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#84.14 Weds., September 30, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

It’s risky crossing the roiling sea in a small boat with a bible when only a minor wetting of the vellum pages would cause major damage; but then, what is a monastery without a bible?  In this place the physical dangers are always in a raucous dialogue with spiritual accessibility. It is the great dare that defines the courage of each holy person committing to this life of faith. So why wouldn’t a bible be included in the risk?

Here in the church, Brother Lugh isn’t asking the abbot to affirm my contrary notions of Roman history, as I supposed was our purpose in coming to speak with the abbot.

The abbot uses this occasion to remind brother Lugh of his personal commitment to a life of prayer on this island apart from the woes and foibles of the laity on the mainland. Did Lugh’s father not send him here to keep him safe from the grief and the poverty of the secular world? Lugh told the abbot of his spiritual call to go back to the mainland where he finds his calling to care for people as though they are his family.  I know his hours of contemplation have brought him to this divergent need.

         He says, “I can just ride back with Lazarus when the boat comes for him.”

         The abbot asks, “Brother Lugh, answer me truthfully, have you been goaded into something contrary by this stranger among us?”

If they would only listen to me, they would hear me say that I hadn’t even been thinking of leaving. I really have no other place to go. And personally, I find this Celtic monastery a spiritual blessing. Perhaps Brother Lugh is listening to a truly, holy calling. But no one is listening to his plea either.  

         Lugh argues, “I’m sure Brother Lazarus would find Éire all to his liking if he went there.  It is as sweet as the blackberries, and even the most sorrowful music sets one’s feet to dancing.”

Before I can speak for myself and mention that I am not enticed by blackberries and dancing, the abbot intrudes.

         “Brother Luke, your father knew your propensity to sin when he sent you here. I am responsible to honor his last wish.”

         “I’m sure he would want me to serve the needy as God has called me to do.”

The abbot sends Brother Lugh back to his cell, alone. He takes me aside to tell me he thinks I am a bad influence on the young monk.

(Continues Thursday, October 1)

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#84.13 Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Brother Lugh is sorting through my description of early Christianity, which sometimes hides the hateful notions of Roman domination right in the midst of the Gospel tradition.  He turns away, starring at the ground when I say that Roman political lies infiltrated the stories we have of the execution of Jesus. The lies made the Jews appear to be the murderers of Jesus, when it was actually a Roman imperialistic reach that tortured and killed many Jews, including Jesus, with crucifixion. Brother Lugh is sorting through this confusion that I have intruded into his own foundation of faith and threatened his own traditions and beliefs. It was his Christianity that brought him to this monastery faithfully following his own father’s wishes.

     Dear God, stay close to Brother Lugh as he weighs the conspicuous rift between the Roman tainted Christianity and the teachings of Jesus.

     He asks, “What about the Jesus message to love God above all else, and to love your neighbor? Don’t the Jesus love laws explain the difference between Christian and Jew?”

     “Brother Lugh, I know this isn’t what you’ve always believed, but the love commandments are in the Hebrew Bible too; Every morning and every evening an observant Jew repeats the law to love God above all else. It is the Shema Yisrael, the most basic prayer of Judaism. And the second most important law Jesus named was the ‘love of neighbor.’ That was from Leviticus 19:18.”

The abbot suggests we take a hard look at the holy book.

     “Do you mean there is a bible here on the Great Skellig?”

     “Of course, did you think we had no bible to guide us?”

     “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

I know that the Irish tenacity of the monks who followed Father Columbanus carried that Holy Bible deep into the alps to set the seedling of faith in his new communities. They were hauling a bible up and down those impossible mountains and cliffsides, so why would I think bringing a large, and precious book up these cliffs would be any different?

Brother Lugh goes immediately to the church.  I follow. And sure enough, the abbot does bring out a great copy of the work of St. Jerome and places it before us on the book pedestal in the front of the worship space, just under the stone hewn cross.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#84.12 Thursday, September 24, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Brother Lugh and I are waiting now, for calmer waters so that a supply boat can deliver the winter supplies here, and the plan is made that I will be sent away then, with the boat to the mainland, which is the homeland of Lugh. Brother Lugh plans to go along also, believing his calling is to feed the hungry. His real yearning is for family.

     He asks, “Did you have brothers and sisters?”

     “I had a sister. My mother died when we were very young. So, like you, the only parent raising me was a father.  He was a Pharisee. We were Jewish and our family meticulously observed God’s law and what we knew then, as the Law of Moses.”

He already knows I am that Lazarus.

     He says, “I know Jesus was Jewish, also. But thankfully, he converted.”

     “No. He never ‘converted.’  He was always a Jew.”

     “What about his baptism?”

     “Even John the Baptist was a Jew. The repentance John was calling for was for a turning back to God, the God of Abraham and Moses. God who answered from heaven, “this is my own Son.”

     “Surely, as the cross is Christian, he was crucified and rose again, as a Christian.”

      “The cross was Roman. There were no Christians at that time. He was crucified by the Romans who were purging Jews, claiming that Jews were all criminals because we were traitors simply because we wouldn’t bow to Rome. Maybe we were traitors to Rome. The Romans were imperialists, and stole their power by creating enemies of any nation that didn’t just meld into Roman. Observant Jews would not bow to Ceasar.”

     “I thought the crime was that Jesus went around teaching love for all people.”

     “Yes, that really riled the Romans. Jesus went around teaching love even for enemies, completely contrary to the rules of political power mongering. So Romans put a disparaging banner over Jesus, ‘King of the Jews’ and they gave him a mocking and painful crown. It was political.” [blogger’s footnote]

     And I just continue my rant, “We held onto the observance of the Jewish traditions, which seemed a fly in the ointment of Roman imperialism on their march to rule the world. But God sees over the walls of division people build.”

     “What about the Jesus teachings, to love God above all else, and to love your neighbor? Don’t the love laws separate Christians from Jews?”

     “Those love laws are first in the Torah.”

[Blogger’s note] This theory about the relationship between Romans and Jews is not well supported in the gospel texts, and, in fact, the Christian bible, in no uncertain terms says “The Jews killed Jesus” [I Thessalonians 2:15].  Historical research, however, and particularly writings by early Christians outside of the cannon, and some modern bible scholars are finding a powerful Roman root to modern anti-Semitism through the early Christian repetition of Roman political lies. Authoritarianism uses the repetition of lies as a tool, and it is only now becoming obvious to some Christian scholars that some of the Roman political lies crept into Christian scriptures. May this continue to be a subject for unfettered research of the Christian History. It is well known that Romans alone, and not Jews, used the torture of crucifixion.

(Continues Tuesday, Sept. 29)

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#84.11 Weds., September 23, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

Apparently, it is assumed I will be leaving when a boat can land here safely; and Brother Lugh has chosen to leave also?

