Celtic Cross Kildalton
Part of what I teach here at the Overseas Ministry Study Center is a a session on Celtic Spirituality. It is also time to sign up for the 22nd Annual Celtic retreat if you want to take advantage of the early bird special.
The Celtic stream of Christianity has impacted many of us who look for a whole life faith that interweaves through every area of life. Their emphasis on the God who is revealed in and through creation has also influenced me and contributed in many ways to my thoughts on the sacredness of creation and its importance as a sanctuary in which we meet God.
The major heritage of Celtic spirituality is the beautiful prayers like this one which are found throughout Ireland, Scotland and Wales. May have been collected in the CARMINA GADELICA. One I love and return to often is this one:
I Weave a Silence
I weave a silence onto my lips,
I weave a silence into my mind,
I weave a silence within my heart.
I close my ears to distractions,
I close my eyes to attractions
I close my heart to temptations.
Calm me, Lord,
As you calmed the storm,
Still me, Lord, keep me from harm,
Let all tumult within me cease,
Enfold me in your peace.
art from book of Kells
There is however more to this tradition than the prayers that attract me and so thought I would repost this list of Celtic distinctives which some of my may find of interest.
Distinctives of Celtic Christian Spirituality
- Central to Celtic spirituality is incarnation and an intense sense of the presence of God. The Celt was very much a God-intoxicated person whose life was embraced on all sides by the divine Being.
- The presence of Christ was almost physically woven around their lives
- God was treated with awe, reverence and wonder but was essentially seen as a human figure intimately involved in all creation and engaged in a dynamic relationship with it.
- Christ is our “walking companion”. He is our guide, our protector, and we pray with him and can trust him always wherever we go.
- The Trinity is part of God’s eternal family to which we also belong. Each family unit, clan or community was seen as an icon of the Trinity.
- All creation responds to God’s creative presence and sustaining love. God not only encircles and protects creation but also enlivens, activates and inspires it.
- A belief in the thinness of the veil between this world and the next. Heaven and earth are interconnected and interacting.
- Celtic Christians believed that the “cloud of witnesses” is always with us. They prayed consciously as members of the great company of hosts – the persons of the Trinity, angels and archangels as well as all who have gone before us were all seen as close companions on their journey.
- Through this same host of witnesses God protected them from evil forces and enemies.
- Importance of little things – no task is too trivial to be sanctified by prayer and blessing
- All work is holy – Even mundane little task like washing dishes, milking the cow and sowing crops have sacred significance
- This is parallelled in their identification with the little people, the marginalized & the oppressed. All persons represented God and might be heavenly visitors in disguise.
- Extending hospitality opened a door to the kingdom of God and welcomed Jesus into their midst. It was an important expression of love both toward God and neighbour
- According to Celtic theology, the body is essentially good. Sinful action was seen as wrong, but the body is a gift in all its capacities.
- A strong sense of sin and the presence of evil forces in the world resulted in a strong recognition of the need for penitence which often led to austerely ascetic lives. Celtic spirituality holds that sin deforms the person we are called to be in Christ. It enslaves, and the goal therefore is freedom from slavery. Some Celtic saints became perpetual pilgrims or lived as hermits to avoid the comforts and temptations of a settled existence in which evil might flourish.
- All of life flows to a rhythm of ebb and flow reflected in the natural world. This is reflected in the monastic rhythm that flowed between prayer and study, work and rest, community and solitude.
- Celtic Christians adapted well to the culture in which they operated. They are sometimes accused of syncretism because of their use of pre-Christian symbols which they transformed into the symbols of faith.
Today’s post is by Kimberlee Conway Ireton, author of The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year.
Doug is working late tonight, giving a presentation at some Seattle geek fest, which means I am home alone with four kids at the dinner hour.
This shouldn’t faze me. I mean, I manage to get dinner on the table five nights a week without Doug being home to help me. He usually shows up just in time to help me round up kids and wash their hands and cajole Jane into finishing her table setting.
And that’s precisely what I need tonight—someone to help me with those last few things before we can eat.
Only Doug’s not coming home yet.
“Jane, honey,” I call from the kitchen to the living room where she’s making a Duplo castle. “We still need plates and water on the table, sweetheart.” I say it sweetly. I don’t yell. This is a growing edge for me. “Would you please come finish your job?”
She collapses into a heap on the floor and moans, “I don’t want to.”
I force myself to smile. “I didn’t ask you if you wanted to. I asked you if you would.”
She staggers to her feet and drags herself through the dining room to the kitchen. She stands next to me and stares up at the dishes on the shelf. “I can’t reach the glasses!” she whines.
