treat the road. the sides are littered with all sorts of garbage, thrown out, i suppose, in order that their view of their fake-wooden dashboards be not blocked. yet more disturbing is the whole activity of gasoline-powered transport. western washington is a very blue state, where the same drivers who fuel their suburus and suburbans with the blood of edomite children are quick to rail against 'big oil' at dinner parties. even the bus which i sometimes take still traffics in the blood of innocens, even if the servings per passenger are smaller.

but i am not looking for more evidence that we live in a seriously deranged world. so, noticing that many of the cars--the suburus especially--have john muir club stickers on their read windows, i wish that more of them would walk as much as muir--another holy man who only came truly to see after being blinded--and hum a little bit of 'kyrie elieson on the highway that we travel' with mr. mister and look around, knowing that the kingdom of heaven, the isle of avalon, is closer at hand than any of the log trucks.

between farm lake road where i'm 'camped' and the walmart, the highway goes through the valleys of two creeks. the first one, bagley creek's, is rather gentle, and gives long vistas towards the mountains to the south and the strait of juan de fuca to the north. i stop at the entrance to the port angeles shooting club to look towards vancouver island, the southern isle in the archelelago that stretches up towards st. herman's spruce island, where he saw in the aleut and creole people around him not a source of slaves for the fur trade, but people just as loved by christ our god as any russians. as the road curves to go down the much steeper slope of the canyon of morse creek, i am confronted with a hillside not of mere bushes on fire but towering firs ablaze with the crystal fire of winter. i decide it's too cold to take off my sandles.

but, the glory of the lord was shining round about me, and i was, if not sore, then a bit afraid. how can one see the glory of the holy, the eternal one, and not be a bit taken with shock and awe? the book of proverbs says 'the fear of the lord is the beginning', both of knowledge and of wisdom. but we have done as much as we can to insulate ourselves from thinking of the holy one as fearsome. unless you are a member of an old calendar russian parish, perhaps, i expect you can't remember the last time you heard a sermon or a hymn suggesting that the holy might be fearsome. the conglomorate of platitudes which are passed off as 'modern science', which have neither knowledge nor wisdom, have kept the holy safely at bay, warded off by air bags and climate control. a healthy fear of god would certainly make us think twice before trashing the creation. it is important to remember that the fear of the lord is only the beginning of wisdom, as is illustrated by the lives of so many saints, remarkably that of st. anthony of the desert, who emerged from his time in a tomb, radiant, saying 'once i feared god, now i love him.' but if we do not start at the beginning, we will not reach the end.

what is needed is to see beyond the veil of advertising and trash, to see with the eyes of our heart, and then to wonder in the sight. as ross says, 'it is our attitude that needs enlightening, our eyes that need to be opened, our perspective that needs to be changed so that we see the loveliness inherent to the earth. Such an opening of our eyes would make us recoil in horror at what we have done, undertake to repair the damage, and refuse further despoliation.' then even walmart is full of people entirely loveable because they are creatures whose creator loves them. there one is greeted by a joyous one-armed 'retired' fisherman who could never have been happier with a great catch of salmon as he is with each person who comes into his gates.
the trip back was perhaps even more wondrous. i stopped at morse creek, whose banks still seem to echo the baptist's cry, and a water ouzel performed her miracles just three feet from my rock perch. then, headed out of the canyon, there was, in the yard of an abandoned house, a paradise tree: a tree i had never seen before, hung with gold delicious apples, the fruit of the misty isle. i brought some home as proof that the kingdom of heaven is, indeed, at hand.

to everything there is a season

2011-12-01T11:23:00.000-08:00

i keep finding myself spouting off on facebook about keeping the season of advent during the great american anti-christ spending orgy. i do this in compassion, i hope, and love for the people who are posessed by the spirit of this sinful age. but i am very serious about it. we are trading joy for baubles. as the prophet of the advent season, isaiah, asks us in one of the readings for the feast of st. andrew, 'wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of david.'

i was reminded again last night of the desperation with which greed and consumption fight against the gifts of darkness as i walked around the little suburban neighborhood in which i live. houses were garnished with hundreds of watts worth of garish lights; giant inflatable santa clauses and snowmen rose and sank in ther yards, some with recorded 'music.'

but above the din of what thomas merton calls 'the contemporary psychosis,' the silent stars go by. i would suggest that the treasures of darknes are still waiting to be given to us, if we but still ourselves. the message of the angels of the holy ones are hovering over the fields if we but quieten ourselves. and so, i suggest a very simple practice for this season in which we await the coming of the light of the world in the gathering gloom of winter: each night, go outside and look up into the skies. see orion and the seven stars. watch the moon as she rules the night. then come back inside, and sit quietly in the dark except for one candle. (if you want to add on each week of advent, that's allright, but this is not an advert for making advent wreaths.) listen to your breath, and the wind that is the breath moving across the face of the deep of winter. remember that to everything there is a time, and a purpose for everything under heaven, even the cold and dark of winter. see if the leanness of the season is not fatness for your soul.

deep calleth unto deep

2011-11-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

i am on a field trip, peregrinating to the mainland to visit new babies and new wives and new boyfriends and new dogs, as well as old friends, and relatives. it is a mixed blessing. i am very happy to see the people, and i look forward to meeting the dog, but i'm also an old curmudgeon, set in my ways, accustomed to the habits of my little camper. although i have lived there less than two months, it already seems 'home', and i am particularly happy at how close it is to creeks where i can sit and listen to the noise of the waves and billows as the water goes over the rocks. i've already become accustomed to look out my window and see either a fir trunk or a thicket; now i'm looking out a window to see a row of commercial buildings opposite the coffee shop where i'm sitting.

so i was delighted when my niece asked me to show her and her new husband (my nephew-in-law?--whatever, he's a dear boy) the waterfalls on whatcom creek. i so easily forget the wonders that are right around me as i wax nostalagic for the wonders that i left behind me. all over again i fell in love with bellingham and the creek that is why it's here. but more importantly it reminded me of something i think henry thoreau said: 'what is heaven but the outside of the earth everywhere?' of as jesus i'm sure said, 'the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' it is easy for me to think of being other places, when where i am is full of angels.

kevin and the otter

2011-11-15T10:28:00.000-08:00

s. kevin of glendalough is probably most famous for letting a blackbird which began to build her nest in his hand, outstretched in prayer, finish the nest and lay her eggs, hatch them and raise her chicks. but there are other stories about kevin and animals as well. one about him and an otter seems particularly helpful to me in my new home by the ocean and the many little creeks and river that join her.

kevin was known for meditating while standing in the water. i'm not quite so studly as he, so i tend to sit just at the edge of the water. one of his favourite books was a collection of writings of holy men. i have a few of those myself. one day he dropped his book in the water. an otter is said to have recovered it for him, and when he opened it, he found that not one word was blurred.

often this story is read (or dismissed) as a pious legend. either one thinks it true and wondrous, or impossible and credulous. but i believe there is another way to read the story, one which gives us deeper insight perhaps into the relationship kevin enjoyed with the rest of the animated world. it is a way that reminds me also of a story about s. anthony of the desert. most of the desert monks had scrolls of holy writings, which they kept on the shelves of their windows. a visitor to anthony noticed no scrolls, and asked the old man where his scrolls were. anthony replied that to the one who has eyes to see, all creation is a holy scroll.

perhaps what kevin found in the gift of the otter was not literally the book he had dropped, but the spirit of the holy, in the sense that the letter kills and the spirit gives life. it encourages me to spend more time listening to the water and her creatures and less time looking at books.

another view of celtic spirituality: a mist-filled path

2011-10-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

i didn't mean to dismiss all of the celtic revival folks with my last post; after all, i am trying to be one of them, only to recognize that what we so easily call 'celtic spirituality' is much more complex and unknown and in some ways probably repulsive to us than we often recognize.

so, to refresh my memory with some of the ideas and imagery that made 'celtic spirituality' so attractive to me many years ago, i am also re-reading frank maceowen's the mist-filled path. it is probably more useful to me and others who today would seek to recover the sort of connexion to the world(s) that marked what we call 'celtic spirituality' than monastic rules. like myself, maceowen is a southern boy who grew up in the 'bible belt' but who also had the good fortune to have a father whose 'religion' happened mostly in the woods. and, of course, here in the northwest, mists are almost unavoidable.

one of the things that separates maceowen's method from that of the monks who, at least according to the rules collected by o maidan, filled their days with constant repetition of psalms, is the quiet. maceowen reminds us of the importance, in j. philip newell's words, listening for the heartbeat of god.

the quiet is a gift of the long dark hours of winter, and of the mists. pray that i will have the grace to listen during these long beautiful hours of samhain.

back online: celtic monasticism

2011-10-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

it's a bit odd, perhaps, after thinking eureka springs would be the place of my resurrection, that i have moved back to the pacific northwest, to the olympic peninsula. why should i do such a thing? partly because i'm a wimp: the winters have been too cold and the summers too hot the past two years in arkansas for me to wander in the wilds. partly because i was too comfortable: my little apartment there was so comfortable, with running hot and cold water, heating and airconditioning, and 3,000 books, that i had little incentive to wander in the wilds. partly because i missed the ocean: as beautiful as the ozarks are, there are no waves crashing on the rocks.

and so here i am, in a climate that is wet and cool, but seldom extreme, hauling water, with less than a dozen books--a cheat, because i have the internet--a short walk from the straight of juan de fuca.

i am living, at least for a while, in a camper under a big fir tree. there are all sorts of fruit trees nearby, and berries. it is a beautiful walk of about two miles to the nearest source of oats and tea and peanut butter. it seems a start with possibilities. but i have been reading uinseann o maidin's the celtic monk, and it makes me wonder whether there's any relationship much between my life and celtic monasticism at all.

in a very basic sense, my maternal grandmother lived a live of celtic monasticism. she wa humble, hospitable, ate little, prayed many psalms each day, never spoke ill of anyone. and she did such things with much more stability than i have, never living more than twenty miles from her place of birth.

at the same time, the lives described by the celtic monastic rules is much more harsh than anything i live, and more harsh than that of my grandmother, at least after the depression. and it is a far cry from the cozy celtic christianity that is so glibly described in a huge popular genre of books and videos. and, i have no community of support. i have a community that supports me, but that's just because i'm a quaint old man, a sort of semi-ornamental yard gnome. but no one participates in any sort of similar practices to mine.

so, it makes me wonder why i feel the need, why so many of us feel the need, to somehow connect what we're doing with what ss. kevin and aidan and kenny and cuthbert and chad did. is it because the spirit of the current age is so omnipresent that we need support in opposing it? do we doubt the feelings within our heart that tell us that real life experiences the beginning of the rain at 3:00 a.m., and the calling of the tits and buntings in the apple tree's by julie's kitchen window?

so, although i am not at all sure that what i'm doing is related to celtic monasticism at all, i am enjoying it. the air today is full of the ocean, and it's that wonderful temperature--47 degrees f-- when one can't wear the wrong clothing, unless one is afraid of a bit of dampness. so i'm going to the beach to pretend at least that i'm a descendent in a way of cuthbert, hoping to see an otter who might be a descendent of one of his friends

passionate wandering

2011-09-04T21:36:00.000-07:00

several years ago, i read a book by elizabeth margaret rees, , celtic saints: passionate wanderers. it describes, rather obviously, the wanderings of celtic saints, mostly towards the end of the first millenium a. d. i have re-read it several times, or at least fondled it, looking at the paths and traces of those who went out looking to see what the holy one had done. and i have done a little moderate wandering myself.

but i had convinced myself that i had settled into my little glass observatory, much like merlin, looking out on the great void in the land of lime stone and loblolly pine that is the ozarks. my plumbline had indeed fallen in a fortunate place.

ah, it was not so. i find myself wandering again, as passionately as ever, as overwhelmed by the beauty of what the holy one has done as ever, and more appalled by how we have treated that good creation than ever. i am not nor have i ever been a calvinist, but it is easy for me to find in my trip so far evidence not only for original sin but for total depravity. faith is the evidence of things unseen, and the goodness of human beings requires a lot of faith. of course there are individual exceptions, but the effect of the whole is pretty horrible to behold.

and so i wander, squinting to see the eighth day of creation through the weekend of football and markets of tie-dyed tee shirts and organic trinkets. and, if i am quiet, it is there. the kingdom of heaven is at hand. i feel like emily in our town, wishing we could all see the streams of glory.

the wandering through the passions is easy. pray it will bring me closer to saintliness. it's a long and straight road.

repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand

2011-08-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

john wesley used to say that one should preach until one heard himself. i'm trying to listen to what i'm saying. so, after the last post, on the temptations of s. dominic, i have sold my book cases, taken several piles of books hither and yon, and a bag of stuff to the animal shelter thrift store, in memory of my little grey squirrel, who seems to have died from the heat.

and i am off to the wilds again. well, soon, at the first of september. there are still many books and a few other things to disperse. and, somewhat surprisingly, i am off to the coast. i really miss the ocean, the tides, the smells. perhaps i can find some sea otters who will befriend me. i have stayed here in the hills far longer than the two weeks i had expected. with occasional interruptions, it's been more than six years now. every other time i have started to leave, i have been constrained. but now it seems freeing. i'm sure i don't know what's in store next. i am packing light. pray that i am ready.
perhaps i will really build a coracle.

the temptations of s. dominic

2011-08-04T21:21:00.000-07:00

i well remember when i first began to discover the differences between the franciscans and the dominicans. i was in a sort of 'franciscan period,' all excited about lady poverty and giving away my stuff. there was even a day when i had a sort of epiphany, or an e-pie-phany, if such a horrible pun may be excused. i was living in bellingham, had about $3.00, and wanted a piece of berry pie. (one can tell this was a while ago, when a piece of pie cost still less than $3.00.) to reach the pie store, however, i would need to walk past a group of panhandlers, who would all ask me for money, and i felt honour-bound to give it to them. but a voice from heaven, as it were, proclaimed that the holy one loved even me, and that i might from time to time have a piece of blackberry pie, too. and so i did. st. francis would have kicked me out of the hut for days.

francis of course was also noticeably anti-bookish; no psalters allowed for his little brothers. (obviously the franciscans did not continue that tradition.) even then i had a psalter. indeed, i had three books. then i read a bit about s. dominic, and found that he not only allowed the brothers of his order to have books, but encouraged them to stay up late at night and read. so my franciscan poverty became a dominican poverty. in rich fat america, it's easy to find books for free, of for less than a piece of pie. there were always several free boxes in bellingham. now that i live in the ozarks, there's the hillspeak pass along program, with about 30,000 free books.

so, about 2,000 books later, i find that i am so deep in the poverty of s. dominic that it's hard to see over it. it's a very enjoyable sort of poverty, but it really seems more to be an indulgence in temptation than poverty.

now if of course know that these books aren't 'mine' and i share them, and give them away, and pass them along. but i am no longer free. now, i must provide shelter for hundreds and hundreds of books that i think of as relics, not only in the sense that they contain the thoughts of many wonderful men and women who put their hearts and minds into the words saved on all these printed pages, but also because they almost all of them have belonged to and been read by people before me. one can feel the thoughts and prayers of those who have read them before. they are an important part of my connection to the communion of saints.

