Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
Brother Lugh closed his prayer, and he climbed back up to where I waited.
“Until you followed me, that ledge was my secret. Only the birds knew I came here every morning. Today I didn’t even have to look up to know you were watching; I could feel you there. And, for the first time since I was brought to this desolate haven I knew I was cared for.”
“On earth.”
“As it is in heaven.” Brother Lugh continues, ” I don’t know if you saw too, but my father was with me today. I could feel him with me, strong and warm, and I was child in his arms. He just held me and when the morning mist dissolved to sunlight, he dissolved away, but I know he still loves me.
“Brother Lazarus, death isn’t a boundary between earth and heaven. I visited heaven today, and it is all made of invisible but touchable love, as though God is love, and love is what everyone is. I have seen heaven and it is love.”
“Did you know, that was already inked on parchment, in I John 4:8?”
“Of course, I’ve read it. It was a thin book on my papa’s gospel shelf. When I was a little child, I thought my papa read it to me, because it was a bible book for ‘the little children,’ but now I know he was reading it over and over again for himself.”
Brother Lugh and I sat on the rocky ridge in a kind of joyful silence until Sister Brigid came by on her daily trek to the monks. Brother Lugh followed along after her to help her shoulder the skins of milk.
He said, “I asked, Sister Brigid, if we could expect a boat to come here before winter? She said she never expects anyone to come, and yet they do. So, I told her the next time a boat comes, Brother Lazarus will want to go back to the mainland.”
“Let me speak that for myself. Or are you finding your cell too crowded with me there?”
“Oh, no. Sharing space reminds me I don’t need solitude. That’s why I was thinking of going along too, if a boat should come to take you back.”
“For me, going to that land isn’t ‘going back’. This Gaelic monastic community is more familiar to me than another strange land.”
“You mean, you wouldn’t go even if you could?”
(Continues Tuesday, Sept. 22)
Lazarus Ink 