I can feel my frustration mounting. I take a breath as I drain the pasta pot. “I’m going to let you figure that one out.”
She sighs dramatically, then turns on her heel and skulks out of the kitchen to get a chair from the dining table, which she then drags back to the kitchen counter.
I try to ignore her as I read the end of the recipe for the tenth, or maybe it’s the twelfth, time. Lemon juice, butter, sauce, shrimp, parsley, salt to taste. Got it.
Jack races through the kitchen holding an imaginary bow and shooting an imaginary arrow at an imaginary enemy. “That’s 40!” he shouts as he blasts past me.
“Jack!” I say, loudly, because he’s in another world, one where people do not stand over hot stoves trying to get dinner on the table but live on game and wild mushrooms, which they cook over an open fire. Unless they’re fighting off orcs.
“Jack!” I say again, louder.
“Yes Mama?”
I smile, but it’s totally forced, a grotesque mockery of a smile. “No running in the house.”
“Sorry, Mama.” He looses another arrow.
I say, “Would you wash Luke’s hands, please, while I finish this?” I look at the recipe again. Lemon juice. Check. Butter. Check. Sauce. I pour this over the pasta.
“Lu-uke!” Jack shouts as he runs past me into the living room. “Time to wash hands!”
Didn’t I just say something about not running in the house? Or was I only imagining those words? I look back at the cookbook. Where was I again? Oh, right. Shrimp. I empty the bowl of shrimp on top of the pasta.
Jane is standing at the kitchen sink, holding a glass under the faucet. She bounces up and down on her toes and whines, “I can’t reach it to turn it on, Mama!”
I just stare at her for a moment, then turn back to the cookbook. “Mama!” she wails. “I can’t reach the faucet!”
Parsley. I need parsley. I open the refrigerator and wrench a handful of parsley off the bunch that’s sitting at the top of the crisper drawer. With my biggest knife, I chop it into tiny little shreds of green.
Jane starts fake-sobbing. “I—can’t—reach—the—faucet!”
I whirl around. “Are you kidding me?” I shout. “There’s a perfectly easy solution to that problem! There’s absolutely no reason to cry about it!” I realize I am still holding the knife in my hand, stabbing the air with it while I bark at my daughter. Oh. Lord.
I turn my back on Jane and rather vigorously scrape the parsley off the cutting board into the pasta pot and stir everything together. “Dinner!” I call in a falsely cheery voice as I carry the pot to the table.
“Mama!” Jack shouts from the bathroom. “Luke’s poopy! He stinks like a hippopotamus!”
I look up at the ceiling. I close my eyes. I wish I could say I’m praying. I’m not. I’m feeling bitter. I put the pot on the trivet on the table and go to the bathroom to change Luke. “Jack, could you wash Ben’s hands and get him in his seat, please? You can use the kitchen sink.”
Ben screeches in protest; he doesn’t want Jack to wash his hands. Jack is screaming back, “I have to, Ben! Mama said!” Jane is yelling, too, because Jack is usurping her place at the kitchen sink.
“Jack! Jane!” I yell through the bathroom doorway. “Shut! UP!”
Jack calls back, “What, Mama?”
I roll my eyes. “Be quiet!” I shout through gritted teeth, but I don’t think they can hear me for all the noise they’re making.
By the time I finish changing Luke and wash both my hands and his, Jack has gotten Ben strapped into his chair. Ben is not happy about it. He screeches and kicks and hits the table. “It’s okay, Ben,” I say as I strap Luke into his high chair. “It’s okay. I know you’re upset. We’re going to pray. Then we’ll eat, okay?”
Apparently, that’s not okay. Ben picks up his fork and throws it.
“That’s it! I’ve had it!” I grab the back of Ben’s chair and drag it, and him in it, to his bedroom. Then I slam the door shut and storm back to the table. Luke, Jack, and Jane are all staring at me.
I pick up the matchbox and pull out a match, but I don’t strike it. I can’t light the candle and say “Bless the Lord” when I’ve just slammed a door and have spent the last five minutes yelling at my kids. I close my eyes and breathe the Jesus Prayer in and out a couple of times. When I’m calm and can speak truly, I pray out loud, “Lord Jesus, please forgive me. I’m so sorry I yelled at these precious people you’ve entrusted to me.” I take another deep breath.
Then I open my eyes and look at each of my children in turn. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m sorry, Jane. I’m sorry, Luke. I’m sorry I’ve been so grumpy. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“It’s okay, Mama,” Jack says. “We’re sorry, too. We weren’t obeying you.”
Jane nods. “I forgive you, Mama. I’m sorry I fussed.”