and yet. and yet i know that mies van der rohe was right: less is more. st. francis was right: we don't live in houses. st. dominic's poverty is good for some, but for me it mostly a temptation for more pie, and the excuse to indulge in eating. the good news is always the same. repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. perhaps never has it been said better than by the indigo girls:

give me that old time religion

2011-07-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

so, i left my boat on the seashore, and entered the woods to learn what the wind words were saying. what i learned that is most important, in my humble experience, is that we don't need a new monasticism. if it's monasticism, it ain't new. if it's new, it ain't monasticism. i have many friends who are fond of reading alisdair macintyre and saying that we need a new s. benedict, and who then do some sort of neo-monastic 'practice' in the midst of--or more often at the ends of--their day jobs. that ain't monasticism. monasticism is being single-eyed. it is seeking the holy one before all else.

i met the dean of a prominent seminary recently who, noticing my black clothes and weird hair, said politely, 'what do you do?' i said, 'i attempt to be an orthodox monk.' he said, understandably, 'how is that? either you're a monk or you're not, right?' i said 'ah, if only it were so easy: i have taken vows and accepted the blessing of my archbishop for such an undertaking, but sometimes--often--i break my vows and fail to live up to that blessing. so, my life is an attempt at monkhood.'

but mostly it has been a fortunate attempt, in that i no longer am trying to serve two masters, being in this Aión by day and in the AiónAiónios by morning and evening. (and i use the greek word that we so often translate as 'world' and 'even and ever' because i think those are misleading translations, leading among other mistakes, to the contempt of the κόσμος.

and it has been entirely a work of grace that has led me to realize the futility of life in this Aión, grace that came from praying the psalter. these words of the holy one, which i repeat day after day, slowly become my own words, and i am caught. like jeremiah i am seduced. like peter i have no one else to whom to go.

what the psalms say, ah, is many things. but for the children playing i the school yard of this generation, they seem to be saying that it is death to be relevant to a 'culture' which spends most of its time and money producing death; that it is insane to worship youth, that most fleeting of conditions; that the goal we should have is not to be relevant to the 'culture' of this age but to be relevant to the kingdom of god.

entire the old monasticism, the old religion. our time is, despite what it's cleverest marketers tell us, is not unique. it is once again--still--like the age of noah--except perhaps there is less marriage and giving in marriage, with facebook relationships taking over that custom. it is like the time that s. anthony went into the wilderness, to wrestle with his daemons. he did nothing to be relevant to his time. rather he fled the petty smallness of his time to live in eternity. it is like the time s. seraphim went into the woods to pray, standing and kneeling on a rock praying to the mother of god until he was filled with the glory of the same holy one who had filled her womb.

and so, despite the popularity of the monasticism-one-follows-with-twitter, or spiritual practices on cd's to listen to while commuting, or the guidance of those who talk on television about the wonders of 'interspirituality,' which seems to be the spiritual equivalence of having no city in which to dwell, but living in a 757's 'interurbanity,' go to your room and pray. go to your room and pray.

'seek him that made pleiades and orion, that turneth deep darkness into the morning, and darkeneth the day into night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: the lord is his name.' (amos 5:8) and pray, brothers and sisters, for me, a sinful man seeking to be a monk.

where i'm coming from, part 4: into the diseart

2011-07-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

so, i got to the river and the river was dry. actually, i got first to eureka springs, because i forgot whether i wanted highway 23 or 21. i really wanted 21, but i started walking up 23. eureka springs, 27 miles, the sign said; why not, the pilgrim-in-no-hurry said. so, after a cooling swim in war eagle creek, i walked and was given rides to eureka springs. it was a friday, and i was fasting, and everyone offered me food. it was delightful. in the parking lot of the one grocery store in town, i met--of course, it's a small world--an episcopal priest i had known in santa fe, who was now in eureka springs. so i had a roof over my head for that first night in the ozarks, and the assurance that the buffalo river, which i had thought to paddle in my little red boat, was quite too low for such an adventure. but said priest would like to buy my boat. so, lighter in pack and heavy with cash, i made a bag of cinnamon-raisin bread and a jar of peanut butter into a bag of sandwiches, and started for the river. i would hike. the cash proved to be a good addition, helping me to avoid another roof over my head, this time a jail roof. i stopped on the edge of berryville to adjust my pack and a woman in the house across the street, whose children had spoken to me, called the police. policeman says, 'you know the laws about hitch-hiking, don't you?' 'no, says i, nor am i hitch-hiking. just walking.' 'identify yourself,' says policeman. when i pull out the cards the policeman thinks know who i am better than i do, the law sees the authority: i have money; i must be telling the truth. so i wander on to ponca, stopping for a cigarette at every creek for a while, and then i stop just for big creeks, so i won't become a chain smoker, and for a bag of blue corn chips with sesame seeds that i always buy on arrival in ponca.

then i walk under the bridge that crosses the nearly-dry buffalo and about 150 yards down the trail i find it: the dessert. i pompously call it s. chad's diseart. i make it my place of retreat. a little creek, nearly entirely dry, drops about 90 feet into the river below. across the river there is a large bluff just upstream, and a sloping mountain directly across where, i will discover next morning, elk come down to drink and sing matins. (actually, elk don't sing matins: they play in on a theremin.) there i stay, mostly sitting on the world's most beautiful cube of limestone, until the sandwiches run out. there i read, from the northumbrian community's celtic daily prayer these words:
'and this was brendan's mountain prayer:
shall i abandon the comforts and benefits of my home,
seeking the island of promise our fathers knew long ago,
sail on the face of the deep where no riches or fame
or weapons protect you, and nobody honours your name?
shall i take leave of my friends
and my beautiful native land,
tears in my eyes
as my knees mark my final prayer in the sand?
king of mysteries, will you set watch over me?
christ of the mysteries, can i trust you on the sea?''

i, however, read these words a bit backwards. i had found i could trust the christ of the mysteries on the sea, and i had adopted the pacific northwest as my born-again native land. could i trust the christ of the mysteries on the land?

i ate all the sandwiches. i went to fayetteville to buy a ticket back to the sea. my body would not go to the bus station. i decided i would stay amongst the limestone a while longer. i started back towards eureka springs, where i had stashed my bag. now i was a hitch-hiker. i knew it was only illegal in town. a woman going the other way on a four-lane highway with a median saw me and turned around. she opened the door and said, 'when god speaks, it's best to listen.' i'm not making this up.

i did go back to the northwest for several visits, but i had found the place of my resurrection. i knew where i was. i was in the dessert, or diseart as the celts wrote it. s. chad's diseart. but it took me a while to figure out what i was. at first i called myself, because i lived first in a little tent and then in a slightly-less-little hut on the edge of the property of my episcopal priest friend, a semi-ornamental--stretching belief a bit--semi-hermit. but solitary monk seems a better description. i don't avoid visitors. sometimes i visit. i go to the library, and sit in public parks. it all seemed very neo-monastic. i was part of the new monasticism. i called my youtube channel urbanmonk13. i had a lot to learn.

where i'm coming from, part 3: on the face of the waters

2011-07-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

'and the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters.' (genesis 1:2)

my sojourn in the house of my ancestors was coming to an end. mother was sick enough to be attended by real nurses, and i was packing up for a little trip back to santa fe to re-vision the next part of my life as a missionary abbot/bishop when on the very day of my departure, a letter came from a friend from my previous new mexico days. come, it said, to seattle. there are mountains and the ocean both here. there's a job if you want it. and so i went through santa fe and then headed the little huyndai that had replaced the van--better for carrying little old lady to the doctor's office--northwest. i had not been in that part of the country since 1969,

when i had been a history student at simon fraser university in vancouver, b.c. i arrived in bremerton, a ferry-ride from seattle, just in time for a big earthquake. when one feels the ground move under one's feet, one should pay attention. a new heaven and a new earth may be shortly on their way. but i took the job, and ordered a real skin-on-frame kayak from germany. the boat arrived the very day i qualified for insurance and endentured servitude for life at the job, and for my friend to collect the head-hunter's fee for me. it gave the terms of enslavement back to gentle employers as soon as my friend had deposited his check, and headed north, to anacortes, to put s. brendan the kayak together, christen him with guiness, and set forth on the face of the water. it was to be more than a six hour cruise.

for three summers, brendan carried me on the face of the waters. we traveled down to the south end of the hood canal, to olympia, to neah bay, to vancouver island. and the spirit was still moving on the face of the waters, creating a new me. during the winter months, when there's hardly enough light to travel by kayak, i lived in a little hut i made from found objects on land belonging to western washington university. at the end of three years, i came ashore, more or less, and rented a tiny space in a historic building in downtown bellingham, which i called beatus: an urban poustinia. i had become more or less an accidental hermit.

and, i also became sort of an accidental college minister. the people who came to the poustinia were almost all of them students from western washington university. what i had thought i would do in a grandious way in fayetteville, i came to do in a much more humble way in bellingham. i didn't even tell people that i was a priest, certainly not a bishop. offering the world to the holy one, guarding the faith, are much more than wearing honorary clothes, and there hadn't been much room for copes and mitres in brendan.

also in bellingham, i fell in with young and wonderful people who were trying to live in community. they had rented a funky old house, and i moved into a tent in the yard. again, life was good. but despite the great desire everyone has to live in community these days, most of us have never seen it, so we come and we go. (did i mention that i wrote my final paper for systematic theology based on the sacred text of paul simon's graceland? so,
as everyone else came and went, making families and going to graduate school, i went to the ozarks for a little retreat. once again, a boat was involved, a czech inflatable. i thought i would wander down the buffalo river and, as luci shaw translated the words of john on patmos, to the wind words.

where i'm coming from, part 2: the hidden years

2011-07-13T09:51:00.000-07:00

so, there i was, living a quiet life in santa fe. i started a small congregation of the church of antioch, the church of holy wisdom. we rented a beautifully perfect cubic room next door to a buddhist restaurant. after mass we had coffee hour with the buddhists, who made very good scones. we began to gather beautiful church swag: hand-woven dossal cloths for all of the season of the year; our altar was made of a creamy golden local sandstone. we used a simplified version of the liturgy of ss. addai and mari, and the new common lectionary, reading our lessons from the jerusalem bible with illustrations by salvador dali. many of the communicants of holy wisdom had been raised roman catholic, estranged by papal politics, but there were also several sons and daughters of new age celebrities, it being santa fe. on thursday nights we had a study group, discussing such topics as the celtic understanding of the gospel according to s. john. on the great feast days of the church, we celebrated outside, sometimes in a rose garden, sometimes along the santa fe river, sometimes renting the courtyard of the unitarian church. it was a good life.

but i felt that i was very much an import to santa fe who drank too much water. if everyone who had moved there since world war ii would leave, there might be enough water. so i decided to set an example. when i would mention that i was thinking of moving, people would ask, ' from santa fe? why ever would one leave santa fe? where could you go?' when i said, 'fayetteville, arkansas.,' as often as not they said, 'oh. i want to go there, too.' so in creswell, oregon, on the of the feast of the holy trinity in the year of our lord 1995, i was made a missionary abbot/bishop for the wilds of the ozarks. i loaded up the van--yup, there was even a van--and headed east.

fayetteville was in the midst of a heat wave, but i set right to work, finding it not that unlike santa fe in culture and zeitgheist. i found a house to rent, and began talks with another 'campus ministry' about renting their chapel on sunday evenings. but before all of this began, i thought i should visit my mother on the other side of the state, in jonesboro. the picture above is her house. when i arrived, i found her health much much worse than i had known, and knew i needed to stay. thus began one of the strangest, most unexpected, although also richest, periods of my life.

mother had no 'medical' illness: she was just tired of living, and had begun to starve herself. again and again the following scenario was repeated: she would call me to her room and say, 'now, honey, i don't want you to worry, but i have [fill in some fatal disease]. i don't want to be treated, and i'm not afraid to die, but i just thought you should know.' i would ask her why she was so sure about her self-diagnosis, and she would describe some symptom she shared with someone she knew who had died from that disease, usually something such as they both had grey hair, or both disliked avacados, something completely unrelated to the disease. she had been a nurse for many years, so she had known a lot of diseases, and unrelated symptoms. after a while, as she ate less and less, she would feel less and less well, and decide to go to a doctor for his diagnosis. she had good insurance, so there were always a lot of redundant and often unpleasant, tests. the doctor would say that she should eat. she would decide she would, that there was no reason to die just yet, and she would gain back a little strength and dismiss me--for a few days or weeks. i would head off with my kayak and cell 'phone, to explore a bit of the white river, usually, until the call came that i should go back

this pattern repeated itself for six years. finally the toll of repeated starvation had become debilitating enough that mother decided she should move to a nursing home. it was the same one in which she had worked, and was for her a very good move. she had friends there her own age, and she often thought she was still working there. (there were occasional crises when she would want to run the charts, but the current staff were very considerate.)

now i had never told mother just why i was in arkansas. she never much of a listener, anyway. from time to time she would say to me that she regretted that i had never become a 'preacher,' and since she found 'my religion' to be something entirely different from the southern baptist sect of my upbringing, she was probably right that i hadn't.

for me these years were transformative. the difference between living in the glamorous city of santa fe and the suburban blandness of jonesboro could hardly be greater. the jobs i took in santa fe brought me in contact with artists and celebrities, and the people with whom i had coffee talked about 'spiritual' stuff. the jobs i took in jonesboro brought me into contact with high school graduates and veterans, and the people with whom i had coffee talked about new pickup trucks. and i learned a lot about my mother's childhood which had greatly influenced my childhood without ever knowing it. and, without knowing it, i was becoming a hermit, of sorts.

where i'm coming from, part 1: the order of st. chad

2011-07-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

i am working on an essay that helps me seriously to think about monasticism and it's place in our world. to do that, i think i should review my own back ground of 'monastic experience,' both for me and for reference for any readers the essay might have. so, i'm starting with my first effort, the order of st. chad. this is the rule of the order of st. chad presented to the most rev. richard gundrey, bishop of new mexico, arizona, and nevada, catholic and apostolic church of antioch, by father dale caldwell in santa fe, new mexico, on the feast of st. chad, 2 march 1991. i didn't know much at all about any antecedents of what i was trying, but soon there were six others who joined the order, and we were, and some of us still are, important supports for one another in our pilgrimages.

purpose

the purpose of the order of st.chad is to encourage people living in the world who seek to recover an awareness of the holy in the world and in their lives and who recognize the hollowness of the industrial growth culture, by providing access to the traditional vows of religious life and the offices of daily prayer, emphasizing the world as the holy work of a loving creator, and themselves as beloved and holy creatures within that creation.

patronage

chad, bishop of litchfield (+672) was trained in the celtic tradition. his life is described in book iv, chapter 3 of bede's history of the english church and people. although appointed by king oswy as bishop of york, chad's ordination was not accepted by theodore, the new archbishop of canterbury. chad humbly stepped down. impressed by such humility, theodore re-ordained chad and appointed him bishopof mercia and lindisfarne (chad established the see at litchfield).

true to the celtic tradition, chad traveled throughout his diocese on foot. his awe of nature and his intimate understanding of natural events and the activities of the holy one were remarkable even for his time.

more modern guides for the order of st. chad include wendell berry, thich nhat hanh, and delores lachapelle.

method

postulants and walkers of the order of st. chad follow the example of chad by living humbly, recognizing their proper place in creation and by observing a simple office of daily prayer, observing the work of the creator through the cycles of time. they are encouraged to walk whenever possible, coming to know more intimately the creation of which we are a part. in doing these things we strive to follow the traditional religious vows of poverty, stability, and obedience:

poverty: no one can serve two masters; yet despite the example and admonitions of her lord and the nearly unanimous agreement of masters of all traditions, the church has seldom encouraged true poverty. poverty--living simply so that others (and oneself) may simply live, is the first vow of the order of st. chad. it is a recognition that abundance of life is given to all creatures and does not follow from grasping for eve more posessions.

there is no imposed standard of poverty within the order. rather, poverty is a goal towards which one is constantly encouraged. a postulant is not expected to give belongings or anything else to the order. the order, in fact, has no property. rather one is encouraged to share with the poor, and to seek less and less the things which do not lead to live as one comes to experience more and more the fulness of creation.

stability: in many monastic orders, stability implies that one will remain at a particular monastery for life. for postulants and walkers in the order of st. chad, stability implies a growing recognition that we are all dependent upon the gifts of the one creator, co-inhabitants of one earth. justice demands that we rely upon the gifts of our particular location and not covet the gifts of our neighbors. but grace allows an ever deepenig understanding of the extent to which the holy one does fill our needs wherever we find ourselves.

obedience: obedience can mean doing what one is told, as by a 'superior,' but it can also mean attending to what is being told. it is this second meaning to which postulants and walkers of the order of st. chad vox. in the daily office, prayer which not only connects us with the transcendent, but which even more importantly grounds us each day, we seek to hear what the creator and our brothers and sisters throughout creation are saying to us.

most importantly and simply, the order of st. chad is instituted toencourage us to 'walk in love, as christ loved us, and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to god.'