     Lugh explains, “I sat with the spirit of my own father who is now at one with the universal heavenly Spirit, and he told me what I can do to help others. I told the abbot that I was called to feed the poor and hungry. When I was walking with Sister Brigid, delivering the goat’s gift I knew what I was called to do. There was something very joyful in providing food for the hungry. I realized, God doesn’t just use written pages to call only an elite chosen few.  God uses our sorrows and our deepest joys to call any one of us to service. And sometimes God whispers through grief. A call is not always great pronouncements from heaven.”

    “I know. At times, I’ve felt God’s call to me. Sometimes it is clear and undeniable. Other times it is just a thoughtful wonder. And sometimes, the fulness of indescribable beauty binds together the things we know in spirit and the things we reach for on earth, and that is a calling.”

     He says, “My calling is to carry the goat’s milk every day, but in all kinds of ways — God called me to feed the hungry.  I am not called, just to go off and to pray alone with God, but to care for all the people on the mainland. You know, you yourself told me who they are: the merchants who crash their ships, the military guards who saved Jarrow, and all the people of the all the lands, God loving, and pagan alike.  I am called to actually go into the places you talk about. So, I will leave when they come for you.”

     “But I’ve never been to this mainland. And usually, when I am lost, I try to find a monastery.  So here, I’ve already found that holy place.”

     “Don’t worry. I’ll show you my homeland. You won’t be lost there.”

     I ask, “So, the abbot said I have to leave here when the boat comes?”

     “That’s how it is. My father knew he was leaving me alone, and he wanted me to have brothers when he was gone, so he sent me here to be safe, but now, with you going back to my homeland with me, I won’t be alone.”

         “You believe God called you to return to your homeland, despite your father’s plan?”

         “To fulfill my father’s plan.”

(Continues tomorrow)

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#84.10 Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Brother Lugh, my cellmate here in this monastery, had a great revelation that he is beloved by the whole universal bond of love that is God, but now, he is thinking about returning to the mainland.

Sister Brigid and Lugh, and I too, are walking back toward the monastery.

     I ask, “Are you thinking of breaking your vows here, just when God has broken into your life?”

His laugh is awkward. He’s been solemn for so long that humor with its comfortable smiles and little twinkles of joy seems ill-suited to him.

     He says, “I’ll talk to the abbot. I’m pretty sure I have a holy commission on the mainland, or maybe it’s restlessness.  I don’t know what I feel.”

     Sister Brigid chimes in, “Clearly your calling is from God. On the holy island every wonder here is holy.”

We reach Brother Lugh’s cell and Sister Brigid pours out a share from the flask of milk, as though she were serving a lady of wealth her afternoon tea. Then she starts off on her rounds.

Another day we would sit here, sharing the blessing of this milk. But today, Brother Lugh follows her. Catching up, he shoulders the skins of milk for her. Her trek always ends with the stop at the church for the abbot.

Now, when the brothers gather for noon-tide prayers they find both the abbot and Brother Lugh absent. Someone said they were seen sitting outside in the far corner of the cemetery wall, deep in a very serious conversation. 

Regardless of their absence we all join in the chanting of the psalm. One offers a prayer that mentions the abbot’s wayward absence or maybe it is envy that Lugh gets special attention.

      I offer his reason. “Don’t you suppose our shepherd is busy rescuing the one lost sheep?”

Some know the rule for reciting the psalms better than the actual gospel.

I also offer the benediction.

Returning to our cell Brother Lugh tells me of his decision.

      “Don’t worry, Brother Lazarus, I didn’t blame you for my wayward choice, even though I am considering leaving here just as you are assigned my cellmate. It was my decision to leave when the boat comes to take you back.”

     “You mean a boat is coming to take me away?”

     “Of course. We are expecting a boat any day when the sea is calmer. It will bring the winter supplies. But the abbot agrees you would probably prefer the homeland.”

     “I would?”

(Continues tomorrow)

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#84.9 Thursday, September 17, 2026

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)

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#84.8 Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Concerned for Brother Lugh, who has been troubled day and night with the grief for his father, I followed him again to his place for prayer which is a little ledge on the rock face with a steep climb back up, or it could be an easy leap to death. Today he climbed back up again.

His eyes are pieces of golden light; his smile is radiant. It seems like this whole patch of rocky earth is brilliant in spirit.

         “Did you ask your questions in prayer?”

         “Yes.”

         “And God spoke to your heart?”

         He says, “‘God is love’ and that is the same on earth as it is in Heaven. Neither my vows nor my father’s death separate me and my father from the bond of love, and what is more, Brother Laz, I knew you were up here, watching over me. as surely as I felt God’s presence with me.”

         “I guess I was concerned you would only hear our feeble human attempts to answer, and you were coming here in the middle of understanding without a reasonable ending, so you might make a fatal decision based on God’s unfinished answer.”

         “Maybe your concern was needed the first time I climbed down to that ledge. It was just after I heard of my father’s death. But you saved me then when I looked down into the tidal wash below, there you were — dead.”

         “I’m sorry our first meeting was grotesque.”

         “It saved me that day. I found footholds along the descent, so step-by-step I made my way to the edge of the water, thinking any death could be my father coming back for me.”

         “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

         “No, no. I had no idea, then, of the power of grief.  I wanted to see my father’s grey hair and his bright smile, and his sparkling eyes the color of the sea. I pushed aside the dark kelp weed, ready to rescue my father back to life, and that tangle of kelp weed was your dark hair, and the eye that starred at me from death was your dark eye.”

         “I’m sorry.”

         “No, I’m sorry I ran away then. I climbed back, as fast as I could, and ran shouting to the others that I had seen death.  I could have stayed there to rescue you, as the silent hermit finally did.  But I was terrified.” 

         “And yet, this same ledge is where you still come for your prayers?”

(Continues tomorrow)

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#84.7 Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

The second night in with Brother Lugh, he asks me questions through all the hours of darkness.

     “Jesus spoke of a dwelling with many rooms. [John 14:2] Have you visited there in your deaths? Is my own papa there now? How will I find his room from the many when I, too, am dead?”

I have no answers. I worry he’s seeking his own death and the only answer I could draw from my own thoughts and prayers is from the ancient texts because I have no answer. I’ve never awakened in death. I’ve only returned to awaken in life.

     “There is a lesson in ancient teaching attributed to Moses, [Deut. 30:19 excerpt] ‘…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life…'”

He is a very literate student of the bible so he didn’t find satisfaction in my simple phrases out of context. He argued.

     “Moses was addressing the issue of paganism. The Israelites had melted their gold into an idol. But my father had his gold melted into a chalice — it is our chalice that is here in this place where we share in the blood of Jesus. It isn’t a golden calf.  Now I wonder… I have to question my own righteous prayers when I drink from that golden chalice.”

     “So when you question who answers you?”

     He says, “Before, when I asked you, you had no good answer. So I asked the abbot. He reminded me it is a sin to taint my prayers thinking only of my worldly father who is no more. And I suppose that’s true. I vowed to give up my worldly ways. But when we kneel at the golden chalice, gifted by my own earthly father, I don’t know if it breaks my vow to think of my earthly father, or is it a sacred moment of heaven where I happen to find him now?”