Luke is completely oblivious to my apology. He’s too busy eating the pasta that is somehow in his bowl.
I wish that I didn’t have growing edges, that I never raised my voice with my kids, that I was endlessly patient and kind and soft-spoken. But if I have to be a little rough and raggedy in places, and it seems I do, I’m awfully glad to be able to grow with these precious people God has entrusted to me. They’re full of love and forgiveness and grace. And I’m so grateful.
I smile at Jack and Jane. Then I strike the match and hold it to the candle. The wick flares. “Bless the Lord!”
Jack and Jane chorus, “The Lord’s name be praised!”
“You think Ben is ready to come out?” I ask. “You think he’s ready to pray with us?”
They both nod. I go to the bedroom and give Ben a hug. “I’m sorry I slammed the door on you, Benito.” He wraps his little arms around my neck. Then I push his chair back to the dining room. We pray, and I serve up the pasta.
“Highlight, lowlight!” Jane says. “I’ll start.”
And so dinner begins, with praise and prayer and the examen. The road to get here was a bit rough, but by the time we finish sharing our highlights and lowlights, we’re laughing together, eating together, enjoying each other again, and the roughness of the road has been forgiven and forgotten.
If you’d like to initiate your own mealtime candle-lighting ritual, here’s a free download to get you started: these short litanies that we use at the beginning of our family meal each day change with the seasons of the church year.
Giving a talk on Celtic spirituality this morning and so thought I would post this prayer from St Columba – the photo in the background is of Iona.
Tomatoes and summer squash – Are they safe?
The 2013 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides is out. If you are concerned about eating supermarket food but cannot afford to go totally organic here is the latest guide on what gets the most pesticide spray. Maybe like us you just want to start your own garden and target those crops that receive the most spray.
- Apples
- Celery
- Cherry tomatoes
- Cucumbers
- Grapes
- Hot peppers
- Nectarines (imported)
- Peaches
- Potatoes
- Spinach
- Strawberries
- Sweet bell peppers
Dirty Dozen Plus category to highlight two crops – domestically-grown summer squash and leafy greens, specifically kale and collards. These crops did not meet traditional Dirty Dozen™ criteria but were commonly contaminated with pesticides exceptionally toxic to the nervous system.
- Asparagus
- Avocados
- Cabbage
- Cantaloupe
- Sweet corn
- Eggplant
- Grapefruit
- Kiwi
- Mangoes
- Mushrooms
- Onions
- Papayas
- Pineapples
- Sweet peas (frozen)
- Sweet potatoes
So why should you care. Listen to what Dr Alex Lu of Harvard has to say
The Wild Camano tour is over. On Saturday a small group of us gathered on the future site of the Mustard Seed Village on Camano island to tour the land, identify edible species and plant a beginning garden. It was an amazing experience.
With the help of Nancy and Greg from Shambala Farms and Nursery we identified and sampled a broad variety of potential additions to our diet. The rich abundance of God’s world is incredible. There are so many edible, nutritious and delicious plants around us that we don’t even notice. Wild salad greens like purslane and miner’s lettuce. Wild berries like strawberries, salmonberries and elderberries. Nettles and ferns. It is so easy to pass them by without even noticing. It is even easier to ignore their potential as part of our diet.
Yesterday I published two posts on simplicity. In Simplicity isn’t Simple I stated
I’m not sure that it is really possible to simplify one’s food budget and remain healthy, unless one produces some of one’s own food.
As we walked on Camano I realized that gardening is not the only way to supplement our diet, however. The art of foraging for food in the wild is becoming more popular as people open their eyes to the amazing bounty of God’s world. Nuts, berries, greens and mushrooms are but a few of the delicacies we can enjoy. Seattle, Denver and Los Angeles are but a few of the growing numbers of cities that provide residents with the opportunity to map their fruit trees and share their produce with others.
Of course wild berries will not sustain the hoped for community at the Mustard Seed Village for very long. So it was a real delight to be able to put another small stake in the ground and get to work on a kitchen garden. We moved ferns and native plants to a mound of dirt close by the new construction. Then we added herbs like rosemary and lovage, with an aronia berry bush to crown our achievement. Not much and it may not survive the summer but it is another small step in our dream for the development of the Mustard Seed Village.
Yesterday I mentioned that I am currently at the Overseas Ministry Study Centre in New Haven CT teaching a class on spiritual renewal in the missionary community. I always start my sessions by asking participants to draw a picture that represents their spiritual journey. Each student then has the opportunity to share their journey focusing on the questions: What has made you feel close to God? When have you felt distant from God? and What are you most grateful for in your journey?