7 july: s. maelruan

2011-07-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

according to a note in the margin of the martyrology of tallaght (or tamlacha, the monastery founded by s. maelruan, whose ruins, left by the viking invaders and the passing of 13 centuries, are pictured to the right),
'on the nones of july the birds cease
to sing the music of holidays
for maelfuan from tallaght.'

i have noticed many fewer birds singing these past two mornings; now i know why.
there are many wonderful tales preserved and retold about this 8th century irish monk, one of the most influential members and leaders of the culdees (celi di). i almost joined up with a contemporary namesake of mael ruan in the celtic orthodox church, but found it a bit too strict. maelruan--the original--allowed his monks only vegetables and water. the vegetarianism i've practiced for many years, but i've already had my coffee this morning. of course, if coffee had been known in the green isles at that time, it might have been adopted as an aid to wakefulness, as the buddhist monks use tea.

but it is maelruan's connexions with s. michael the archangel which i find particularly fascinating. there are relics of s. michael in tallaght. you might well wonder how relics of an archangel are possible. but maelruan decided he would not take land in tallaght for his monastery until his friend the archangel also took it. s. michael obliged by sending an clod and an epistle from heaven to the site of the foundation.

mael ruan lightened slightly some of the practices of his contemporary monks, such as s. oengus, who used to chant the psalms each day, 50 in the river with a withe round his neck and tied to a tree, 50 under the tree, and 50 in his cell. mael ruan distributed them over a week, and when oengus, disguised as a slave, sought membership in his community, put him in charge of the corn kiln. but maelruan found particular strength in psalm 118 (119), and repeated it frequently. that is the psalm particular to the jewish feast of tabernacles, the feast of the harvest, and the old testament feast closest in time to that of s. michael. so i am delighted to find in the practices of the celtic church that we see at tallacht a continuity with the eastern and egyptian church, and with the prophetic practices of the temple.

6 july: the feast of s. isaiah, the prophet

2011-07-06T05:13:00.000-07:00

so, i opened the jerusalem bible, my favourite modern translation, to a random page in the book of isaiah:

'woe to the legislators of infamous laws,
to those who issue tyrannical decrees,
who refuse justice to the unfortunate
and cheat the poor among my people of their rights,
who make widows their prey
and rob the orphan.
what will they do on the day of punishment,
when, from far off, destruction comes?
to whom will you leave your riches?
nothing for it but to crouch with the captives
and to fall with the slain.' (chapter 10, verses 1-4a)

the new world

2011-07-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

'for anyone who is in christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.' s. paul's second letter to the church in corinth, chapter 5, verse 17. (jerusalem bible)

'there is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit. for every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles.' jesus, as recorded in the gospel according to st. luke, chapter 6, verses 43-44. (jerusalem bible)

i watched terrence malick's hauntingly beautiful movie the new world last night. then i walked, in the cool of the evening, the same time of day that the book of genesis says YHWH walked with adam, the earthling, and eve, the mother of all, in the garden. it was a very dangerous combination. it made me think.

malick's movies are always thought-provoking for me, and i highly recommend them. if you still think of world war two as 'the good war,' watch the thin red line.. as an alternative to the hundreds of 'western movies' that are the mythology of american, i suggest days of heaven. as the oldest of three sons of the fifties, i look forward to seeing the tree of life,. so, as an anglo-phile, who will post 'god save the queen' on his facebook for the fourth of july, the new world was a harsh reminder of nothing i didn't already know, but more or less must choose to forget in order not to life in a state of constant rebellion. of course today's political equivalent of redcoats wear pixelated camouflage rather than the colours of the king.

ah, but the cool of the evening. the cool of the evening was filled with the droidalbeasts that still require humans for brains but may soon not even need us for that, but to whom we sacrifice everything, even the cool of the evening. how gladly we pass our children through the fires of moloch to have a new cadillac. do ford still make mercuries? if they do, they should build a mercury moloch. and one of the most amazing things about the shiny transformers that have replaced the animals--for a long time there was here in eureka springs the road kill cafe--is that many of them bore on their flanks little signs claiming jesus as lord.

and the same people who are driven by the beast are often the ones who want to put up the ten commandments in public places--something i would not oppose, by the way--to remind us, among other things, not to take the name of the lord in vain.

now i realize not all of modern, protestant-capitalist-industrialism--and i don't think one would survive without the other, which is probably an important clue why 'communist'-industrialism seems to do poorly--i realize this amalgum that lets me spout on the internet, is not all bad. malick does too. mozart piano music plays an important role in the new world, and there's even a good englishman, john rolfe, played by christian bale.

but.

i look around me at what we have done, not just to 'the new world' of america but to the whole of the holy one's creation, and i shudder. the problem is not new. the story of pandora's box tells us the greeks knew the problem of original sin. george pal warned me when i was a junior in high school with a now mostly forgotten flick, atlantis, the lost continent.. but the problem does not get better, it gets worse. we began to chop down the trees around the fort at jamestown so we could see our 'enemies' approaching, and we didn't stop.

how then are we to live?

insomuch as it is possible to me, i life in peace with all men. i rejoice in the good news that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, a sort of parallel universe. as john smith said in the movie, 'i know the world is more than that fort [which was jamestown].' but i shudder.

you see, even though i am surrounded by savage calvinists who seem to think that we are predestined not to walk in love but to drive in lincoln mkx's, i have read more than the a snatch of romans and augustine and john calvin. more importantly, i have looked around at the fruit. i know that the sacred springs that make my little adopted city so wonderful are full of the poisons of modernity. oil spills continuously, not just last summer in the gulf of mexico.

and i know that the same paul whose writings are abused to allow us to rend asunder what the holy one has joined together, penned these words:

'all the truth about us will be brought out in the law court of christ, and each of us will get what he deserves for the things he did in the body, good or bad.' s. paul's second letter to the church at corinth, chapter 5, verse10.

the tide in the affairs of men: midsummer, beginning to breathe in

2011-06-23T15:04:00.000-07:00

"stay in your cell, and it will teach you everything." i am of course aware of these famous words of a desert abba, but i don't always follow them. i blame it (it's always convenient to have something to blame) on my welsh ancestry. nearly all of the welsh saints i find so fascinating were wanders. today, for instance, is the commemoration of s. mewan, who wandered first over the bristol channel into cornwall and then over the english channel into brittany.

so most summers i wander off to the northwest corner of washington state, where there's a great inland sea and even a real ocean. i do it because i like to visit the people there, but also because i spent three of the most important summers of my life there, paddling around the whulji in a skin-on-frame kayak named for s. brendan the navigator.

it was wandering around on the face of the deep that i learned about tides. any fool can learn about tides in a kayak, and if he pays any attention at all, he learns to use them rather than to fight them. i am happy to say that i learned mostly to paddle with them, although occasionally i would have a larger-than-necessary adventure on purpose by going against or across the tides, and once i had a very strenuous adventure indeed because i accepted an invitation to a leisurely lunch with a friend who, although observant for the most part, is a land-lubber who ignored my protests that i needed to make the tide. the incoming tides on a full moon in the straight of juan de fuca are not to be ignored. fortunately i found a place to camp after two miles of fighting, and started again the next day towards neah bay with more favourable seas.

this summer, however, started with a trip to austin, texas, a place about a different as possible from the san juan islands. i went to visit some friends at the seminary of the southwest, and it was very good to see them. then i stayed with their cat while they wandered off, and i read a lot of wonderful books from the library there, and met some great trees and creeks, and found a few good coffee spots, one of them next to a creek where a night heron was kind enough to share vespers with me several evenings. i also found out how much of a country mouse i have become. but there were two half-price books stores in austin, and i made an embarassing number of purchases. one of them was the rhythm of the christian year by emil bock, an important leader of the the christian community renewal movement. it was an unexpected gift.

bock's book is a collection of "festival meditations" he wrote over the years, which are reflect an profound understanding of the cosmic implications of the incarnation of christ, an event which includes the redemption of all of nature. he describes the period from the nativity of jesus to the nativity of john the forerunner as the time the earth breathes out, and the period from midsummer to christmas as the time the earth breathes in. and he says that this pattern is repeated in our own lives, if we but notice it. the first part of our lives, we breathe out, we expand our motion and our knowledge, our spirits are at high tide, embracing the shores of the world. but in the second part of our live, we breathe in. our spirits are incarnate in our own bodies. we become one within ourselves.

i recognize that the pattern bock describes, i am feeling and desiring. i no longer need to travel to the ocean to know the tides. the water of the ocean is my own blood, the tides are always moving: we need only to be aware of them. i remember very vividly the afternoon, in june, 2000, paddling across the largest part of puget sound, just north of the kitsap peninsula, a part of the sound for which i have never found a name, when i realized this. a friend sent me a letter today in which he mentioned bjork's song "oceana", which ends with the wonderful line, "your sweat is salty, i am why."

so i rejoice to sit at my cell this s. john's even, watching the waves break on the bark of the pine trees, while the ravens swim in the currents of the earth's spirit, and breathe in, absorbing, hopefully, some of the gifts of the first half of the year and of my life.

but i know myself well enough that i would not be surprised if i were at the whulji again this fall. and for those of you who do not know the word "whulji," don't be surprised. not even google knows it. it's coast salish for "this sea that we know."

s. brendan the monk

2011-05-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

few saints have been so influential on my life as has brendan. as jennifer kennedy dean writes, "as we conform our lives to our stories, we find we are transformed."

it was, not surprisingly, the story of brendan the courageous navigator that caught my attention first. i had been taking some "time off" from my "job" as a missionary bishop to the wilds of fayetteville, arkansas, to take care of my ailing mother, and when she became well enough for me to leave again, i thought a kayak trip would be just the thing. so, i bought a beautiful red saxon boat, broke a bottle of guiness on the bow and called her "brendan." off i paddled, on what would be a life-changing trip. along the way, i became an accidental hermit. my little r&r trip stretched over three years, paddling more than 9,000 miles, and completely enjoying being bounced about on the sea, protected by the prayers of s. brendan--and of course also of s. nicholas.

in the years since i came to shore, i often feel nostalgia for that time, for the nights when the sea receives the red sun to the chant of ravens at vespers, for the mornings veiled in the cloud brooding on the face of the waters as another day is created. evenings and mornings are certainly beautiful where i live now, in a small apartment in the ozarks, but it's easy to feel that my life is not very courageous.

it is that context that two bits of wisdom from the church have helped me this s. brendan's day. the first is a word from abba isaac of the desert--i fondly call my little apartment s. chad's disseart "the person who recognizes and overcomes his passions is greater than the person who raises the dead." certainly recognizing and overcoming my passions takes more courage than floating on the surface of the sea.

the second is the ikos for the feast at matins:
"putting forth from the coasts of thy homeland, o holy one, thou didst set sail in a boat of skins, traversing the tumultuous waters of the sea, guided by the providence of the almighty. yet in vain didst thou search the watery realm for theisle of the blessed, for their abode is not within the confines of this world. wherefore, thou didst return to dry land, to the monasteries thou hast founded; and losing the life of thy body, thou didst find the realm of bliss which thou hadst sought. o venerable father brendan, divinely wise and most holy, entreat christ god that our souls be saved."

amen.

my lenten koan: what did you get in your lenten basket?