This morning, I followed my cellmate as we dispersed from the gathered worship to our own prayer places for the morning watch. Last night his grief seemed inconsolable.  All night we lay awake while he begged me for answers about death and resurrection which I don’t have. I was concerned he was in a state of mind to choose to seek his own death.

Now this new morning, Brother Lugh climbs back from a precipice of the birds. And again, I reach out my hand to draw him back up after our prayers.

(Continues tomorrow)  

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#84.6 Thursday, September 10, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Brother Lugh is glad to take me in. Maybe he was longing for a snoring mate. We begin this new day with the specified psalms then disperse from the church for private prayers.

I follow Brother Lugh through the early morning mist, to a high place with a crevasse hardly wide enough for a man to fit into.  I stay behind, and watch as he uses the split to slide down onto a ledge below.

To our human eyes the birds all seem the same — fledglings and elders all feathered in their brilliant black and pure white.  But those who sit here watching them for hours see they still court their one chosen mate. They take great care of their precious one egg. And, when a monk scales these cliffs for an omelet, they grieve the loss.

Today the birds are rising up, flocking, maybe leaving for a season and soon they will shed the bright orange beaks — losing their puffin magic in a season where it is no longer needed for enticing a mate — and they are off on the breeze across the sea.

I watch from above, as Lugh, slithers down to his own prayer place — on a bird’s ledge high above the sea.

         Dear God, thank you for this new healing and thank you for the jagged rock, always pointing toward the heavens. [Footnote] Though I am bound to the mortal shell of earth, may I always serve you as a sign of your all-encompassing, invisible presence on earth as it is in heaven. Let me be your wide arms, opened to receiving another’s grief, as I am also well practiced in earthly grief. Amen.

Brother Lugh is folded in his prayers at this rising of the sun into the brightening. I watch him, as he stands, balanced on the precipice. He looks up and sees me here. He waves, and smiles.  He draws up the fabric of his robe and ties it up with a rope as sash, to enable his climb back. This must be where he comes every morning. He knows ever foothold and handhold in this rock.  Why did I worry over his purpose in finding the beautiful place for prayer?  I had assumed his plan was to take his grief and plumet into the sea. But here he is strong and energized by the morning prayers. I reach my hand to draw him up to this highest place. Why did I think…

[Footnote] The Great Skellig, or as it is known now Skellig Micheal is described in the author’s notes of Geoffrey Moorhouse ( Sun Dancing) “on a day of newly rinsed clarity” and later told he had “seen the Skelligs… and would be forever restless until he set foot on them” because they were “holy ground.” (p. ix)

(Continues Tuesday, Sept. 15)

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#84.5 Wednesday, September 9, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

In this rare circumstance I’ve allowed myself the luxury of revealing the nature of my redundant healing as the intended earthly sign for the spiritual life. Probably, I mistakenly expected they would recognize the holy purpose of the sign. But no signs in the gospel of John answer the questions these youths are asking. God’s punitive judgement of sin is not affirmed in the signs in John. It may not be the nature of God at all.

The Youthful stage of life, just as in the youthful stage of all of monotheistic history, has a habit of observing everything sorted as either goodness or evil. And in another humanly twisted way, the Creator is said to perceive her own spawn as basically evil. The original biblical proof-text for this is the Genesis allegory of the first people eating from the forbidden fruit giving them the knowledge of good and evil. Then in Romans 5:12 Adam gets all the blame for original sin, so that the Christian “Christ” can deliver all goodness.

The abbot recognizes my immediate need.

         “You are probably wanting to make your way back down to the hermitage to rest.”

         “Yes, but I think Brother Timothy has had quite enough of me, now that I am healing and not depending on him for the shear breath of life. I think Sister Brigid is hoping I can find a place here, at least until St. Brenden’s boat comes by to whisk me off to Paradise.”

He smiles and rummages through a shelf of stored clothing behind the altar in the church. He finds a hooded robe to suit me. I am grateful.

         “You can stay with us here. Right now, mine is the only fleece spread at night in this larger cloche we use as our church, or we could make room for another in one of the novices’ cells.”

         “Sister Brigid had it in mind I would be a cellmate to Brother Lugh, since he is struggling with his personal grief at this time and may need the company.”

         “Grief?  We are all grieving for the monk who was among us and now is lost. And Brother Lugh shouldn’t be grieving for his father now that he has dedicated himself to God as a monk.”

         “Grief follows no rule, even a monastic rule. I’ll ask him if he wants to share his cell.”

         “You don’t have to ask him. It is his duty to welcome the stranger.”

         “Of course. But I will ask.”

(Continues tomorrow)

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#84.4 Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

The Abbot took compassion on my frailty and answered the brothers as best he could, then dismissed them to their daily tasks with a prayer. Now he sits here beside me on this step.

     I say, “These monks are so very young.”

     “Yes. Here they are, astounded by their first awakenings so maybe this community of brothers will be here for many years to come and there will always be someone here welcoming pilgrims and rescuing the shipwrecked sailors.  So many ancient stories of this place are of the bleak isolation of elders. [Footnote] But this time, what is now a new start will last long into the future.”

     “So, you are expecting the youthfulness of these current monks to insure the longevity of this community?”

     “I know they are impetuous now, but when they settle in to the patterns of this haven, becoming established here, growing wise with age, this will become a forever community.”

     “Forever is measured in generations not by one man’s lifespan, even a young man’s.”

The notion of choosing only young men for this arduous commitment in order to ensure the longevity of the community appears to me as a ludicrous and doomed plan. From the perspective of a forever man, the wonder of youth is not the guarantee of a lifelong adherence to a singular gift or commitment, though that is often assumed to be forever. With a relationship to God, and even within marriage the bond may be true throughout a lifetime, but the relationship is constantly changing and rebuilding anew.  So, expecting young monks to always value the trials of this vertical isolation, and a singular way of meeting God, as I see from the long view, may not be realistic.

It is a fallacy that youthfulness assures a long future simply by assuming it is only old age that has a shortened span of life. Of course, people die in all stages of life.  This community is already grieving for one of these young men.  It is tragic. But when the mortal promise excludes the aged and creates a youth culture, longevity still isn’t promised.  In fact, the blunders of age are often rooted in the whimsies of youth. And that rumored “wisdom” of age is often grounded in the nature of the teen’s normal penchant for rule testing.

[Footnote] This story of this community filling the ancient cloches of this monastery is fictional as are other stories of the lives of the people who lived on these particular rocks, until and unless documented or archeological history of the people who established the monastery on the Great Skellig becomes available. Geoffrey Moorhouse authors two books in one title, Sun Dancing (San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Co. 1997) Part I, The Tradition (the fictional story) and Part II, The Evidence.

Another written from research historical fiction is Haven by Emma Donoghue (New York: Back Bay Books/Little Brown and Company 2022).

 Now called Skellig Micheal, it was also made famous as the launching pad for a Star Wars sequel.

