Celtic Spirituality: Celtic Sacred Life of Hospitality in Community

Celtic Spirituality: Celtic sacred life of hospitality in community

         “I sought my God;

    My God, I could not see.

    I sought my soul

    My soul eluded me.

    I sought my brother

    And I found all three.”

In the Celtic hospitality tradition, God is present not only in Nature but also in our neighbor, ourselves, and especially in the stranger. This is a sacredness in relationships. I am told there is no word in the Irish language for private property. Faith is lived in a community that combines periodic seclusion with community and mission. Anamchara, or soul friends, spiritual friends, or spiritual directors, are essential relationships. Women are regarded as equals, and communities are not hierarchical. Monasteries rather than parishes are the basis of the church. The Celts value education, art, and music.

We traveled to Iona off the western coast of Scotland twice and would return in a heartbeat. You don’t simply stumble on Iona, however. You really do have to want to go there by ferry, down a one-lane winding road, and finally walk over on a ferry onto the small, three-mile-long island in the Inner Hebrides, where Columba brought Celtic Christianity to England in 563.

Here, the breathtakingly illuminated manuscripts of The Book of Kells is believed to have been written at the end of the 8th century. Iona is considered an exceptionally “thin” space where the membrane between the spiritual and the secular is extremely thin. This was our experience as well. You walk a lot, eat good food, worship outdoors in the ancient abbey and a decaying nunnery, listen to the wind and waves, study high crosses, wear warm clothing, and watch the sea change the color of the abundant million-year-old rocks by the shoreline.

I often meet with spiritual friends who describe Celtic Spirituality when they have no name for it. This seems a sign of the universality of this type of spirituality. The sacred presence of God in each of us is a start.

Again, further reading might include Philip Newell’s Celtic Benediction, John Miriam Jones’s With an Eagle’s Eye, Esther de Waal’s Celtic Way of Prayer, and John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara.

Joanna    https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Sacraments, Meditation, and Thin Places

  Meditation and Sacraments and Thin Places

Dissolving the Membrane Between the Spiritual and Actual World

‘If you compare the mind to a balloon, meditation as a religious technique is the process of inflating it with a single thought, to the point where the balloon finally bursts, and there is no longer even the thinnest skin between what is inside it and what is outside it.”—Frederick Buechner— in Wishful Thinking.

Buechner’s thoughts on spirituality take us out of the box. Indeed, in meditation, we hope to enter that thin place where the spiritual and the actual worlds are only a thin layer away. Buechner tells us that meditation can dissolve and break that membrane wide open, so no barrier exists. That especially happens when we see Christ in our neighbor, and our neighbor sees Christ in us.

This explosion occurs when we see the sacredness in the secular world, honor every human being, and care for “this earth, our island home.” That barrier is often broken in the sacraments, especially Eucharist and Baptism. We recently saw it at our church at the baptism of three adults, but this mystery also happens with infant baptism. Earthly holiness breaks through, all wet, sometimes with screaming.

I like the balloon bursting, because we never know when it will happen. Balloons, like meditation practices, come in all sizes and colors. Some balloons do not seem to burst. Some break with little effort. Again, it is a mystery.

Breaking a balloon can also produce chaos. Yet, that is where God most often meets us—and creation begins.

Moving Against the Current

Going upstream

“We are very reasonable creatures, but to feel the grace of God, one must forget about reason and go on a pilgrimage to a place where we no longer ‘see as through a glass darkly,’ to a place where we can see with eyes of gratitude, rather than with eyes of conquest.”—George Grinnell in A Death on the Barrens.

Barge on the Mississippi near Natchez. Mary Seni

I remember sitting recently by the Mississippi River near Memphis, watching barges travel slowly upstream on a cold, windy late December morning.  The few dog walkers and runners along the shore move faster than the endless barges churning white water as they move against the current.

The barges are pushed by towboats or tugboats, which are identified by their flat or V-shape hulls. Some covered barges traveling upstream ride high on the water. They must be empty, but are still straining to travel upstream to be filled more inland on the banks of this mighty river. They move slightly faster than the full barges.

Barge on the Mississippi at Memphis

I wonder where their destination is. St. Louis? What are the filled barges carrying?

I hope to remember these barges slowly being pushed upstream against the current. I enjoy leading my life more easily, moving downstream, going with the flow, and not making waves.

Sometimes, however, I am called to go against the crowd and navigate upstream. It will help if I remember that the journey is easier when I travel lightly, not taking myself so seriously, not carrying a lot of my baggage, and not being on a right-or-wrong quest, but just speaking my truth.

The barges teach us that the journey upstream always moves more slowly than the journey downstream. Moving upstream means speaking our truth against the current culture. I pray that the boat pushing us upstream is the Holy Spirit, not our own ego. Grinnell also reminds us that a heart of gratitude can help discern our path and motives and keep us connected to that greater power, leading us on this more difficult journey.