2011-04-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

i grew up in the southern baptist south. we called the sunday before easter palm sunday, but we had no idea why, really. the sermon was likely to be from the book of kings. our pastor had a fixation on jezebel. on easter we all wore new clothes, and there was usually a "contata," although not always. it was easier to get enough voices for the real holiday, christmas. we didn't celebrate it, but all of the theology of redemption we had was centered around good friday, so easter was left to the super market and department stores. we got easter baskets.

when i began to enter the "big church," at all saints' episcopal in memphis, the membership entertained a wonderful mix of theologies: some were catholic and prayed through the church year with great devotion. some were evangelicans who thought the church year a bit too pappish. some thought easter baskets were the work of the devil. some "gave up" something for lent.

as i have come to appreciate the breadth of traditional christianity, i have come to look at lent not as a time of giving up anything, but as a period of particular grace. we let go of some things so our hands and hearts will have more room to hold more. fasting, alsm, and prayers are gifts given to us so we may more closely participate in the life of our lord.

many of the desert saints wove baskets as they prayed. it kept their bodies occupied so the would not be distracted, and they sold them to support themselves. so i have come to think of lent as the time of baskets, more than easter. and i encourage you to join me in thinking of what has been given us in our lenten baskets this year.

my koan of this year has been how to understand the land in which i live as holy ground. this was an amazingly koan in that every day in the office or the liturgy there were comments on it. this morning, for instance, from the reading for the epistle:

"who is among you tht feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his god." (isaiah 50)

somewhat to my surprise, the biggest gift in my lenten basket has been obedience. walking requires listening. this does not seem a popular virtue these days. the american episcopal church has excised from psalm 95 the verses which seem to me to distill my "solution" to my lenten koan:

"today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts
as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness;
when your fathers tempted me,
proved me, and saw my works.
forty years long was i grieved with this generation, and said,
it is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known my ways:
unto whom i sware in my wrath,
that they should not enter into my rest."

the lenten koan: moses and the burning bush

2011-04-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

there is not shortage of material to help me with my lenten koan of coming to know this land, the land which i find myself "given", as holy land.

not that there aren't plenty of distractions. i easily find distrations. so i read s. basil, who encourages me to simple clothes, and s. david, who encourages me to simpler simpler, and they help me to see that much of what i might think of as my struggle is itself a distraction. "my struggle;" mein kampf: i should think more of how destructive "my struggle is." but when i see it as just a little part of the struggle of the saints, the part i have been given like the little "parts" we hard to read in sunday school as children at walnut street baptist church, then it seems both doable and nothing special.

but most often the struggle for me is a struggle for family as much as place. my lenten koan: to walk on and know the holy ground. in my readings this morning moses encountered the holy one in the burning bush, who introduced himself as "the LORD, the god of your fathers, the god of abraham and of isaac and of jacob. this is my name for ever, and this shall be my memorial unto all generations." the place is holy because the holy one is in it, as jacob had found at beth el. but the line of generations has been broken, it seems, for me and for many of my contemporaries, and so i seek, prior to the god of my fathers, my fathers. moses had no vision of the holy one so long as he felt at home--settled--among the egyptians. so i sit here in the spring sunshine on the edge of this ozarks holler reading robert van de weyer's celtic fire: the passionate religious vision of ancient britain and ireland (new york: doubleday, 1990), looking for my forefathers in wales. but i cheat. i am expecting in the mail a book by donald nicholl on the russian religious visin, triumphs of the spirit in russia. i find my fathers, it seems, on the edges, on the fringes, on the outskirts, never in rome or constantinople.

the temptation of wheels

2011-04-05T07:49:00.000-07:00

the day after i was given my lenten koan, this bicycle was pointed out to me as being for sale at the local bike shop. i had admired it last summer, but hadn't seen it out front and had assumed it had been purchased while i was wandering around the northwest and southwest and texas and such.

but no. it's there, and a very real temptation? so, i'm wondering just how literally to take all the admonitions to "walk." is this little wheeled wonder "just a little one" as was the city to which lot retired after the destruction of sodom? it seems probably a small decision. but life is made up of the results of all our small decisions, far more than of the big decisions. pray for me, my friends.

jeremiah, john donne, and my lenten koan

2011-03-31T09:31:00.000-07:00

be careful what you ask for. never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

when i started lent with the koan of how i might find the place where i live to be holy ground, i had no idea how much help i would have. and again and again the help says the same thing: "be obedient."

now obedience is one of my vows: poverty, stability, chastity, obedience. poverty, at least by american standards, is pretty easy on social security. i find i have enough money to be mildly generous. stability is also pretty easy, because of my poverty. sometimes i think i would like to move back to the ocean, but i don't think i can afford it. and i find that my lot has fallen in a goodly place. chastity was actually not one of my vows at first, but i have come to understand how important it is, and don't find it so much trouble. but obedience: that's the hard one.

i like to blame my objections to obedience to the general american rebelliousness that started when the trouble-making bostonians dumped tea in the boston harbor and blamed it on the indians. but it is really of course mostly my own pride.

one of the things the rule of st. chad emphasises is obedience as listening. but listen to what? it is so easy to listen to entertainments. even as i type this i am listening to psalm 72 on youtube. and if i listen to the readings of lent (psalm 72 was this morning's prime reading), i am caught short again and again. walking, one can hear. the epistle for the second sunday of lent says, "we beseech you, and exhort you by the lord jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please god, so you abound more and more." it is easy to think of walking as a way of hearing bird-song, and so it is. but is also a way to hear the motorcyclist's motor-screaming as they try desperately to find happiness.

this past sunday, the third in lent, came the epistle that is the motto of the order of st. chad: "walk in love, as christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to god for a sweetsmelling savour." again, walking is more than only enjoyable. (the old testamnt reading that sunday is deuteronomy 6: it's hard to find a stronger encouragement to listen and obey than that.

and now this morning, jeremiah: ". . . if ye throughly amend you ways and your doings; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt; then i will cause you to swell in this place, in the land that i gave to your fathers, for ever and ever, saith the lord almight."

so: i must listen much more carefully, not just to the wonders of creation but to all the parts of it which, as the anglican collect for ash wednesday reminds us, god does not hate, but which i all so easily "tune out."

psalm 51 and the grace of lent

2011-03-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

the psalms are the heart of christian prayer, and no where and at no time has this been more true than in celtic devotion. often the celtic saints would pray the psalter with their arms held out in a cross, sometimes for so long, as in the case of s. kevin, that a bird built her nest in his outstretched hand. others would pray standing in cold water. s. cuthbert's feet are shown in the window above, being warmed by otters after a night praying in the cold waters of the ocean.

celtic christianity is notoriously physical, involving the body in ways we in our more cerebral or "spiritual" times might find a bit silly or even repugnant. even though we do sometimes pride ourselves on an "incarnational" theology, our understanding of incarnation often means we give money to the food bank.

but i suspect our celtic forebears in the faith would not have recognized the differences we make between the spirit and the body. they were not at all "spiritual" in the way that is so popular today. their lives, all of the many trinities that made up their world, were one. and they recognized, i suspect, the nature of sacramental living, outward and visible, as developing inward grace.

it is in that context that i find the centrality of psalm 51 to our lenten devotions so intriguing. often lent is a time when we "give up" something: chocolate, perhaps, or wine. then at easter we "get it back." what a waste! lent is better a time when we open ourselves to receive more, to recognize that our sins are not nearly so often overindulgence in chocolate or alcohol, but aiming at the wrong things in life. (the greek word for sin so often explained as "missing the mark" really means more to "aim away from the mark.")

so, i want to consider some of the lines at the heart of psalm 51:

. . . lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts,
and shalt make me understand wisdom secretly.
thou shalt purge me with hyssop and i shall be clean;
thou shalt wash me, and i shall be whiter than snow.
thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness,
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
turn thy face from my sins,
and put out all my misdeeds.
make me a clean heart, o god,
and renew a right spirit within me.
(italics added)

the goal of being purged with hyssop is not to make us, as jesus in the gospels is recorded to have described some of the spiritual people of his day, as white-washed tombs. it is to have a right spirit within. this is the grace of lent. again and again the collects of the season pray that the outward activities will result in our entering the kingdom. and, the kingdom is within, a gift waiting to be received, and worth making room for.

lenten koan a.d. 2011

2011-03-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

a few years ago, when i was worshipping with a congregation that uses the new three-year lectionary, the secretary, who was some kind of "charismatic" protestant, accidentally printed the wrong propers for the first sunday of lent. the rector was too kind to correct her, and so we heard and he got to preach, from a seldom heard part of the writings of s. paul. and, i began something which has become a lenten practice for me long enough to consider it a tradition: my lenten koan.

my lenten koan is some piece of scripture that i find particularly challenging, which is try to "solve" during lent in the sense of figuring out what it means in my life now. usually they have been from the new testament, and they have become part of the lenten discipline of prayer for me. i don't so much choose them as notice them as they are given to me.

but this year i cheated a bit. my reading about various sacred sites in britain or ireland, and the saints connected to them, often makes me want to go to wales, or sussex, or cornwall, or scotland, or . . . . you get the idea. so i was wondering how the land in which i live could come to have the same feeling of sacredness, and hoping for a koan related to that desire.

at the same time, i have been reading genesis, and at the thursday night soup and scripture, we have been reading joshua. so i thought i would cheat and choose one of the readings which occur so often in these books, and in exodus and in deuteronomy along the line of "when you come into the land." i decided i would just take the one from the beginnings of joshua, before i looked to see what it really says; wherefore wast i hoist by my own petard:

"every place you shall tread with the souls of your feet i shall give you as i declared to moses that i would. . . . have the book of this law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may keep everything that is written in it." (1: 3, 8, jb i am afraid to include v. 6: "be strong and stand firm, for you are the man to give the people posession of the land . . . ."

of course! the land is "given to us" as, and only as, we tread it with the souls of my feet. this is of course one of the big lessons from my patron st. chad, one that is ignored almost entirely by contemporary society, but one which is necessary if we are to reclaim our proper place in creation.

i will try to see how this koan is "solved" and post the solution.

my life as merlin

2011-01-15T12:31:00.000-08:00

i am, both blessed and a bit cursed to be a historian. i keep looking back. so far i haven't noticeably turn to a pillar of salt, but it could happen. i have been reading books about merlin lately. the most interesting ones i have found so far are the works of nikolai tolstoy. he suggests that merlin is best understood as a sort of type for the life of a prophet or druid or fool. what i found particularly fascinating about his portrayal of merlin, particularly in the return of the king. first was his voyage as an infant in a skin bag. my introduction to my current life as a fool started in a trip in a skin boat, and i was certainly a neophyte as i began.

next merlin spent a period as a wild man living in rags at the edge of society: my wild old man naked in the woods stage.

and now i find myself living in a glass observatory, which was the description of merlin's final state, in some legends. whether it was entirely his choice or ot is debatable, and i am often anxious for one of my previous statess, especially wandering at the edge of the sea and land in my skin kayak.

but of course it is possible, if this is merely a typical life, to make adjustments and to go around the cycle again.

but this week, as aelred's feast came around, i was challenged by his description of "a three-fold meditation," in which he encourages us towards a particular way of considering the past, the present, and the future, in terms of the past as the life of christ, the present in terms of the gifts we have received, and the future as the end of time, the last judgment. and, he encourages us to model our lives after christ's.

tolstoy sees merlin, most importantly, as a prophetic image of christ, so he and aelred are close in their encouragements. so, i'm wondering what the next exciting trip around will be. but also conscious of how very unconscious i have been and continue to be of this very precious gift that is a human life.

sapientia tide

2010-12-16T12:17:00.000-08:00

the english church differs slightly from the roman church in having a novena before the nativity, as it were, instead of an octave. so the first of the great "o" antiphons, "o sapientia," is sung on the evening of the 16th rather than on the 17th. i love this idea of a "sapientia tide," as it is titled in some of the old prayer books. of course those of us who do not even follow the office know the great o's from the the advent hymn, "o come, o come emmanual."

sacred geography of the ozarks

2010-12-03T08:38:00.000-08:00

if northwest arkansas had been settled by (east) indian replacements of the (american) indians rather than by calvinists, then the boston mountains would be another mount kailas. from the heights of boston flow four sacred rivers of the ozarks, the buffalo, the white, the war eagle, and the kings. it is likely that the american indians would have found this a place of great sacredness, but there is, to my knowledge, no record of their feelings about the place from which they were displaced after thousands of years to make room for "settlers." some of my own ancestors were among those settlers, and i still have cousins there. but none of them seem to have any concept of the earth as holy, as the creation revealing the creator. they were protestants, for whom the holy was the printed word. but when i visit the cemetery where their bodies have returned to the earth, i can feel a connection to this place, a connection which makes the veneration of relics understandable without rationality.

if i ever leave my little apartment in eureka springs, it will be to go back to the center of the world, at least of the ozarks. it's much closer than tibet, but to me at least just as awe full. surely this is none other than the house of god, and this is the gate of heaven. and perhaps that unavoidable realization is why so many of my ancestors called their settlements and little methodist churches bethel.

the feast of st. luke

2010-10-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

there is no end to what could be said about the evangelist luke. i liked this icon because of the sandals. i who walk a bit, have been wondering what it must have been like for luke as he wandered around, mostly on foot, seeking the sources for his gospel.

but i am most thankful, i think, for the wonderful poetry that is preserved in the gospel according to luke alone. i found this recording of a very traditional english singing of the benedictus, for instance. but luke's writings have continued to inspire musicians and writers long after st. jerome and the scholars of the douay-rheims bible. i also found a very contemporary guitar song inspired by the same poem.

what's it all about: an answer from celtic monasticism

2010-10-05T09:53:00.000-07:00

it has been very popular since the beginnings of "the enlightenment"--you remember, the time when frenchmen invented the guillotine and began to make human sacrifices to reason--to suggest that all religions are basically the same, and that they can be reduced to simple moral principals. there are, and were, some of who try to live religious lives who disagree to some or all of that statement. whether religions are basically the same or not, they are not reduceable to simple moral principals. indeed, morality is not the most important goal of religion at all, at least not in the christian tradition, nor in the tradition of celtic monasticism.

this is often either confusing or ignored, especially in our time of "separation of church and state." s. peter's admonition in his first epistle, "submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishemnt of evil-doers, or for the praise of them that do well," is either found confusing or over-rated. yet throughout most of history since constantine, there has been some sort of understanding that the the state, however it is organized, has a role in promoting morality. we often hear today that "morality cannot be legislated." of course it can. all legitimate laws, whether they are prohibiting murder, and setting sentances for the murderer, or controlling traffic, so one is less likely to commit vehicular homicide, are legislating morality.

but morality is not, despite what one hears so often these days, is not the ultimate goal, the essence, of christianity. if religion is, as i suggest, what ties all the different parts of one's life together--the literal meaning of the word--then it might be the goal of some religions: both islam and many protestant sects seem close to that understanding.

religion as it is revealed in the person of jesus christ has a different goal, however. morality is of course required. one can almost say it is assumed. but the purpose is to know god the father, as he is revealed by jesus christ his son. and that is the amazing thing about celtic monasticism, if kathleen hughes and ann hamlin are right in their slender book, celtic monasticism: the modern traveler to the early irish church (new york: the seabury press, 1981). they suggest that celtic monasteries were founded to make that goal easier for all the members of the society.