(continues tomorrow)

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#84.3 Thursday, September 3, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

We are on the steps of a monastery that nests among the peaks of rock rising straight up from the sea. The young monks gathered to ask me, and I intend to tell them that God’s love is the love of a wise and gentle parent, always forgiving, always welcoming, present with us on earth so we can see and touch, as God is always present in the spiritual, invisible of all that is real.

Taking a breather in this marathon of testing my healing bones, the abbot is stepping in, answering their persistent quandaries always about sin. I realize something about this stage, or phase of spiritual growth. It happened in my own youth when we went to hear the edgy, popular preacher, strange and interesting, shouting the starkest word in the wilderness, “repent” “turn from your old ways, and change up to a new thing.”

We went to that place because we were craving a clear set of rules. We wanted this preacher to tell us what was personally wrong with us, so we could fix ourselves over to be … to be all those things that made people look good to others. We needed to be wise and popular. When I was the age of these young monks, I was looking for some kind of personal beauty or wisdom or a do-over that would make me more good than I believed I was. I wanted good skin and good hair, I wanted to achieve wisdom and humor, and show it off when I had these glimpses of brilliance. 

It felt so good to go into the water with one who seemed to know sin well, and then be brought up drenched and gasping, but clean and new, born again like Nicodemus. How could I let popular preaching blind me from seeing God’s gracious, unearned love?

And at that time, I only knew Jesus as a good friend. He had a gentle sense of humor, always catching the irony and keeping things in perspective. My sister had a crush on him. When his turn came for the baptism, there was a shared sense of beauty all around. It was good, joyful maybe, but a shared feeling throughout the crowd. We talk about it in metaphor now, “a cloud” “a voice.”  But being stricken with the all-encompassing beauty of God with us, doesn’t answer the theological question of sin. Try as we may, we have no word to speak of this beauty. And when Jesus came up out of the water, God was everything. So where was sin?

(Continues Tuesday, Sept. 8)

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#84.2 Wednesday, September 2, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Sitting in the midst of these young monks on the stones for steps, I look at their faces — all one single expression dazed by wonder. I told them who I am, assuming their knowledge of the gospel would solve the mystery of the missing dead man now alive among them. They got caught up in the wonder of the sign and even those among them who are grieving the deaths of a brother, or a father, or their old lives are seeing only the sign and not the spiritual life that the metaphor in the sign could mean to the grieving.

If they see a sign on the refectory door telling them “today we fast,” do they examine the sign itself and wonder how the letters are formed? Or do they expect today is a fast day?

I am simply the sign Jesus posted to say that the Christ is the resurrection and the life.

I ask them.

     “Don’t you want to talk about the reason Jesus made a sign of me?”

Apparently, I’ve asked the impossible question. In the gapping unanswered space their eyes turn to the abbot, the only slightly older man who knows every word of gospel and even the epistles, by heart. The abbot understands my question, and he answers it — correctly — of course.

         “Jesus used the sign of the raising of Lazarus to speak one of his ‘I am’ Christ messages. He said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.'”

         One asks what all seemed to wonder, “Must we be without sin, to enter into this eternal life?”

         The abbot answers, “Of course.”

         I answer, “It’s not about sin.”

The young monks listen to the abbot.  And I wonder, why is everything always about sin? Even the all-loving God’s abundant gift of life seems to have a sin lock on the door.  It is helpful for me to remember my own needs as a youth.

Jesus was there with us in the crowd of the followers of John the Baptist.  It seemed wonderfully counter-cultural to us teens at the time. Our papa, a faithful Pharisee, didn’t want us just going off after every popular movement, but the actual opposition to these baptisms was from the political power mongers under Ceasar –I’ll save my commentary for another time.

I was in the crowd with my sister, Mary, as the preacher, John, begged repentance. And here was my friend, Jesus. Like these monks, we were all young, and searching.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#84.1 Tuesday, September 1, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

Sitting on the outer wall between sea and rock the young monks gather with their questions. My recent healing still feels tenuous, and here these young monks dutifully bring concerns regarding sin. Sin is either too personal or too hypothetical. I would rather answer questions about the message Jesus had of God’s love for all people. That isn’t what they want to hear. They want assurance of personal righteousness. Even in a new time it is the same old sin all wound up in a tiresome rope. I need a moment alone.

It is a dizzy silence that the young monks allow me. I move down from the wall, onto the steps to put my head against the cool stone wall.

Dear God, I am tired and aching just now. Fill me with the Creative Spirit, the fervor of the love message. Open these young fellows to the pure joy of Spirit.  Please break in with healing. Amen.

And here is Brother Lugh, bringing me a cup of cold water.

Maybe the better understanding I begged for is here now, in the silent young faces of these monks. And the shift from obligations of sin to the resurrection of joy doesn’t happen by fixing over youth’s same old ancient questions about sin. Maybe the repentance that is needed is for me to remember my own youthful quest to attain a personal goodness.

I can remember my need to please others and God too, all wrapped up in repentance. So why do young seekers still reach for the hard rule and punitive correction?  These nearly pure youth have committed themselves to the monastic rule, grasping for a single righteousness for turning from the guilt of sin, toward an affirmation — not of joy — but a solid list of rules.

And I thought surely, they would want to know the good news of the resurrection.

When I remember my own youth, my sister and I didn’t tell our Pharisee father that we were going out to that place on the river to hear the new preacher. We were following the voice in the wilderness, baptizing, in the Jordan.  There was a huge crowd; it was the place to be. The carpenter’s son, Jesus, was there in the crowd so we made our way in his direction.

We knew him. His father was the master carpenter who remodeled our house. Jesus and I had carried the beams for the new portico that summer.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#83.12 Thursday, August 27, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

About sin: I am sitting here on the wall of the steps to the monastery offering the monks a Q and A. I thought they would be asking about my friend Jesus, but I find they are most concerned about sin and holy retribution.

I intended to tell them about the seven signs, (not miracles,) that Jesus used to illustrate the gracious nature of God on earth as it is in heaven: here in the physical mortal life as it is in the eternal, holy, spiritual life.

Maybe that message isn’t as suited to these times of human wars and games of wins and losses. Or maybe God’s grace just doesn’t seem to belong in this place of winds and rocks and brute survival. Or maybe the obsession of people with sins appears to empower humankind to take control of the divine by requiring God to dole out punishments and rewards. Like the precocious child, bored in a classroom, humankind finds power over the whole of God’s love by behaving badly, always searching and sometimes creating “sin.” Even though the abundant power of the love of God surrounds us like air does for breath, constant and invisible, our personal thoughts of God only seem to gravitate to the exhale.

Jesus took issue with the human need for judgement. In John 9, the whole chapter is about the sixth sign in which Jesus gave sight to a man who was born blind.  He uses the mud of earth and spit to make the healing potion and he assigns the healing power from the traditions of healing by washing in a particular pool, using physical tools already known and present. But all the time, all around, the disciples, and then the keepers of the law, those religious leaders ever present make the discussion about sin. Jesus comes as a brilliant beam of gracious light into this eternal human search for the roots of darkness.

