Historical Setting: The Great Skellig, 924 C.E.
I mention to the abbot, “Brother Lugh is planning to return to the mainland when the boat comes with the winter’s supplies.”
“The season is already turning. Even now, we have winter seas. Landing here requires the perfect sea, which is not the nature of the waters in these months, so I don’t suppose our supplies will be refreshed for the winter.”
“This whole matter of going back to Éire before winter is already moot?”
“Are you disappointed, Lazarus? Had you hoped to leave, soon too?”
“Actually, I have no wish to leave. It is Brother Lugh who is feeling the call to go back to his old land, and he was just assuming I would want to go also. Lugh will be disappointed.”
The clouds this morning are billowed and bundled, buffeted by the winds of the changing season. The sea answers the challenge with frothy crests, and I know we won’t expect a boat bringing fresh supplies ’til spring. And having no promise of a boat to take him across to the mainland, Brother Lugh’s staid plan to fulfill his new calling is a disappointment. Yet he takes this early turning of the season as his new inspiration. Brother Lugh prayerfully seeks a revised version of his calling.
Without the possibility of returning to his homeland this fall, his new way to answer God’s call to feed the hungry might be to feed all of us, left hungry without supplies. His first scheme is to preserve the abundance of Sister Brigid’s goat’s milk that she shares freely with all. But it is Sister Brigid who says we can simply trust God to provide for our needs, day-by-day. She is the one who argues against Lugh’s plan to hoard our current plenty. She claims, the implication is that hoarding for fear of a day that hasn’t come, denies faith. She believes storing excess is an act of fear while sharing the excess each day is an expression of love.
It is a disparity that will only be resolved after the fact. If the winter is hard and hungry, Brother Lugh will have the “I told you so.” But if everyone is careful to use only what is needed, a large hoard may not be necessary. I can see her side in this, though the promise of a bleak winter makes hoarding seem wise. I can see both sides.
(Continues tomorrow)