"there is," they say, "no complete philosophy of the monatic life in early irish records, but if the sermons attributed to columbanus are really by him they provide the fullest early statement. . . . the monastic life as he sees it is for contemplating and practising the presence of god. for him jesus is the joy of man's desiring, and to long for god is greater bliss than any worldly pleasure, any earthly fulfilment: 'taste and see,' he says, 'how lovely, how pleasant is the lord. . . . may no one and nothing separate us from the love of christ . . . that we may abide in him here' and for ever." (p.1)

i need hardly mention how different this way of organizing society is from what is most common in the time of our "contemporary psychosis," as thomas merton calls it. but that life is always available, even if it means turning off the television, turning away from the call of the mall and the gladiatorial fights of monday night football. indeed, as our lord says, it is at hand.

back under the giubhas

2010-09-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

i've been away from my little cell amongst the pines for a long time. not too long to do the things i went west to do, but too long for my little hermit soul to really enjoy. so it is very good to be back, to sit outside my door and listen to the chanting of the pines at evensong.

it has been a week of catching up, so to speak: visiting my favourite springs and caves; pulling the strange plants that i probably seeded myself in my little garden but which seem much too tall for such a small place; waking early to hear the blackbird speak that morning has broken; and reading about saints and seasons that i missed while wandering in the northwest.

this morning i read tess ward's book the celtic wheel of the year, and i was intrigued that she mentioned something about this time of the year that i always notice, but have never known whether was shared by others. august always brings a feeling to me of deep nostalgia. this strikes me as a bit strange, because it is the time of high summer and bright, varied greens. but it is also the beginning of the harvest. lammas/lughnasadh starts us on the cycle of feasts which climax at the day of the dead/samhain. as the prayer book burial service begins, "in the middle of life we are in death." ward has the insight that demeter not only goes looking for persephone, her daughter, but also for the person she once was herself (p. 161-162). i have come back to my little cell in the pines to find again the same self that wandered for three months, now at home.

although i am happy to have finally accepted that self, the old grey-headed hermit/scholar, it is also the time of the fall ember days, when i must consider how that old hermit is doing. i find, in the words of what is perhaps the most-quoted poem of the twentieth century, that ". . .the end of all our exploring/will be to arrive where we started/and know the place for the first time."* always we begin again.

september is the beginning of the orthodox church year. the gospel readings are stories of our lord's resurrection. how wonderful to consider that in the midst of death, there is resurrection. i will spend this afternoon, i think, planting seeds.

ascension peregrinations

2010-08-10T10:16:00.001-07:00

my posts have been few lately, because i really have been peregrinating (wandering around): port angeles and the olympic peninsula; victoria, british columbia; seattle; and now bellingham and its environs. last week a few good friends and i celebrated the feast of the transfiguration on sehome hill, our own little local mt. tabor.

it was a wonderful celebration, with glory from generation to generation in the church, (ages 10 months to 64 years), a chrismation, the liturgy, first fruits of several delicious sorts. we reflected on how appropriate a time this feast is for a chrismation, in which each christian is actually christed and sent into the world to show the glory of christ to all she or he meets. and we wondered what we would meet when we came back down onto the plain below.

the dark satanic mills in the picture above are being dismantled now, not because we are really creating jerusalem on whatcom's green and pleasant land, but because it's cheaper to make toilet paper in china.

perhaps we did not meet individually the son tormented by daemons at the bottom of the hill, although he lives there, sleeping in apartments with windows covered with posters for rock bands whose names seem to be compounded from words chosen for their hopeful offensiveness, "hanging" on the corners of railroad avenue, waiting for his next fix. we do not meet him, that son (or her, that daughter) because they are legion and we no longer see them. they have become the wallpaper of our modern madness.

before we went up sehome hill, i spent an hour on the campus of western washington university trying to see each of the hundreds of people who walked by as the icon of god they have been created to be. i confess, it was very hard. now, in some cases i suspect that is because their icon is pretty dirty, covered with the garbage of the sin of the world. but it is also hard because i walk around in my sleep most of the time. i do not see christ in my sisters and brothers or anywhere. i need to wake up to see christ only. pray my peregrinations will not be sleep walking.

"manfully to fight under [christ;s] banner, against sin, the world, and the devil

2010-07-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

i looked early this morning at my e-mails to see if there were a report on the health of archbishop richard gundrey. there was, and it was good: he is home from the hospital and recovering well.

there was also this question: "what's your assessment of c.s. lewis these days, on his own merits and also in light of what's happened with fantasy literature since then . . . ? and george macdonald?"

i found it a helpful question, and i'm sharing my reply with whomever reads this blog:

ah, lewis & macdonald. your question comes at an appropriate time. my beach book is the once and future king. i only a few months ago read the inklings, which i found quite fascinating, and a good background for that hideous strength and perelandria, which i read soon thereafter. (i confess i have never read any of macdonald's works, but have been very impressed with charles williams; i read two of his novels from interlibrary loan, and want very much to find his poetry. if you have read that hideous strength then you know it's (and very much the inkling's) understanding that there is always a battle between england and albion--much like gurdjieff's wolf and lamb.

what most impresses me about lewis and the others of inklings is the quality of their dialogue, and that they most successfully expressed it in narrative. (lewis' four loves, for instance, although a wonderfully eradite (sp?) exposition, is wrong insofar as how greeks actually used their four words for love; but his descriptions of the ways of loving in perelandria is insightful anyway.) and of course central to their discussion was a consideration of the nature of the good and the existence and substance, if any, of evil. i was very disappointed but not surprised while being a fly on the wall yesterday at the adult forum at st. andrew's here in port angeles to hear adult churchmen who had no vocabulary to discuss this problem except that of the tabloids.

but fantasy literature also provides a vocabulary. evil does not go away if we ignore it. perhaps the screwtape letters is lewis' book which we most need. even if evil and our role to oppose it never comes up in today's pulpits in any way except that perhaps we should choose a good emperor, we know in our bowels that we are in a struggle. enter dowling, with whom you are much more familiar than i, who have only seen a few of the movies made from her books.

these books seem almost an affirmation of jung's collective unconscious, and a suggestion that if the church does not address such issues, or if the church is excluded from the public discussion of such issues, then they will be discussed without the church.

my question to you, . . . is why you are asking this question now, and whether the fantasy literature tends to portray magic in the way it is used by simon magus in the acts of the apostles and in the acts of peter?

one might suspect the current understanding of evil and our role in opposing it is probably well represented in the baptism and confirmation rites of the bcp 1979. still included are the traditional renunciations in the baptismal office, left there probably because the old fogies, bless their hearts, would not let them be removed; but the real center of it is the wonderfully pelagian baptismal covenant, which as . . . . a visitor from england [to eureka springs] . . . a few years ago noticed, is quite new. in the confirmation office and in the reaffirmation of baptismal vows, evil is hardly spoken of--not i think in the way that lord voltimor (sp?) in the harry potter books is not spoken of, but as a sort of anachronistic remnant from medievalism --while our vows are center stage again.

well. you've provoked me to write an essay before breakfast again. it's good to be provoked in such a way, one suspects. whatever lewis' faults, one cannot accuse him of not taking his baptism seriously, even though his self-identity as a christian first probably kept him from promotion at oxford.

as the doe longs for running streams

2010-07-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

the main reason for this post is to recommend a new-to-me blog of carl mccolman. i found his discussion of the differences between cataphatic and apophatic spirituality and the occasional struggles between those who practice either path helpful to me in my own attempt to find a balance within these practices, an attempt i mentioned in my pre post, "wild christianity."

during my sojourn in the pacific northwest, i am spending as much time as i can find sitting with creeks, usually whatcome creek, pictured above, or padden creek, which has little sand-bottomed swimming holes near its estuary. i like to think that this sitting is in the tradition of anthony of the desert, who said his scriptures were all of the holy one's creatins. and i find that my desire to see the unseeable has a even longer history. consider psalm 42:

"as a doe longs for running streams,
so longs my soul for you, my god.

my soul thirsts for god, the god of life;
when shall i go to see the face of god?"

wild christianity

2010-05-24T09:16:00.001-07:00

i had a bonfire for pentecost. actually, i had two bonfires for pentecost: on the first eve, as i was enjoying the smoke that reminded me of the cloud on the mountain, i thought that perhaps the better time for a fire would be on the second eve. so i had one on the second eve as well.

now, i know that pentecost, despite the cloven tongues of flame, is not primarily a fire festival. the fires of pentecost, like the fires of all hallow's, are about purifying us so that we can properly receive the holy spirit and become saints.

i need all the purification i can get. and i also need the sort of concrete presentation of how the holy one works that bon fires and other catholic superstitions provide. i am not just a rational person. on the other hand, i know better than to follow my emotions. so i thought the representation of christ on the high cross of muiredach at monasterboice is fascinating. on the left side of christ is the great god pan, with his pipes, while king david plays harp on his right. the tension between the two is resolved in christ, the perfect man.

or, why the english think the welsh are emotional

2010-05-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

i just started to move back to the pacific northwest, again, and then decided to stay in arkansas and just visit the majestic fjords of washington.

i also just finished reading shirley toulson's the celtic alternative, which is a book one wishes were true. one must also admit that much of what she writes is speculation, especially about the sources of celtic christianity, although she does seem to be on quite solid ground when she writes about celtic monasticism. and since yesterday was the feast of st. brendan, i read his navagatio during the long early summer twilight. there was too much lightning around to go out in my little boat.

but amidst the various bits of wisdom and historical improbabilities of toulan's book was this passage i found quite fascinating:

"the celts of the early church were travelers of an especial sort. occasional journeys could be interpreted as planned missionary projects; but often the instinct that motivated them to follow the example of abraham and leave a settled homestead at god's command was even more compelling than the urge to spread the gospel. yet unlike the true itinerant who knows no other home than his boat or his tent [,which was true for me for several years], they had an intense nostalgic yearning (the hiraeth of the welsh) for their homeland whenever they were away from it [,which has become true for me since coming to the ozarks]. this yearning was of an intensity matched by the desire to be on their travels again once they were at home. it was a desperate sort of restlessness, not unknown to many people today, although they acted it out in a more extreme fashion than most of us are able to do. they had no refuge in save tourism." (p. 80)

how true.

st. chad's hidden life

2010-05-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

although i met st. chad as the bishop of litchfield, who had been the humble bishop of york, his life at lastingham has come to be more meaningful to me. it is not really a hidden life, but it was much less public than his work as a bishop. he became abbot of lastingham on the death of his brother, cedd, and it would be at lastingham that he, too, would die.

it was at lastingham that chad was able to spend time in prayer and study, something almost as rare in today's world as walking. but if in today's world walking is very noticeable--i am know in eureka springs as "that walking guy," except by the younger folks who call me "that walking dude"--but no one knows what i do in my private life. st. chad provides a good example for me to pray and study.

but his prayer and his study were different from what comes so easily. his prayer was almost reflexive, and responded to the needs he saw around him as automatically as cnn responds to whatever is the news of today's moment. but prayer is probably a more effective response, sometimes a more compassionate response, than dispatching a person to tell us what is happening with no way to respond. and chad's study was what we would call medittion, or contemplation.

it is that example that makes me realize how much of my study is about god, rather than actually seeking to know the holy one. i need that example, each day.

being chosen by a patron: chad

2010-04-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

"walk in love, as christ loved us."

when i "founded" the order of st. chad,i knew very little about him. in truth, it was much more that st. chad "found" me. it had been his cross that led me to him: a greek cross with barred arms and a square at the center. if the jerusalem cross, with its little crosses in the four directions, suggests taking the gospel to the four corners of the world, it seemed to me that st. chad's cross, with its square, suggested living the gospel where one found oneself.

i had of course read bede's mention of chad (books iii, chapters 23, 24 & 28, and iv, chapters 2&3; chad's student trumhere was bede's tutor in scriptures). later i would read r. hyett warner's life and legends of saint chad, bishop of litchfield, (669-972) (wisbech: leach & son [,1871]), which has many more stories of chad at lastingham, where he followed his brother cedd as abbot. warner is concerned about the relation of the church in england to the roman church from almost the direct opposite perspective of the romanist bede. but at first there were but a few things that caught my attention from reading bede.

first, chad walked. i love walking, and find it convenient to use chad as an excuse. second, chad was humble. i'm far from humble and constantly find chad an encouraging example. third, chad lived in a time of considerable conflict about religius authority. i live in a similar time, and find chad an insightful guide.

the fascinating part has been how my casual adoption of st. chad has led to more and more discoveries about him and his times and myself and my times. the prayers of the saints are not to be scoffed at.

the order of st. chad

2010-04-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

i have mentioned the snowy morning in march of 1991 when then bishop richard gundrey received my provisional vows to poverty, obedience, and stability, an act which would lead to the founding of a little group of seven spiritual pilgrims called the order of st. chad, of which i was given the exalted-sounding title of director general.

the idea behind the order, as i found as i learned more about the traditions of monasticism, was not at all unusual: that there should be some support and encouragement for someone leading a life searching for intimacy with the holy one, while living in "the world."

of that seven, most of us have continued in the sort of path related to, at least, what we would grandly call "the rule of st. chad." two men became benedictines; one woman founded an orphanage in rural new mexico. i have lost touch with one of the original members, who was last heard from headed for the wilds of arizona, although i suspect he continues his rule there. one young man became more and more involved in his american indian ancestry. i have ended up in a very comfortable "disert" in eureka springs.

and i have come to a place in my life when i want to "re-boot" the order of st. chad. the original rule, although copies are stored safely in an archbishop's file cabinet somewhere, was lost to me in a hurricane in south carolina. but from my experience living with those vows over the past years, i am ready to issue a revised set of vows and rules for the order.

the first day of the week in john's gospel

2010-04-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

i am struck by the different behaviours of peter,john, and mary magdalene at the tomb that morning early on the first day of the week.

mary seems to be that part of each of us and of the church that is seeking truly to see god. her seeking, her catechumenate, even if it be unconscious to us, prompts peter, our active body, and john, our soul which the holy one loves, to join the search. the soul may be urgent, outrunning the body, but unless the body also enters into the mystery, it is limited. baptism preceeds mystagogy; then the soul believes. then usually we go back to our home.

but sometimes that truly seeking part of us, that womb within us which is the ark for the spirit, lingers, takes a second, and sees the lord who calls us by name.

the celtic church at the council of whitby claimed to be the church of john, and some contemporary folks seeking to recover celtic traditions make the same claim. but let us not dismiss too quickly the role of peter's church. urged on by the holy desires of mary, peter also has seen the lord, and has preserved the possibility of that vision and methods for of achieving it and sharing it (think of the sacraments and the vatican library), even if peter has not always seen the vision clearly himself. for the salvation of the world, for the understanding of the vision, peter and john must remain friends. they "went away again," remember, "unto their own home." (john 20:10) and they would be together in the iconic healing of the "man lame from his mother's womb" in the third chapter of acts (a story worthy of very careful reading).