So. the next question from the young monks is much easier to answer because it is simply about order and sequence, not actual practicable theology. 

     “So, is the raising of Lazarus the seventh sign, or is it actually part of the fifth declaration of ‘I am’ [John 10:14]?”

This young scholar perceives the gospel as a numerical puzzle to be solved with seven of these and seven of those. He is seeking a hidden code as though it is a game with a win.

     I say, “However you come to it, it always ends the same. God is all-love, always welcoming us home. John 15:4.”

(Continues Tuesday, September 1)

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#83.11 Wednesday, August 26, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

In all my redundant healings, rising over and over again into life always into future times, I’ve never actually discussed my circumstances with anyone but my closest friends and family.  Now, I offered it as a homily on the “signs” in the gospel and the questions here aren’t about the Jesus message, they are only asking about personal sins, the kind that are confessed before a priest.

Perched as we are here, just above the nesting place for thousands of birds, our slight human glimpses of holy wisdom don’t distinguish which birds of Creation are beloved and which are doomed to eternal punishment. In birds there seems to be no sorting for punishment and no required penance. In birds, everyone has wings, not just the angels. Then, here are these earthbound monks with all the contrivances of human understanding.

     I ask, “What do you say about the birds? Do they sin? Does God measure them by their sins? Or is it only human beings who can sin?”

The monks look to the abbot for the answer, and the abbot is standing a few steps higher, observing, not participating. Pushed by his followers’ expectation he offers scripture for an answer.

     “In the Gospel of Matthew, it is said that God knows even if a nearly worthless sparrow falls. And God knows every little thing about us, even the number of hairs on our heads.” [Matthew 10:29-31]

A novice touches the bristles shaven on the fore part of his head, then he reaches his fingers back to the hairs still growing a length. It is a sign that God has less counting to do with tonsured monks. And it is a confusing bit of holy scripture here — this hair counting thing. I think the abbot was intending to use this reference to tell of God’s grace, affirming God’s love for all Creation. He means to be supportive of the metaphor I am drawing. But scripturally, the context is the Gnostic divisiveness between darkness and light, between soul and body. And in that passage part of us may be destined for hell. [In the context of the chapter Matthew 10]

The abbot’s answer doesn’t argue against my analogy but he chose to keep his answer narrow, allowing for grace, amid the more punitive context of the whole chapter.

To the abbot, I say, “thank you.”

(Continues tomorrow)

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#83.10 Tuesday, August 25, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Rarely do I explain my gift, or call it an oddity, of amazing healing power. But I did speak it aloud not to an intimate family member, but to a small community of monks who are strangers to me. They have so many questions; so after Mass I find a place on a stairway wall to sit, and answer whatever they ask.

Here the summer sun is tempered by the cool breath of sea–always beautiful. Always rugged — Even more awesome in storms. 

Monks gather with their questions.

     “Is this miracle available to anyone who doesn’t sin?”

Didn’t I already say that?

     “My oddity of life on earth is a sign, not a miracle. It is an earthly metaphor of a heavenly truth. Jesus intended the dramatic illustration of a healing to life as an earthly sign to tell us, his friends, of eternal life and life again, which is spiritually available to all.”

     “Were you chosen for this because you were sinless?”

I shouldn’t be caught laughing at this question. It was a serious question in these times. But how can I answer?

     “It wasn’t about sin at all, even though the notion of sin seems to drive every spiritual message on earth in these times. Sin is of earth and doesn’t speak the poetry of heaven. In the ways of thinking in these times, it would seem we are all sinners.”

     “So, you are saying Jesus raised up a sinner?”

     “I’m just saying sin, depending on the viewpoint people take of it, is either the inevitable nature of all humankind, or it is an earthly stain on some and not others. It isn’t a factor in the relentless, unjudging, gracious love of God for us or for the eternal nature of spiritual life.”

Now they are shouting questions over one another.

     “What about Hell?”

     “Why would people choose goodness over sin if the reward of heaven is for all?”

     “How can you say sin is a ‘viewpoint?'”

     “Jesus gave us signs of God’s universal and unbreakable love. This love of God is not fractured or manipulated by human sin. When Jesus was present, teaching, walking the earth, at my first rising, no one cared about my sins. My sister was blaming Jesus for being late to my death, but other than that, sin wasn’t even considered.”

     Jesus was using something all people share — healing, which is a gracious gift to all Creation, as a sign to show the nature of the reality of God’s love as unceasing and regardless of sin.”

(Continues tomorrow)


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#83.9 Thursday, August 20, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

     Order is restored and the abbot appears to be confused by my presence here. Am I his cohort or foe? He isn’t comfortable with nuance. He wants to hate me, but for this moment anyway, I’ve captured the wonder of his followers and it seems it would only undermine his power as the leader of this community to turn them against me.

     “Please Father, continue with this Mass.”

The abbot begins the liturgy. [Footnote1]

     Celebrant (abbot): “O God come to my assistance.”

     People: “O Lord make haste to help me.”

     Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever unto ages of ages.”

The unison “amen” is the cue to kneel. Even though this is a Celtic liturgy, there are some differences between this and the services led by Father Columbanus. I was not expecting to kneel, so I’m depending on this walking stick just now. I’ve only recently healed back to standing. I’m conspicuously the last to kneel as the abbot waits before proceeding with the prayer of contrition.

“We have sinned, O Lord, we have sinned: remit our sins and save us. Hear us, O Thou Who didst guide Noah upon the waves of the Flood, and didst recall Jonah from the abyss by Thy Word; free us. O Thou Who didst offer a hand to Peter as he was sinking; bear us up, O Christ, Son of God. Thou didst perform wonders among our fathers, O Lord: stretch forth Thy hand from on high to answer our necessities.” [Footnote 2]

I am so awkward rising again to my feet, Brother Lugh feels compelled to help me up. It is a wonder I claim healing at all.

     The abbot says, “Free us, O Christ:”

The dialogue continues.

         “Hear us, O Christ.”

         “Hear us, O Christ.” 

         “Hear us.”

The chant has a new, less complicated set of notes.

         “Kyrie eleison.”

         “Christe eleison.”

         “Deo Gratias.” [Stowe Missal]

When the abbot elevates the chalice — the new chalice — the golden chalice in this place of raw rocks — this anonymously gifted chalice, is actually known to Brother Lugh by its gifter — known to him as a remembrance of a father to a son. Brother Lugh, wilts in tears of grief for his own, ever so earthly and mortal, father.

     The words of institution — “the blood shed” — “the body of Christ” —

     The release of the Spirit on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

[Footnote 1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowe_Missal (retrieved 12-12-25) Blogger’s note: Just as I prayerfully write this blog about our spiritual oneness in God, having ancient earthly signs of this tucked into all creation, I search history on the internet looking for an 8th century Celtic Liturgy. And it is here.  It is published in these later centuries as a book.  Like the nature of color, all reflected to create the perfection of white, here is another earthly sign for that oneness of all human expression, despite the mortal little hates and foibles, may the  amalgamation of human goodness and wisdom and the search for it, reflect a spiritual truth.