For me this is the most enriching part of the course. I always learn new things about myself and about God from the journeys that students share and this year’s class is no exception. One participant mentioned that he felt closest to God in times of poverty because then he was totally dependent on God. Another share that self satisfaction and comfort often make him feel distant from God because then he doesn’t really need to trust in God.
These two comments really impacted me, partly I think because Tom and I are currently participating in The Overflow Project’s 50 Day Challenge which I shared about in my post Simplicity is Not Simple on the MSA blog this morning.
These two converging events has been a great incentive for me to evaluate my own life and the issues I struggle with. The clutter of my life, the accumulation of possessions, the comfort of always having enough money for shelter, food and the essentials of life make it so easy for me to trust in myself and not in God. It is so easy to make the maintenance of those possessions my primary life focus. Time for developing intimacy with God is crowded out by preoccupations with money and possessions. No wonder the desert fathers and mothers withdrew into the desert and made vows of voluntary poverty in order to further their journey with God.
It is important for all of us to regularly and honestly evaluate our priorities and reflecting back on our life journeys is a wonderful tool to use to accomplish this.
My challenge for you this morning therefore is to reflect on your life journey – maybe draw a picture or use words and arrows to sketch it out. Then take time to reflect. Often these types of memories provide the richest material for strengthening our spiritual journeys.
What has drawn you close to God? What has distanced you from God? What are you grateful for in your life journey?
Now take time to consider what God is saying to you through this exercise. How can you use the journey of your past to strengthen your spiritual journey into the future? What practices should you nurture in order to grow in intimacy with God?
I am currently in New Haven Connecticut at the Overseas Ministry Study Center where I teach a course on spiritual renewal each year. This is one of the most enriching and challenging teaching situations I am ever involved in. My students come from across the globe. Methodist ministers from Myanmar and Korea sit together with Anglicans from Kenya and Ghana. Catholic sisters from the Philippines rub shoulders with Pentecostals from India and Brazil.
How do you teach in the midst of such diversity I am often asked? How do you help each student find renewal that suits their needs?
I must confess it can be a challenge. What one student finds refreshing another might find offensive. What is acceptable in one faith tradition is anathema to another. What renews and enriches my spiritual journey may do nothing for someone else.
I learn something new each year not just about how to renew faith in the midst of this kind of diversity, but about how to approach spiritual formation in any context. I thought that you might appreciate some of the insights I have learned.
1. Learning to see with fresh eyes and to hear with unstopped ears. Probably the most important skills we can teach people is the ability to look and listen, not telling them what to believe but opening their eyes and ears to perceive what God’s spirit wishes to communicate through their encounters, their activities and their interactions with God’s created world..
2. One size does not fit all. Whenever I see a piece of clothing that advertises “one size fits all” I know I am in trouble. It will definitely not fit me. Similarly with spiritual practices – one size does not fit all.
I often feel that my purpose in spiritual formation is to provide a rich smorgasbord of spiritual practices and ideas which participants can taste and experiment with. Many of the practices I talk about in my book Return to Our Senses: Lectio divina, vision divina, prayer walks, breathing prayers, exercises in gratitude and thankfulness, labyrinths and prayer flags are just a few of the tasty dishes that God gives us to choose from. Allowing people to choose what suits their palates without expecting them to eat everything on the table is a liberating and faith strengthening process for all of us.
3. The power of story. In his book A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer talks about using stories that encourage people to come at the truth slantwise. What he means is that we can use stories effectively to draw the truths that the Spirit of God is stirring within a person’s soul. We can use a person’s own story. We can also use as stories that sometimes seem on the surface to have no relationship to what we are discussing yet trigger thoughts and understandings in peoples’ minds.
Jesus used parables in this way. Often they had many possible interpretations, all of which could contain Godly truths and so might speak to people from a broad array of backgrounds. No wonder what Jesus said excited not just Jews but also Greeks, Romans and other nationalities.
4. Enabling people to ask the right questions. I once heard British theologian John Stott say The answers we get depend on the questions we ask. And it is true. New experiences, new encounters, new reflective exercises all raise new questions in our minds. Our purpose in spiritual formation is to give people the freedom to ask the right questions. Not so much why does God allow this to happen but rather what is God doing in the midst of this situation?
These are only a few of the tools that can assist any person’s spiritual journey. We are meant to lead gently from behind, encouraging the footsteps of our followers along the pathway God has chosen for them.
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
When referencing or quoting Godspace Light, please be sure to include the Author (Christine Sine unless otherwise noted), the Title of the article or resource, the Source link where appropriate, and ©Godspacelight.com. Thank you!