"but mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping; and as she wept, she stooped down into the sepulchre and seeth two angels in white." then, "she turneth herself back, and saw jesus." most of us, i suspect, would feel pretty good about ourselves if we saw two angels. but mary--the true contemplative--turns herself away because she wants to see jesus, not some messenger no matter how well attired.

now obviously this text is rich with much more meaning than this feeble discussion, but even this cursory reading is, i think, useful as an indication of the function and values of different parts of our persons and of the church, parts we often hold in competition (consider the foolish popular discussion of the assumedly gnostic gospel of mary) or to rank. all are necessary. without the desire to see the lord, which is one of the major themes of john's gospel, then the organized church, with st. peter's basilica and st. john lateran, would be no more than a religious disneyland. but that part of us affirms that there is more to life than the emptiness of the tomb. st. john lateran is outside the walls--a very important image, because to understand the mystery we must always go outisde the walls. then supported by the church active and meditative life, the seed of holy desire flowers in contemplation.

by the way, one of the aspects of st. chad's life that makes him so remarkable was the way he held these three aspects of his person together. but that is a tale for another night.

fruit: consumers or producers

2010-03-31T07:15:00.000-07:00

walking this morning through the sunlight and the jonquil blooms and the birdsongs to the library this, where i use the computer, i saw a headline in the arkansas democrat gazette: "consumers' mood sunnier." am i the only one who finds living in a society which encourages us to define ourselves as "consumers" very unfortunate? once again that old serpent, the deceiver, tries to beguile us: "you will not die. we have the consumers' protection act."

of course central to our civilization's mythology is the story of the tree of good and evil and our first ancester's eating of it. they (we) have already everything we need, but there is one other thing, the forbidden thing, which we just must consume as well. it is not enough to know the good; we want to know good and evil.

this story, however one understands it, is compelling. we discuss it often. i have often remarked on a saturday about ten years ago when during the course of the day i was at four gatherings, of very various "religious persuasions," where the discussion turned to eve and adam and the apple.

not often in those discussions, however, is the role of obedience discussed. the gospel according to john is in many ways a commentary--a midrash if one wants to use a fancy word--on the first chapters of genesis. if that is a correct reading of john's work, then the tree of knowledge may not be an apple, as it is in so many paintings, but a vine. i think there are many benefits of considering the tree this way. think, for instance, of the story of noah and its outcome.

so, jesus has washed his disciples feet and told them a good many things about his leaving and the coming of the comforter, and they begin to walk to gesthemani. they pass the front of the temple, with its great golden carving of the vine. "i am the true vine," he says, "and my father is the husbandman. every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh it away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit. . . . if ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. herein is my father glorified, that ye bear much fruits; and so shall ye be my disciples. even as the father hath loved me, i also have loved you: abide ye in my love. if ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as i have kept my father's commandments, and abide in his love." (john 15:1 ff., rv)

there are great problems for people and nations when one ceases to be a producer and begins to be only a consumer. (need i mention the american economic demise?) william temple, in his wonderful little book, readings in st. john's gospel, discusses how one may be a producer (london: st. martin's, 1961, pp. 246-247):

"we are in the vine. are we bearing fruit? no amount of ascetic discipline or devotional fervour is a substitute for the practical obedience which alone is 'fruit.' that obedience however is not a matter of 'works,' though these will follow from it, and if they are lacking, there is no 'fruit.' obedience is to god's command; 'and this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his son jesus christ, and love one another even as he gave us commandment' (,i>i john iii, 23)."

so simple. but so unlike what i so often want to do.

paschal moon: christ our passover is sacrificed

2010-03-30T10:06:00.001-07:00

through the pine trees, i watched the paschal moon rise last night. it was a very poignant time. i kept thinking about jesus' last week before his crucifixion, with the moon becoming full over the mount of olives, the moon which is the lesser light, to rule the night, flooding jerusalem across the valley with it's pale light, the jerusalem that killed the prophets. i could not but think of the line in john's gospel (13:20), when judas iscariot had just gone out: "it was night."

for the past few years my lenten discipline has included a "word," as the desert fathers would say, a "koan" was our buddhist brothers and sisters say. my friend michael carroccino reminded me that i had put my musings on line in the past, and that he had found them helpful. i have not mentioned them so far this year, because another part of my discipline has been to try to blather less. but now that lent is turning into easter, it's time to consider some of my discoveries.

my word for the season has been from genesis:

"and the lord god planted a garden eastward in eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
and out of the ground made the lord god to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (2:8-9)

it is one of the most commented-upon pieces of writing in all the world. over the next few days i will share some of them. but for now i want to remark that almost all of the writers, from the first to the twentieth centuries, agree that eventually, the man would be granted the food of the tree of life. but, he should wait until the time was full. there is a bit of reflection of this in the collect for palm sunday:

"almighty and everliving god, who, of thy tender love
towards mankind, hast sent thy son our savior jesus christ
to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the
cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his
great humility: mercifully grant that we may both follow the
example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his
resurrection; through the same jesus christ our lord, who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the holy spirit, one god,
for ever and ever. amen."

"grant that we . . . may follow the example of his patience . . ."

within that context, the idea that now, at the full mooon, jesus' hour had come, becomes even more important. and it is not just our lord's hour, but the hour of the whole world. it is the hour, as s. matthew's gospel calls it, of the regeneration (19:28). there is a haunting scene in the movie, "the passion of the christ," in which jesus, carrying his cross, our tree of life, falls; mary his mother meets him, and he says to her, "look, mother. i am making all things new."
allthough we sometimes forget it, that is what we are remembering this week.

4 march: owen of lastingham, companion of chad

2010-03-04T12:13:00.000-08:00

st. chad's feast was the second of march, but chad has quite a following. one of his followers, owen, has a feast just two days later. owen was a monk at lastingham where chad had a cell and oratory. continuing the tradition of the celtic saints, chad often prayed all night while standing in the water. the well where he prayed is still at lastingham, although rather more decorous now. probably one would be discouraged from standing in it naked to pray.

we know of owen primarily because he was outside of chad's oratory, probably on st. matthias' day, and heard wonderful singing. when he asked chad, he was told that angels had joined the older saint in prayer, and told him that what he had heard were angels who had told him thatin one week they would return to escort his soul to heaven.

indeed, that was what happened: chad died seven days later after a short bout of what was probably yellow fever.

this is not an unusual story in the lives of orthodox saints. many of them are told when their day of repose will be, both in the celtic lands and in the east. modern "historians" of course discount these stories, saying that they are part of the necessary lore of hagiography. what i find distressing is that not only do modern historians discount these stories, but much of the "church" does as well. not only is the idea of angelic visitation considered impossible, but the belief in life that survives death is becoming less and less acceptable.

of course, if there is no afterlife, and no judgment, then whatever we can get away with is acceptable. we seldom say it so bluntly, but it is certainly how we live. consider haiti, whichi choose because it has received so much publicity lately. americans are busy contratulating ourselves because we are so generous in "aid" to haiti--although not so generous as we are in care of our pets, for instance. but we do not much consider that the present conditions in haiti are largely the result of american policy since haiti won its independence from france.

yes, of course, the problems of a place like haiti are complex and huge, and you or i cannot easily "fix" them quickly. it is always easier to knock humpty dumpty off the wall than it is to put him back together again. but to ignore the results of our everyday actions in the lives of those whom jesus called "the least of these" is not acceptable, either.

the feast of st. chad is also complex, too. chad has been my patron now for 18 years, and only this year did i learn that he is the patron of healing springs. how wonderful a concidence now that i live in eureka springs, and visit at least two healing springs almost every day.

st. brigid of kildare

2010-02-01T07:34:00.001-08:00

it is difficult to know where to start with brigid, or where to end. she is a wonderful and fascinating person in her own right: patron of milkmaids--i used that as an excuse for extra milk in my oatmeal this morning, and wished i had thought about her in time to have bought cream; the only woman bishop consecrated by st. mel(notice the crosier in her hand in her icon); dweller as much in eternity as in time, being claimed as a wet nurse to christ. but brigid is also an example of the continuity of celtic beliefs and practices as the celts came into christianity. her monastery, killdare, is the church of the oak, continuing the celtic appreciation of trees (which of course is but a continuation of the old testament appreciation of trees: think of the appearance of the holy one to abraham under the oak of mamre). the holy fire at killdare was tended until the monastery was destroyed by the neo-heathen puritans; it has lately been rekindled.

oddly enough, it has only very lately that there have been propers for st. brigid's feast. st. ignatius of antioch has tended to bump her from the altar. but i find that the common of a monastic seems to have been chosen with st. brigid in mind:

the epistle: philippians 3:7-15.

howbeit what things were gain to me, these have i counted loss for christ. yea doubtless, and i count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of christ jesus my lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of christ, the righteousness which is of god by faith: that i may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means i might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. not as though i had already attained, either were already perfect: but i follow after, if that i may apprehend that for which also i am apprehended of christ jesus. brethren, i count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing i do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, i press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of god in christ jesus. let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, god shall reveal even this unto you.

the gospel: st. luke 12:22-37

jesus he said unto his disciples, herefore i say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. the life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and god feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? and which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? if ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. if then god so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? and seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. for all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your father knoweth that ye have need of these things. but rather seek ye the kingdom of god; and all these things shall be added unto you.

fear not, little flock; for it is your fathers good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.

so, i will end with the collect:

oh god, by whose grace the blessed abbess brigid of kildare, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became a burning and a shining light in thy church: grant that we may be inflamed with the same spirit of discipline and love, and ever walk before thee as children of light; through jesus christ our lord.

plough monday

2010-01-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

one of the many celtic celebrations we've pretty much lost is plough monday. since fewer and fewer of us are farmers these days, and more and more of us "celebrate" christmas by working more and more during advent and "the holidays," it makes sense that we would not celebrate the resumption of work after a period of time off. most of us did not make our advent wreath by taking a wheel off the wagon, so we don't need to put it back. we are more likely to look at today as another "blue monday" than as a holiday.

but there is, i think, a way we who do not live in the scilly islands can still benefit from this day, the monday after the first sunday after the epiphany. remember the reading from the gospel for christmas day, when we were told that "mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart"? there is a refrain of that idea in the gospel for the first sunday after the epiphany, when we are told that "his mother kept all these sayings in her heart." we should follow mary's lead and keep these sayings [from the christmas season] and ponder them in our hearts as well. it is very easy quickly to get caught up in the next rush, which i guess in the year of the church of "it's-the-economy-stupid" is valentine's day, when we are supposed to buy diamonds, and if not diamonds, then at least very expensive candy.

we can keep something from the season just ending quietly within our hearts through each of the days ahead. it may be a particular reading, or carol, or something we have heard a friend say. it can be something as simple as the words from a child's carol. but it can be for us as a mantra, so that we might live somewhat as we are told every year by someone announcing a holiday parade or a news story about a soup kitchen, who tells us how wonderful it would be if every day were christmas. my choice for a child's carol was probably sung by each of us. here are some of its words, to keep in my heart on plough monday:

"how silently, how silently
the wondrous gift is given!
so god imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven.
no ear may his his coming,
but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive him still,
the dear christ enters in.

o holy child of bethlehem
descend to us, we pray
cast out our sin and enter in
be born to us today."

veni immanuel

2009-12-18T11:49:00.000-08:00

ah, this recording of the great o antiphons by loreen mckennitt seems to have the feeling of the winter coast of ireland in it.

imprisoned priests: thomas cramner and john of the cross

2009-11-24T13:01:00.001-08:00

i have just finished reading diarmaid mcculloch's huge biography of thomas cranmer. it was one of the most imformative books i've read in a while, and i find it inhabits my dreams. it has also done much to confirm my opinion that i find cranmer a much better writer than theologian, and has broadened my understanding of the complex ways in which what has come to be "the church of england" and "anglicanism" has been formed by the vagarities of english foreign policy.

cranmer famously spend the last several months of his life in prison, first in london and then in oxford. it was in oxford that he was burned for treason and heresy. just before his death, he was "visited" by spanish friars, who allegedly convinced him to recant. then of course he recanted his recanting in his last sermon in the oxford cathedral.

things were a little easier for john of the cross, who was a monk, not a friar, but who was also considered for a while at least a heretic by some of his own order, the carmelites. they were a little gentler in spain than in england, at least at that time, and he was released from his cell, although his life was not easy after that; he remained for all practical purposes still a prisoner.

i am reading john of the cross's poems as a sort of chaser to cranmer, partly because of the spanish connection to cranmer's last days, and partly because today is john's feast.

i am struck by how entirely differently cranmer and john of the cross approach truth. cranmer recognized that he was no poet. s. john was a consumate poet, and must have been aware of the gift, since most of his writings were commentaries on his own poems. what i find ironic is that the truth that has endured in cranmer's writings, the truth we find today, is what is expressed in the poetic nature of his prose. despite his anguished efforts to say exactly one thing at a time, whether about where authority is found in the church, or how we are saved, or what happens in the liturgy, his readers have found, again and again, many meanings, sometimes contradictory, often meanings the archbishop would have rejected angrily.

ultimately, i find both thomas cranmer and s. john of the cross, if not proof, then surely strong corraboration that the only safe way to "do theology" is apophatically. so i'm back to read more of john of the cross. i leave you with his

"i came into the unknown"

"i came into the unknown
and stayed there unknowing
rising beyond all science.

i did not know the door
but when i found the way,
unknowing where i was,
i learned enormous things,
but what i felt i cannot say,
for i remained unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

it was the perfect realm
of holiness and peace.
in deepest solitude
i found the narrow way:
a secret giving such release
that I was stunned and stammering,
rising beyond all science.

i was so far inside,
so dazed and far away
my senses were released
from feelings of my own.
my mind had found a surer way:
a knowledge of unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

and he who does arrive
collapses as in sleep,
for all he knew before
now seems a lowly thing,
and so his knowledge grows so deep
that he remains unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

the higher he ascends
the darker is the wood;
it is the shadowy cloud
that clarified the night,
and so the one who understood
remains always unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

this knowledge by unknowing
is such a soaring force
that scholars argue long
but never leave the ground.
their knowledge always fails the source:
to understand unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

this knowledge is supreme
crossing a blazing height;
though formal reason tries
it crumbles in the dark,
but one who would control the night
by knowledge of unknowing
will rise beyond all science.

and if you wish to hear:
the highest science leads
to an ecstatic feeling
of the most holy being;
and from his mercy comes his deed:
to let us stay unknowing,
rising beyond all science."

6 november: st. illtyd of llanilltud fawr

2009-11-09T08:32:00.000-08:00

i have been reading jean leclerq's the love of learning and the desire for god: a study of monastic culture (new york: fordham university press, 1961), and i am struck again by how much of the current antogonism betwen "science" and "religion" originated in the twelfth century as the practices of the schools and the monasteries diverged.

in that context, i am encouraged by the collegiate and monastic community of st. illtyd at llanilltud fawr, where many of the most illustrous of welsh and cornish scholar saints and bishops were trained. illtyd was described by his student samson as "the most learned of all britons in the knowledge of scripture, both the old testament and the new testament, and in every branch of philosophy--poetry and rhetoric, grammar and arithmetic, and he was most sagacious and gifted with the power of telling future events."

the result of the loss of real education has results so obvious they hardly need mentioning: "sciences" whose primary gifts are splintering of societies into groups in which all the "individuals" have guns to solve their problems and the "sovereign nations" have weapons of mass destruction to solve their problems, and "religions" which have produced people who are "spiritual" but not religious.

of course there were problems in wales of the late fifth century. but there was also a comprehensive understanding of the solutions, taught by st. illtyd and his students, which we seem to have lost. might there be a solution not in trying to produce more "renaissance men [and women]" but in educating more of the sort of christians who came from st. illtyd's school? we will not know, of course, unless we make the efforts to return to an understanding of all knowledge as coming from one source, and serving one lord.

hallowed flames

2009-11-03T07:37:00.000-08:00

it was by no means a bonfire. the closest i had to bones of animals, slaughtered for the feast because there is not enough food for them to winterover, was an empty pizza box. i had dived the dumpster for it, and put the five slices of pizza--with olives and artichokes--into bread bags: enough to feast for the octave. i thought of burning the box, but put it back into the dumpster instead.

nor was it a samwain fire. i had seen the misinformation of the history channel, claiming the sinister catholic church had somehow taken over a fine feast it claimed had been celebrated by the celts in ireland 3,000 years ago. bah! there were no celts in ireland 3000 years ago, and the church had been in ireland 300 years, celebrating all saints' day on the sunday after pentecost, when pope gregory iii changed the calendr to make all saints' day fall on the first of november. it was a minor part of what the celtic christians resisted in the practices of rome, but resist they did for about 200 years.

pope gregory's reorganization was part of the western church's structuring of the calendar as a round of eight feats of our lord, with remembrances of mighty acts and the prophecies or explanations of them, at the solstices, equinoxes, and the "cross-quarter days," halfway in between.