[Footnote 2] ©1995 M K Dowling ORDINARY of the MASS (retrieved 12-15-25, as included in the Stowe Missal)

(Continues Tuesday, August 25)

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#83.8 Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

It’s left for me, to preach to these monks of the Skellig and explain myself as I am called a “sign.”

     “All of Creation, the earth, the beauty, the love and our sacred ability to touch and to be touched are all signs — on earth to speak of heaven. The whole of touchable, visible, beautiful Creation of earth speaks the heavenly truth, ‘God is.’ Love would be unfathomable if it had no earthly sign. Friendship, familial bonds, parental obligation, even sexual passion are earthly signs to speak of the invisible, present, all-encompassing love.”

I see shocked faces gaping at me — some loves are taboo here. Original sin keeps its luster even in a world made only of a vertical rock face.

     “All beauty on earth becomes signs of the invisible, explaining the  experience of heaven. I am a sign — an earthly messenger of something more.

     “In the Gospel of John, the signs aren’t hidden to be discovered anew with each turning of a leaf or wonder at a sunrise. In John seven signs were extraordinary and performed only by Jesus. So, my dear friend and teacher made me a sign when he called me back from my first death. There was, of course, a Roman plot to start rumors that I could finally stay dead, [John 12:10] which would have made me a sign of a temporary resuscitation, and the message would be that our spiritual nature is as mortal as our earthly nature. But, not so.  The spiritual life isn’t bound by the rules of mortality. Spiritual life is immortal and abides with God as love — before our physical births and after our physical deaths, even while we live as mortals, we are also spiritual by nature. Apparently, people weren’t adept at understanding that, so Jesus made a sign to speak it.”

     “How did you arrive here?” One asks.

     I was sailing with a river merchant to Iona, when we were wrecked in a storm at sea, and both of us drown.  My bones were washed ashore here. It was Brother Lugh who found me and Brother Timothy who granted me the time and comfort for the healing.

Now, everyone is shouting questions at me. The abbot is furious; his own shouts only raise the noise level. There is no decorum, just a cacophony of each talking above the other.

     I speak what the abbot is shouting, “Please, peace, my friends, this is a solemn service of worship. I will answer questions afterwards.”

(Continues tomorrow)

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#83.7 Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

Surely, they must know the gospel here; probably it is committed to memory many times over. For them, it wouldn’t be a strange story I have to tell. I could understand this amazement if they were Pagan and the earthly signs of Jesus were not already known to them.

     “Surely, you already know. It is as it was specifically told in John 11.”

The monks turn back to the front of the room expecting the abbot has plotted me here as a clever start for his homely on spiritual life. He could have played my interruption so well, but no. He looked to the two young novices, just learning the routines of this community.

     “Is this a prank?” the abbot asks. “You brought this stranger with you from the mainland and kept him hidden all this time just to make a joke of it?”

The young monks are mortified.  I speak on their behalf.

     “No, the new brothers had nothing at all to do with me here. I was brought from the dregs of the sea by Brother Timothy, the hermit, and for all the weeks of my healing he cared for me, as he does other wounded things clinging to life.”

Now the abbot casts accusations on Brother Lugh.

      “So, you lied, when you confessed that you’d lied, when you said you found a dead man on the shore!”

     “Your Holiness, I thought I’d seen a dead man, and then there was no one to bury, so I thought the devil had tangled my thoughts so I would think I saw what wasn’t, so I confessed that I had spoken a falsehood in reporting a dead man.”

The abbot failed his monks several times over here, blaming them, then revealing a confession, and now the missing homely is left for me to speak. I have everyone’s full attention.

      “My friend and teacher knew that his own death was eminent, murder by cross was plotted by Roman henchmen against any outspoken Jew. Jesus knew of his likely, earthly death. He wanted us, his beloved followers and friends to know that we would still have the Spirit of him with us, as he is still with us to this day. So, Jesus gave an earthly sign, raising a physical person from the dead, to gift us with an earthly simile to describe the invisible spiritual truth of heaven. And here am I, always healing in body as the sign of the heavenly truth of spiritual life unfettered by death.”

(Continues tomorrow)


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#83.6 Thursday, August 13, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

I follow the others of this community into the slightly larger, oblong cell of stacked stones where monks gather for Mass. It is not a Pagan circle, made over to be a Christian Church as are many small circular stone churches made over from ancient Pagan temples.  This seems Christian from the start. More likely it pretends to be the shape of a Roman basilica, so it has a front and a back. The abbot takes his place at the front and within the small scale of it, he alone, fills the whole apse. In a miniature structure, the earthly people seem like giants. So be it.

Brother Lugh and I, followed by the two novices were first to enter, so we are standing the farthest in the back, but how could Brother Lugh think I wouldn’t be noticed, a ninth man here, a stranger to these others, wearing this oddly made linen tunic of the very same weave as the scapulars and the body bags supplied to this monastery at the start of it. I’m grateful Brother Timothy gave me the proper Celtic tonsure. There is no thought among these people that I am not a monk — I’m just a stranger to them.

The dialogue of the ritual would be in the Roman language. But first, the abbot interrupts the expected liturgy, and speaks in the spoken language of these monks.

         “How is it possible there is a stranger among us? There has not been a boat at the cove for some weeks.”

It hardly feels like warm words of welcome.

         Brother Lugh announces, “This is Lazarus, back from the dead!”

There is a silence before the murmur of wonder.  Maybe no further explanation is needed.

         But the abbot says, “Brother Lazarus. Explain this.”

I really didn’t think I needed to explain myself to strangers. But I attempt it anyway.

         “I am a sign.”

         “You say you are Christ returned?”

         “No, no. I am a sign — My return to life is an earthly event to speak of a heavenly truth — I am just, simply, the sign on earth of spiritual resurrection as it is in heaven.  The mystical life is for all of us — it is the spiritual nature of all of our lives.”

There is a stunned silence here.

(Continues Tuesday, August 18)

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#83.5 Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

Here is a fracture of earthen rock jutting out over a foreboding sea. Climbing onto it would be daunting to any creature not equipped with wings. Heaven is abundant here. But it is the things of earth that are rough and sparse.

It isn’t a Christian thing, or a Pagan thing; it is an ancient thing, forever bound in the holy space between earth and heaven where people come seeking, and maybe even trusting that which is invisible yet well known as Holy. Even in such spiritual bliss within such holiness, comes a longing for an earthly voice to be the flesh and blood human speaking for Holy One. These brothers come here longing to hear the voice of God whispering the love message.

In the earthling way of thinking, the mountain peaks would be given grand names and the cliffsides would become the paths to reach them, but here, the peaks are simply called Skellig maybe because that’s the sound of the rock rolling down the cliffside. The whole island is Skellig, and Skellig is also another rock like this one, nearby in this ocean. But in the midst of this Great Skellig, between the unnamed peaks is the one place with a name. It is a gentler slope and it links one peak to the other. I’ve heard it called Christ’s saddle. It is a perfect seat for the far-traveling mystical presence of the Christ known here on the gallop from heaven to earth with the holy message always known but never spoken, except in metaphor and parable.