christmas, the feast of the nativity of christ jesus, is balanced by the feat of the birth of the last of the great prophets, john the forerunner. caldlemass, the presentation of christ in the temple, halfway to easter, is a proclamation of christ as light, seen more clearly six months later at the feast of the transfiguration. lest we forget the role of the cross in the paschal feast at the spring equinox, we are reminded in the exaltation of the holy cross at the fall equinox.

and the gift of the holy spirit bringing new life to the small gathering on pentecost, when seven-tongued flames of fire danced on their heads, is remembered by my little fire at all hallows day as the gift of the holy spirit to all believers in the truth of the trinity.

halloween has long been one of my favourite holidays, but i did not always understand it this way. i was raised in a pleasant southern baptist church that really had only three big feasts. the one with the clearest liturgical celebration was mothers' day, with a distribution of roses: no matter how we may deny her, the role of the mother will out. christmas was semi-liturgical: there was the pageant. i still remember the smell of the gum arabic of my wise man's brown beard, and the soft rustle of my father's wine coloured silk dressing gown. but we did not sing "once in royal david's city," nor did we hear of the incarnation, john's gospel having been reduced to a single verse, and ahab somehow having become our favourite king.

we slightly celebrated easter, wearing new clothes and getting junk food from the easter bunny. it mostly seemed an embarfassment to our pastor, who felt perhaps that he should condemn such shenanigans but who never quite knew why.

the other holiday, the third great feast, was valentine's day, when we had the sweet heart banquet. i found among my mother's photo's a complete documentation of my sweetheart banquet dates. i had only remembered ramona baswell.

it was a banquet rather than a dance, such as the sinful methodists had, because we did not dance. perhaps it was david's ecstatic dancing that had bumped him from our pantheon to make room for ahab.

over the years i learned more about the feats of the church, but all saints' has remained one of my favourites. my ordination to the priesthood was on all saints' day. i spent most of the night before, hallowe'en, praying with the theotokos, then i went dancing. i remember that one of the songs was "my own personal jesus."

all of this was in the background of my little fire, but there was more to develop in the foreground as the light shone in the darkness.

one of the advantages of being a solitary is that there is no pressure to hurry vigils. in conflated three published vigils, two for "the even of all saints," and one, with bones and witches, for "all hallows eve." my readings and psalms and prayers started with the promises to abraham, and progressed through stories such as daniel in the lions' den and eliphaz's vision in the night and the martyrdom of the maccabess to the war in heaven. i added a mug of coffee in memory of the saints of ethiopia, being particularly grateful for the seven desert monks who took their practices to wales and ireland. i smoked a cigarette in memory of the early native american martyrs, even peter the aleut, who probably didn't smoke.

of course, i didn't want it to end, so when it became too dark to read, i pondered the stars whose numbers that clear night rivaled that of the descendents of abraham.

but it did end, and that most wonderfully, and with another understanding of my little fire. i had put the last of the wood on the fire when two friends walked up, wanting to sing compline. so we did, once more chanting the song of old simeon who waited in the temple to see the saviour of israel:

"lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word,
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
which thou has prepared before the face of all people;
to be a light tolighten the gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people israel."

my friends departed in peace, and i went back to the fire. i had not ceased from wondering, so i came back to where i had begun. the fullsome moon was now high, the moon of the beginning of genesis "for signs and for seasons."

and i knew it was a camp fire. i was on the same journey as abraham, a journey of the children of israel, in stages. i knew that the next morning in the liturgy i would hear of its end in the new jerusalem. i knew i would break my fast with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven. but for now i had, in the phrase of one of the hymns from my baptist boyhood, "a foretaste of glory divine." julian had her hazelnut. i had my little campfire. it was enough.

the feast of st. gall

2009-10-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

an often overlooked part of the "collateral damage" of the american military adventure in the near east is the price paid by arab christians. american smart bombs recognize them no better than did the european crusaders, and their non-christian neighbors are able to be convinced that since they are christians and america claims to be christian, they must be on the side of the enemy.

the problems caused the church by being involved with the state is nothing new. as st. columbanus and st. gall travelled across europe, being part of the "irish who saved civilization," they constantly found themselves befriended and the betrayed by the various local princes who were in constantly changing alliances with or against the pope or the emperor.

yet st. gall managed to continue the tradition of the irish monks at his monastery until the eighth century. whether this saved civilization or not, it did keep alive a strand of christianity which was often strenuously opposed by a papacy whose primary dogma more and more seemed to be its own power.

some scholars suggest that the areas in europe which were evangelized by the irish missionaries such as columbanus and gall and willibord were more inclined to rebel against the papacy at the time of the reformation because of the suppression they had experienced. if that is so, their revolt went many times far beyond what would have been approved by the irish missionaries. the orthodox faith brought by st. gall to switzerland was often abused in the collateral damage of the reformation.

but, just as the christians in palestine have survived, despite their difficulties, the orthodox faith does as well. and i am very delighted that the far-flung members of christ's holy catholic church are sometimes recognizing each other more clearly than did the crusaders. this new brotherhood of st. herman calendar is devoted to the orthodox saints of pre-scism britain. i'm looking forward to reading what it says about st. gall.

the feast of st. michael

2009-09-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

the calendar of the church is a fascinating creation, which i have studied for a long time. one of the first projects i pursued after my ordination was a round of prayers for the church year based on what i could find of the celtic church's calendar. although there was a major publisher interested, i was dissatisfied, and only made some xeroxed, spiral-bound copies for friends. i wish i still had one, i guess.

i have a friend who finds the whole calendar thing just wrong, citing, of course, paul. he insists that each day is like any other, and he celebrates the whole of what our lord has done for us every day. i confess i find his understanding of what the lord has done for us, and his celebration, to be rather wan.

i have another friend who is a practicing hindu, who claims that she received shaktipat when she met her guru. i think that means she got the whole thing in an instant. her life remains one of longing and terror, however.

for slow learners like me, the calendar, or calendars, as the church throughout the world has several variations, is helpful in presenting some view of the pearl of great price nearly every day, with major viewings on the feasts of our lord.

st. michael's day is one of the second level of feasts, important but not so important as feasts of jesus christ himself. often, saints are commemorated on the days of their deaths. st. michael, being immortal, does not fall into that category. another common source of date is the finding (the invention) or the moving (the translation) of a saint's relics. st. michael has no relics. a third is the dedication of a church to the patronage of a saint. this is the source of 29 september as the feast of st. michael, at least for part of the church. but there are twelve different feasts of st.michael scattered throughout the world, based on miracles attributed to the archangel or some dedication. the abyssinian church celebrates michael on the twelvth of each month.

i love the simplicity of the story which led to the founding of the church of st. michael on mount gargano, because it illustrates the close proximity of the world of angels and the world of mortals. the lord of septanto was looking for a lost cow on that mountain, which he saw in a cave. in his anger at the beast for straying, he aimed an arrow at it. the arrow hit instead his own bare foot. he reported the event to his bishop, lorenzo, who investigated the site and was rewarded with a vision of the messenger, who said, "i am michael; i am always in the presence of god. the shrine to the event is pictured above.

the interweaving of the lives of angels and mortals is also reflected in the english church's collect for the day:

"o everlasting god, who hast ordained and constituted the service of angels and men in a wonderful order; mercifully grant that, as thy holy angels always do thee service in heaven, so, by thy appointment, they may succour and defend us on earth; through jesus christ our lord, who reigns with thee and the holy ghost, one god, through ages of ages. amen."

st. oswald of northumbria: 5 august

2009-08-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

it might seem strange that i would choose maddox brown's painting of aidan kissing oswald's hand for today's post, unless one knows much about oswald's hands.

oswald famously prayed sitting, with his hands on his knees, open and facing up. when on one easter feast there was a crowd of hungry subjects outside, he sent the silver platter from which he was going to eat to the crowd, and asked that the platter then be broken up and shared amongst the poor. aidan, impressed by the king's generosity, took his right hand and said, "may this hand never wither." when oswald was killed at age 38, on the fifth of august, at maserfelth, the mercians took his head and hands as trophies. his brother oswy recovered them, and the incorrupt hand is still among the relics of durham cathedral.

therefore these excerpt from the prayers for st. oswald's day from the northumbria community are particularly meaningful:

"all that i am, lord,
i place into your hands.
all that i do, lord,
i place into your hands.

"everything i work for
i place into your hands.
everything i hope for
i place into your hands.

"the troubles that weary me
i place into your hands.
the thoughts that disturb me
i place into your hands.

"each that i pray for
i place into your hands.
each that i care for
i place into your hands.

. . .

"lord, hasten the day
when those who fear you in every nation
will come from the east and west,
from north and south,
and sit at table in your kingdom.
and, lord,
let your glory be seen in our land.

. . .

"keep me close to you, lord.
keep me close to you.
i lift my hands to you, lord,
i lift them up to you."

celtic daily prayer (harpersanfrancisco, 2002), pp. 154-157.

little pilgrimages

2009-07-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

i have come to black bass "lake," a park all improved since i was last here nearly two years ago. despite all the new fences and signs, of improvement, the creek still falls over a rough ledge abut forty yards below the damn, and i sit to listen to its psalm, in an area marked "pedestrians prohibited." it's one of the worst examples of officialese i've yet encountered. the whole world cries out for more pedestrians, more people willing to walk in love as christ loved us, and here, in this place beautiful despite its damnation by our greed, greed erects its signs.

but that is the nature of the whole groaning creation, isn't it? so this seems like a very good place for a little pilgrimage.

i slowly make the circuit of the impoundment, stopping to say the psalms of ascent, wondering whether the good people of eureka springs could see what they have done to this gulch as "the scorn of the proud."

and i am blessed in many ways. one is particularly remarkable. two years ago, before the place became a city park, i spent the night, something now forbidden under the homeland security act. then i woke to watch four does dancing in the early mornings mists at the shallow end of the impoundment. this year, walking along the perepheral trail, i met the stag who is probably their father. he has the largest rack of antlers i've ever seen around here. we nod to one another, and each continues on his pilgrimage.

old school education: let it begin

2009-07-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

some of you have been privy to my struggle with what to do and how to do it. with so much of the church in what seems to be, in r. r. reno's wording, ruins, it has sometimes been difficult for me to see how to proceed. i profoundly believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church, and if that church is not visible, if it remains some sort of nebulous body to be revealed at some future time or only in eternity, then it's mission becomes rather hard to see.

as has so often been true in the past, my archbishop, richard gundrey, helped me again to see both the mission of the church and my own mission. talking last month about difficulties of jurisdictions and divisions, paraphrasing st. paul a bit, he reminded me that there were no laws against doing what i felt called to do, and that my consecration and commissioning were all the authority i needed. sometimes occam's razor rules.

so, dismayed by the puttering professionalism of what most often passes for theological education these days, my old and dear friend j. michael matkin and i are letting our nets down into the deep and starting a new effort to promote the sort of old school christian formation that happened at lindesfarne under st. aidan.

the official start-up date will be st. aidan's feast, 31 august a. d. 2009. it will be a place for mystagogia not only for those seeking ordination in the church, but "for all who seek god or a deeper knowledge of him." we plan to organize it around the ember days, with most prayer and study done in homes, connected by internet and mail and telephone, with quarterly intensive residence sessions. the first "course," a sort of mystagogy 101, will explore the readings and prayers of the great paschal vigil, leading up to our death in christ that is our baptism.

as our plans become firmer, we will have other posts here. if this sounds like something in which you would be interested, or if you have suggestions for what you would hope st. aidan's might provide, leave your e-mail address as a comment on this post. and pray for our success, please.

of the making (and gathering) of books

2009-07-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

it is a mild monday morning, before the sun climbs the hazed blue sky of summer, piebald with small high clouds, and i am sitting on my friends the matkins' porch in mcalester, oklahoma. there are fewer or at least quieter birds here than in eureka springs. the wind hums softly in the maple and the sycamore. once again i am enjoying elaborate hospitality completely un-deserved on my part. i find this amazing, and a bit scary. in the morning office i was reminded that the son of man has no place to lay his head.

the 8:00 o'clock priest yesterday at all saints compared himself to john the baptist, but, even after 47 years of service, he was in no danger of being jailed. have i looked back too often to be a follower of jesus? have the pillars of the church become pillars of salt?

my path is littered with false starts. the road behind me, traces of which are here in mcalester, is marked not so much by the way of my daily cross, as by book plates of the holy cross library. as i ponder these thoughts the wind words speak, cry out, loudly in maple and sycamore.

one of michael's books, one about bibliomania, is called a gentle madness. this madness is not one that obviously casts me to the ground, although there is some foaming at the mouth.

but i justify my madness to myself this morning by naming it the communion of the saints: my way of conversation with gregory of nyssa and ephrem of syria. as i think these thoughts the wind words return to a gentle hum. i pray they are not a ground bass to my own prelest.

4 july: the holy royal martyrs of russia

2009-07-04T22:38:00.001-07:00

and what has moscow to do with northumbria? or why might i commemorate the murders of the russian royal family on the day most of the united states is setting off explosives to commemorate the american colonial rebellion against england?

some who know me might dismiss me as a recusant tory. they might be right in so classifying me, but i think not in dismissing me. we tend to think of revolutions as an acceptable way of achieving short-term political purposes; we tend not to remember the horrors that most often follow them. the french terror might have been a clue. no one can truly number the millions who were slaughtered following the communist revolution in russia, most of whom were christians, killed for being christians. (to be fair to the leninists and stalinists and their followers, they did not limit themselves to christians, but they did particularly single out christians, both orthodox and protestant.)

they started with the czar and his family, not only murdering them but dismembering the bodies and scattering the remains.

there were of course many jews at the time of jesus' life on earth who wanted a revolution. but our lord insisted his kingdom was not of this earth. and i think it can be demonstrated that the celtic church also recognized the futility of violence as an evangelical tool.

but beyond the question of the politics of "the celtic church," there is also the gift that all christians have of being first citizens of the kingdom of god, in which all our brothers and sisters in christ, whether they be russian or welsh or american, are "very members incorporate in the mystical body of [god the] son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs through hope of [the] everlasting kingdom," and that this hope is not the result of any political actions which we may make, but it is "by the merits of [our lord's] most precious death and passion."

ascension thursday

2009-05-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

what's going on in the hills, this may morning?
look at it all, the gold on the broom and the laburnum,
the shoulders of the thorntree bright with its surplice,
the ready emerald of grass, the quiet calves;

the chestnut trees have their candlesticks alight,
hedgerows are kneeling, the birch is still as a nun,
the cuckoo's two notes over the hush of bright streams
and a ghost mist bending away from the mead's censer;

from the council houses men come--oh come out before
the rabbits all scatter! with the weasel come and see
a wafer immaculate lifted from the earth
and the father kiss the son in the white dew.