Here the earthbound fringe of humanity longs for a physical presence of God. Even the priestly voice of a human can’t really fill the gapping need for the link between heaven and earth. Yet, here, a priestly abbot can give a monk a comfortable footing on earth while his own monk’s Spirit soars heavenward.

I follow Brother Lugh and a few other monks through the opening at the east facing end of the largest of this cluster of cells. These stacked stone cells look like an enclave of bald heads — but with corbels. Why have these monks, new to this Skellig, not thatched their shelters, at least with fescue and kelp as Brother Timothy has done to his cell? If these monks had lived their earthly years as my own sons, they would know the importance of thatch to keep the damp out and every little passing raincloud wouldn’t chill their sleeps.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#83.4 Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

I speak the Spirit of the familiar prayer aloud with Brother Lugh but not using the words of practiced repetitions; and he objects. Just now, I prefer thoughtful words to empty phrases so I continue in disorder.

     I say, “Guide us wandering into the thin places — the liminal space between heaven and earth.”

     He corrects, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

On it goes.

      “Give us the goat’s milk and Swiss chard we need just for this one day, on earth as we are nurtured in heaven,

     “Give us this day our daily bread.”

     “And flaunt us in the forgiveness that releases Spirit from earthly errors.”

     “Forgive us our debts.”

      “Let us truly believe in forgiveness, enabling us to release others from their indebtedness to us.”

     “As we forgive our debtors…

     “Lazarus, I don’t really blame you for making a liar of me in front of the abbot. I mean, you were dead. What could you do?  But I blame the whole Lazarus tale that fools the world into thinking dead people can just rise up and live again. And yet, death is death, and I will never see my father again. (He wails.) I took the vow. It is such a deep hurt to give up self to God. You can’t just make up your own words to a prayer.”

     “You know, Brother Lugh, the Lazarus story is a sign on earth of life as it is in heaven. Death is an earthly undeniable fact, but a sign uses an earthly fact to speak an invisible, but real, spiritual truth. Spiritually, death itself is breached — on earth as it is in heaven.”

     “In one way I like to believe that because I feel my father with me, even as I know he is dead, but, of course…”

     “You can’t just ‘like to believe’ something. You either do believe it or you don’t no matter what other people — even if they are bishops or abbots or even your own father tell you to believe. And grief is the love between you and your father that you know is true and real and present with you. You know your father’s spirit and your own parent’s love is still with you.”

     “The abbot would say it is a sin to dwell on my father. And if I say, it was my father who is dwelling with me, the abbot will say I continue to lie.”

     “So, what can I say to the abbot on your behalf?”

(Continues tomorrow)


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#83.3 Thursday, August 6, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Brother Lugh and I are speaking of his grief at the loss of his father.

     He says, “I was supposed to leave my old life behind. But it was my father who sponsored me here, when Abbott McTyre was gathering monks. And now I’ve learned that the plague was rising and my father knew of the danger to himself as a physician. He sent us two more novices who were untouched by plague. I was sure it was my father who sent them when I saw the chalice. 

   “Here everyone was talking about gratitude for the chalice. At the same time the community was morning a lost monk who had died in a fall. The gratitude was for my own father’s gifts, and yet he died alone on the mainland.  The only grief allowed was for the brother who threw himself off the cliff. I hardly knew that brother, but the other death I am prohibited from speaking of, was my own father. So this grief is mine alone.

     “Then I went to the ledge over the sea to pray but my prayer had no words. I looked down and considered the possibility of slipping off the ledge to my own death. There was no peaceful search of my soul. Yet my sins separated me from God.

“Then, what I saw below me was the edge of the sea, with the tide out and something strange among the rocks.  I climbed down to see what I couldn’t understand, and I found a dead man with sea weed hair, and a glistening eye. No one else saw him even when they searched. They thought my grief set me to lying. So, I confessed it, and was absolved for lying, but now here you are that same living dead man.”

What can I say?

     “Brother Lugh, it was gracious of you to bring me this cup of water. Thank you. My prayer is gratitude for your kindness and also for my own healing and life.”

     “Gratitude to God?” he asks.

     “May I speak aloud that Jesus prayer as gratitude for this little communion?

     He prepares.

     “Holy One, Heavenly Spirit of mother and father to all of Creation,”

      He interrupts, “No! The words are ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name’.”

Brother Lugh knows the familiar, comfortable, recitation of his own language words. My words are just a different pattern of the same prayer.

(Continues Tuesday, August 11)

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#83.2 Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

I found a stacked stone wall for a rest before I find a place to stay here or maybe before I decide to go back.  Possibly Sister Brigid’s intention in bringing me up here was purposed with setting me free, like the healed bird; or maybe she guided me to Brother Lugh because she felt he needs me.  He was the first to find my bones, and it was Brother Lugh who told the others a dead man washed up with the tide.

He saw me there. But, when no dead man was found on the shore for burial, Brother Lugh, who was already grieving for his father, was accused of lying.  He sought absolution for the sin of lying and others thought he was obsessed with death and hallucinating about finding a dead man. And now, it is Brother Lugh who is sitting here with me, offering a cup for water, and pouring out his grief.

     He says, “When the two novices arrived with the chalice, they said their sponsor had willed the golden gift before he died. My father was a physician, and he knew the plague was spreading again and would soon likely take all who helped the sick. I doubt those novices he supported and appointed before he died even knew his own son was already here?”

     “Brother Lugh, just this simple cup of water set me to remembering when Jesus was preparing for his own death and he poured the wine into a cup, and spoke words of our belonging one to another. It was the cup we still share.”

     “But now my father sent two strangers to ‘refresh’ our community here, along with the Jesus cup. (His tears flow.) That chalice, is a sign that he is looking for me in heaven but here, I am not even allowed to think of him. The abbot demands I leave my old life — even my father’s memory. I try to pretend to forget, but saying I can forget just becomes another lie.”

     “Of course you can’t forget. Grief can never be absolved by pretending to forget. And you can’t ignore the mercy when your own father sent two new brothers and a sign of remembrance. He sent you brothers as assurance that you don’t have to bear grief alone.”

     “No, no. My father didn’t tell those brothers that his own son was here.  They have no idea their benefactor had any connection to this place. Only I know their benefactor was my father.”

     “God knows.”

(Continues tomorrow)

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#83.1 Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Sitting here on a stacked stone wall, reeling from the climb up a long path I see Sister Brigid is already across the valley. She went on back without waiting for me. I wonder if she assumed I would find a welcome among this community of monks so I would now be staying here.

She’s probably going to Timothy’s little cell. They will speak with silent fingers and Timothy will know she has sent me to Brother Lugh.

She told me the monks in this cluster of cells are fairly new inhabitants of this place, not yet here a whole year round.  She told me it is usual that monks come and go but those who die here get buried here forever and ever. Apparently, death lingers, but the living come and go.