--saunders lewis

16 may: st. brendan's journey and ours

2009-05-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

st. brendan is one of the best-known of all celtic saints. had he never made his famous journey, the account of which was as popular in the twelth century as angels and demons will be next week, he would still be remembered as a founder of monasteries, the total population of which has been claimed to be 3,000 monks.

but he did make his journey. whether it is history or legend has been discussed often, but it is still celebrated today in music, and tim severin has proved it could have been done.

still, the most important part of the journey as it is recorded in written account is not the facts so much as the structure of the facts.

before he embarks on his journey, the saint makes a forty-day fast and a trip up a mountain where he prays:

"shall i abandon the comforts and benefits of my home,
seeking the island of promise our fathers knew long ago,
sail on the face of the deep where no riches or fame
or weapons protect you, and nobody honours your name?
shall i take leave of my friends
and my beautiful native land,
tears in my eyes
as my knees mark my final prayer in the sand?
king of the mysteries, can i trust you on the sea?

christ of the heavens,
and christ of the ravenous ocean wave,
i will hold fast to my course
through the dangers i must brace,
king of the mysteries, angels will watch over me,
christ of the mysteries, when i trust you on the sea."
(celtic daily prayer, p. 179)

then he sets out in a coracle made of cow hides for the land of the blessed of which he has heard. his journey on the sea is uncharted, but his way through it is marked by the festivals of the church year. most famous of his stops is the great three days of pascha, which he and his companions celebrate on the back of a great beast, reminding us of the hymn "christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life."

he is told by a holy man whom he meets, and who brings them what they need for their liturgies, that he will find his goal in seven years. after five years, he returns home, where st. ida, who had fostered brendan, tells him that he will never reach his destination "on these soft, dead skins . . . build boats of timber, and you will find the country your are seeking from god." after another two years of celebrating the feasts, they reach their goal. "when they saw paradise in the midst of the ocean waves, they marvelled at the wonders of god and his power." wisdom of the celtic saints, pp. 62-63.

brendan's journey parallels our own, celebrating the wonders of god and his power through the cycles of the year as we come to find the goal not attainable in the skins that clothed the old adam, but only in the wood of the cross.

"brendan's example speaks to us each: have i the courage to leave the familiar and journey into the unknown? to journey beyond the way i have prayed, the life i have lived, the sensible and the secure? to trust god to take me beyond these familiar shores?

"christ of the mysteries, can i trust you on the sea?" (celtic daily prayer, p. 179)

14 may: seeing a blue jay

2009-05-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

for those of us who are slackers and pray the psalter monthly rather than weekly, this morning"s psalms included these lines:

"thy name . . . is so nigh;
and that do thy wondrous works declare." (75:2)

i read these lines sipping my coffee on the edge of the great holler, with many oaks and one most magnificant sycamore swaying gently, graciously letting me share their lauds, and so i thought upon reading these words, amen, amen.

but then i walked down into another holler, and looked down upon a blue jay, eating his breakfast. he was a wondrous work indeed.

my place of resurrection

2009-05-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

today is the first warm, humid day of summer this year in eureka springs, a kind of weather no one seems to have described so well as thomas merton in the sign of jonas, writing about fire watch on the fourth of july. it will be hotter, perhaps, on the fourth of july, but the muggy embrace of the pine-scented air will be the same.

i find today to be a special gift to me. for the second time, i have tried to leave this place, and found myself unable to do it. three years ago, when i first visited this land of limestone for what i thought would be a week's retreat, i could not force myself to the ticket office in fayetteville to buy a ticket back. now, after telling myself and my landlord and my friends that i was moving back to the pacific northwest, i find i cannot. i will visit. but for reasons which i do not understand but which i trust to be the compulsion of the spirit, this is where i will stay. and today i remember last summer in the cool fir-scented air of bellingham, missing the heat of the lime-stone hills while watching whatcom creek rush over georgeous sandstone.

early celtic christians sought out what they called the place of their resurrection: the place where they would be buried, and therefore where they would be resurrected. it seems i have found mine. now the task is to be faithful in the time before my burial.

the end of lent: st. mary of egypt

2009-04-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

on either calendar, lent is coming to an end. i was delighted to find that shirley hughson's athletes for god: a saint a day commemorates st. mary of egypt on the 9th of april. most of the church puts her on the 1st or 2nd, but since zosimus found her body as he was taking her communion on maundy thursday, this year's coincidence is particularly delightful.

mary of egypt is celebrated in the synaxis of the fifth sunday of great lent as an example of what real repentance can accomplish, what the english church prays throughout lent in one of archbishop cramner's most successful collects:

almighty and everlasting god, who hatest nothing that thou hast made and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the god of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through jesus christ our lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the holy spirit, one god, for ever and ever. amen.

my own penitance has, i'm afraid been pretty sketchy this lent, as usual. i have missed rising for matins as often as not, my fasting has amounted to very little, if the mirror is any measure, and my giving started off well enough but sort of coasted to a halt.

and yet, i believe god still forgives me, not because of what i have done but because of who he is and what he has done.

and yet, despite my rather slight measures, this lent has been a time of greater clarity for me in many ways. i am always willing to try to do anything except be constant in what has seemed for years to be a calling to solitude. but i think the time has finally come for me to make peace with it. it is at the same time the solution to my lenten koan, and a gift from reading unseen warfare, where theophan writes: "the enemy strives to destroy the peae of the soul, because he knows that when the soul is in turmoil it is more easily led to evil. but you must guard your peace, since you know that when the soul is peaceful, the enemy has no access to it; then it is ready for all things tht are good and does them willingly and without difficulty, easily overcoming all obstacles." (ii, 23)

st. mary of egypt and the solitary life are both almost entirely contradictory to and disdained by "modern life." but, modern life has proven singularly inefficient at providing peace, has it not?

st. john of the ladder: 30 march

2009-03-31T11:33:00.001-07:00

st. john of the ladder is one of the more unusual saints. he was a syrian, but is claimed in spirit at leastby the celtic church, is celebrated by both the eastern and western church with a feast day, 30 march, and he is also celebrated in the mid-lent synaxis by the eastern church. his book, the ladder of divine ascent is the only book with its own icon. it is traditionally read during lent in monasteries.

a brief outline of his life is available on the website of st. john of the ladder orthodox church in piedmont, south carolina.

+dale: rebooted

2009-03-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

it has been a few days since i've posted anything, but that does not mean that i have not been busy: i have been trying to discern "what next?" how do i best carry out my ordination vows, trying to see the one holy catholic and apostolic church and to serve her in a world gone full-bozy zonkers while the church chases after?

it has been helpful to read about the struggles of earlier men who have had the same struggle. i have read john henry cardinal newman's apologia and maria trench's story of dr. pusey's life.

the struggle for me has been whether my own position was that of newman, before he famously "went over to rome:" that i had been ordained in a part of the church that was not merely scismatic but invalid, or whether pusey was right, as he fought for the church to remain orthodox against the growing tide of modernism.

on page 542 of trench's book is a quote that has helped me immensely, written as the church of england was debating whether to withdraw the athanasian creed from its worship:

"that a church which would withdraw from public worship . . . the athanasian creed would, in the convictions of thusands of its members, no longer be the same church as that in which we were baptized, and which at our ordination we vosed to serve. . . . it would not be my own orders, but her character, as having abandoned the trust committed to her, which would be brought into question."

i was ordained in a lineage as mongrel as barak obama's family tree, combining old catholic and syrian and coptic and malabar apostolic successions, the purpose of which marriage i understood to be the preservation of these ancient traditions in the west at a time when the continued existence of them in the post-colonial wars seemed uncertain. alas, the followers of that lineage these days have withdrawn from those traditions, and i no longer feel it possible to continue with them.

but, i also know the vows i made and the tradition i received, and so i am excited to explore the celtic and syrian traditions which have been given to me, seeking to remain faithful to the celtic, the western orthodox, church.

celtic and syrian and coptic? you might wonder. the answer is at the base of most of the high crosses in ireland, where the meeting of paul of thebes and anthony of the desert is usually the bottom panel. the wonderful tradition is that seven monks from the desert came to ireland around the beginning of the fourth century, bringing the teachings of the desert fathers to that green land: western orthodoxy; an understanding of the faith onc held which needs, i firmly believe, to be held today, despite the anxiety that it is unfashionable.

so, i ask the most holy theotokos, blessed chad, blessed bridgit, blessed john the wonderworker, all the saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me as i begin this next part of my pilgrimage.

joseph of arimathea: also on 17 march

2009-03-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

of all the legends surrounding the "hidden years" of jesus, which according to luke's gospel weren't hidden at all but rather usual for a jewish boy growing up in first-century nazareth, my favourite is that he was taken by his foster-father joseph of arimathea on a trip to cornwall to trade for tin.

the legend continues that after the resurrection joseph returned to cornwall to become a missionary to the british. and although there's certainly a big of perhaps-unwanted gnosticism to william blake in general, and a certain chiliasim in the last verse, i of course still love the the great hymn, "jerusalem".

(of course, there's another and wonderfully ancient legend about the conversion of britain, too, connected to st. aristobulus of 16 march.

2 march: the feast of st. chad

2009-03-02T11:58:00.000-08:00

there is snow under the pine trees this morning, reminding me of the snowy morning by the pine tree at amelia white park in santa fe eighteen years ago when i took chad as my patron in my journey with christ. chad the barefoot walker who recognized that fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom.

my faithfulness in that journey has been far from consistent.

now i am in the ozarks, back to the place i was sent 14 years ago, on a morning with snow under the pines once again. the pine underneath which i took my first vows of obedience, poverty, stability, and chastity, has been cut down. in its place is an ugly statue. that's it in the picture above. one that statue is plaque that i can only paraphrase: be careful what you do here. simple acts can have great consequences. i came back to the ozarks on what i thought to be a retreat, to spend some time in silence, listening to the wind words. ah, that can be a dangerous thing to do.

on this second day of march, the feast of st. chad, bishop of mercia. i find the wind owrds saying, inconveniently at this time when once again there is no king in israel, albeit the new israel, and every man does as he pleases, to call for a return to the faith that has been given to us by the apsotles, to call us to receive it. alas, this morning's matins reading for a patron saint who is a bishop is from the tenth chapter of the gospel according to matthew: go to the lost sheep of the house of israel. so, i pray this morning, under the tall pines among which i know dwell, for the grace to be cunning as serpents and yet as harmless as doves. amen.

18 february: st. colman

2009-02-21T08:02:00.000-08:00

st. colman is remembered nowadays mostly, alas, as the "loser" at the council of whitby. as esther de waal reminds us in an essay she wrote for i have called you friends, in honor of frank t. friswold, "[whitby] was no more than a local council, common enough at the time, called by a politically motivated king for immediate practical reasons."* that is true so far as it goes. true enough, whitby was a local council, called mostly to allow domestic tranquility for oswy and his wife eanflaed. i myself have argued for an easter date corresponding to the actual equinox rather than to a mis-predicted one, and i follow neither of the customs of tonsure considered at whitby. what makes whitby so important, however, is not what was decided, but how it was decided.

to quote miss de waal: "when the saxon wilfred finished speaking, the king asked 'with a smile, that famous question: "tell me which is greater in the kingdom of heaven, columba or the apostle peter?"'"**

this morning's gospel reading for matins was peter's confession, according to mark (8:29=9:2). it is the tradition from the second century that mark's gospel is based on the recollections of peter, and in mark's account of peter's confession there is no basis for petrine primacy, no rock of the church, no keys. perhaps this is because peter well knew jesus' answers to the questions about greatness in the kingdom.

oswy asked the wrong question. wilfred gave the wrong answer. there is no "greater" in the kingdom of heaven, at least not knowable to us mortals. both peter and columba learned humility in their lives, and so both may be considered "great" in the kingdom. but neither would, i suspect, claim to be greater than the other, and certaitly any greatness they achieved was not inherited by future abbots of iona nor by bishops of rome.

unfortunately, rather than being a mark of unity, as miss de waal suggests, whitby came to be used as a precedent for the papal split of the church, resulting in lack of communion between the eastern and western church, and presenting a problem in the english church which has been only partially and painfully solved in the post-tudor english church.

*"a fresh look at the synod of whitby: a mark of unity and reconciliation," in i have called you friends (cambridge, massachussets: cowley publications), p. 31.

**bid, p. 39. de waal quotes bede, iii, 25.

17 february: st. finan

2009-02-17T08:40:00.000-08:00

the morning dawns warily, with clouds and little bursts of wind that suggest rain may be coming: an appropriate beginning for a day whose matins readings are the building of the ark, and jesus with the twelve on the lake after feeding the 4,000. the 1943 lectionary skips the second reading story, which i read anyway, but it does wisely link the boat without bread with the healing of the blind man that takes two attempts.

i have read several modern scholar-critics of the lectionary who deplore the "redundancy" of including "the feeding stories" twice. we are, alas, certainly no quicker and often much slower than the twelve to see who christ jesus is and what he is doing. if we wer the blind man at bethsaida, it would almost certainly take three or more applications of spittle and mud to our eyes before we would be willing to see.

14 february, saturday: benedicite, omnia opera

2009-02-14T09:19:00.000-08:00

i was given a lesson in the meaning of "praise ye the lord" this morning. there is a fallen tree about thirty-five yards into the holler beyond my small yard. i often sit on that log for mattins and vespers. this morning was unremarkable enough after i went back in for my sweater, cold, overcast, still.

but in benedicte, omnia opera, my regular saturday morning canticle to celebrate creation and sabbath, when i recited the lines,
"o ye winds of god, bless ye the lord:
praise him and magnify him forever,"
a wind began to rise out of the valley. and at the lines,
"o ye ice and snow, bless ye the lord:
praise him and magnify him forever,"
flakes of snow or frozen mist began to ride on that wind.

"praise the lord" is a common enough phrase. what does it mean? it means to do that for which i am created. it means, without ceasing to be grateful to christ jesus for being my saviour, that i pay careful obedience to christ jesus my lord. it means i follow the admonition of his holy mother at the wedding in cana, "whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." it means i must attend to the voice of his father omnipotent on mount tabor, "hear ye him."

to praise the lord means we must never forget that of which annie dillard reminds us in holy the firm, that "we are created."

jubilate deo. "it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves."

"o ye servants of the lord, bless ye the lord:
praise him, and magnify him for ever."

here we go again

2009-02-13T10:17:00.000-08:00

on a cold march morning in 1992 i earnestly presented a rule and made vows to bishop richard gundrey for something to be called the order of st. chad. i had chosen chad as our patron (at that time, my patron) because he lived in times just as confusing and transitional as ours, and had managed to remain faithful to his lord and the traditions in which he had been trained (by st. aidan, no less) and to remain humble even when he was made bishop.

at one time there were six of us in this little order, trying to follow a rule of life as we lived in the busyness of the modern, urban world. we dwindled, more or less, over the years. one who still follows the rule is now the directress of an orphanage. two became benedictines, and left the busyness of the modern, urban world. one decided to return to the native american traditions of his adopted father. one i have lost track of. and then here am i, in a small town in the ozarks, but certainly in the buzyness of the world.

the icon that heads this post is of st. john the wonderworker (of shanghai and san francisco). it is he who has encouraged me to start up again taking seriously the need for what st. chad and the other orthodox celtic saints have to offer us. i have followed the rule, at times less faithfully than others, for eighteen years now, and i have no regrets.

so here i will post lives of celtic saints, suggestions for a rule of life, and stories of my wanderings trying to follow my patron. in the early days of the order, we had a quarterly newsletter. now it is much easier, and i hope not too much against the spirit of st. chad, to do something similar on-line.