These stone hovels have endured many seasons; yet every community that inhabits them is mortal. When a place is populated by generations of people continuance is promised through its children. To have on-going generations it requires a heterogeneous social network, more than a monastery provides. It is the simple fact of life. Continuation requires all ages and stages of humankinds, women, and these young men with their visions, and the old dreaming dreams. I assume Sister Brigid is right.  The community of this monastery will always be a narrow sliver of only one immediate generation, without any enduring legacy. Broken stone hovels and markers provide the memorial to failing human endurance.

Brother Lugh comes with a cup of water. It is refreshing.

     “Thank you. It’s thoughtful of you.”

     I ask the grieving monk, “Were you with your father when he passed away?”

Brother Lugh buries his weeping in his hands.

I lay my hand on his quivering shoulder.

     “No. I promised him I would try to always do God’s will, so we assumed this place would become my home forever and after. I wouldn’t even know of my father’s death but for two novices who were brought over from the mainland to fill out our numbers. They brought a golden chalice with them — a gift from the estate of their sponsor who recently passed. And then they named their sponsor, and he was my father.”

We sit in silence, except I know his weeping. I stare into the fired clay cup he brought me for water. Surely, this generous little cup is a chalice perfectly suited to this meager end to earth. A golden chalice will be something strange in this place.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#82.14 Thursday, July 30, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

The climb to the cluster of cells that on the Great Skellig was exhausting for me so Brother Lugh and I found a seat on the low wall of the cistern in the midst of the monk’s cells.

      “Brother Lugh, I also know grief too well. You have my sympathy. Tell me of your father’s life.”

      “No. I’ve taken vows. My old life of longings for what I can’t have is no more now. The abbot has heard my confessions. To claim you are like Lazarus, the Jesus miracle when he raised his best friend from the dead, really only makes a mockery of death, and in this world, death is real, and miracles are not. My father can’t just rise up from the dead. Death is real.

      “I said I saw a dead man, and then there was no dead man to bury. The abbot said I was transfixed by death so I lied that I had seen a dead man. He said my lie was a sin so I confessed, and my sin and it was absolved.”

      “But there was no lie told.”

      “The abbot said death cannot be absolved as a lie. But you, dead man, followed me in my sleeps, always staring at me with your living eye. Now, you are here like a living person, claiming to be a Jesus miracle, calling yourself Lazarus. Just leave me alone, and let the dead be dead.”

      “I just need to rest here a minute, then I’ll go back to Timothy’s hermitage. Please, sit with me here.”

Again he sits; he really does want to talk.

      “Why did Sister Brigid say you are that miracle?”

      “She just introduced me as Lazarus and Lazarus is a sign, not a miracle.”

      “No, a sign is a posting on the refectory door to remind us to fast. It isn’t the same as a miracle.”

      “You’re right. A sign is not a miracle. And the raising of Lazarus is a sign. A sign is an earthly image that points to a spiritual truth. Raising a dead man to life is one of Jesus’s earthly signs that tells a spiritual truth.  The truth is, even while you grieve an earthly death, you know the spirit of your father lives and you know you are still beloved by him.”

Silence now. I lay my hand on his shoulder intended as a small earthly comfort for him.

(Continues Tuesday, August 4)

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#82.13 Wednesday, July 29, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Sister Brigid has guided me to the monk’s cell of Brother Lugh, the young monk who found my bones in the tidewater in early spring. Maybe he recognizes me. Maybe he just always looks cautiously terrified.

      “You’ve seen me before, Brother Lugh. Then I was in a far worse state. Sister Brigid tells me it was you who sent for help and I’m grateful.”

The young, freshly shorn monk just stares at me incredulously through wide eyes of terror that I have also seen before. Maybe he always sees with wonder. He stares as though I am a visage or a ghost and not a living person, even now, nearly healed, as I stand outside his doorway very much a living person, he says nothing. Is there a difference between wonder and fear?

I say, “Brother Timothy came for me with a sledge and a shroud intending to gather up the bones of a dead man. When he saw my nearness to life I became another of his healing projects.”

Brother Lugh looks troubled.

      “What do you mean healing? He is a deaf mute. He buries the dead.”

      “Brother Timothy is indeed silent, but not deaf to God. I guess he hears of hopes and needs beyond the listening of the others of us. For your alertness, and for his awareness in the possibility of my life continuing, I am ever grateful. I thank you now for your part in my rescue. Sister Brigid brought me here, because she knew I first needed to speak my gratitude to you.”

      “I knew I saw you dead. I was not mistaken. When another of us brothers was dead, I saw death and I know death, and I saw you dead. Now I’ve had word of my own father’s death. I only wish to welcome one particular beloved ghost and he is not a stranger to me.”

So, my presence here is intruding on his grief. What can I say?

      “Might we sit down on this step? I’m not yet at my full strength,”

      “Just go on your way now. This is my time for prayers. I’ll ask penance for my sin of envy, because you live, and my father does not.”

      “I am a sign, and not an easy answer to grief. We should sit down and consider together the meaning of a sign.”

He is reluctant.  At long last I can sit down. We find a place on the wall of a cistern.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#82.12 Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

This morning, Sister Brigid not only comes up the path with the flasks of goat’s milk that she takes to the monks each day, she also has a cloth sack over her shoulder overflowing with fresh garden greens.

Of course, I offer to help her carry all of this, though I’m not yet sure of my own strength even to walk this path. She gives me the bag of greens and I realize it is thoughtful of her not to ask me to help with the flasks.  She must have noticed my frailty.

We follow the worn path descending into the low place in the valley. She walks ahead of me, steady as a goat and waits at the bottom for my slower descent.  We cross the lower, more level part of the valley, then I look to the ascent — it seems daunting just now as I am hardly accustomed to walking at all. She takes the bag of greens onto her own shoulder.

      “Take your time.” She says, “This first time, just use your hands and knees for the climb up the stairway. What seems a hard climb today will be easy for you tomorrow.”

I know she is right. That’s the nature of healing. Healing may be a holy miracle, but it is never a magical grand pronouncement: ‘now you are strong again.’ It always demands the frail stretch into strength. So today, I make the ascent to the monastery clinging to the walking stick, nearly on my hands and knees, grateful for her patience with me.

We stop for a rest at the hillcrest, and she hands me back the bag to carry.

      “The monks will be returning from their morning prayers very soon, so we will be waiting for Brother Lugh at his cell. “

I follow the Sister to a doorway of the cells, so when Brother Lugh returns, he does find us waiting.

He is clearly startled to see me. Maybe he would be shy of any stranger, or maybe he remembers he has seen me. He keeps his gaze fixed on me, as though I were a snake at his door.

      Sister Brigid says, “Brother Lugh, this man calls himself Lazarus.”

The Sister hefts the supplies and goes on to make her delivery leaving me to explain myself to the stunned monk. We both know he’s seen me before, in a different state of life. Is that also what he is thinking in his silence?

(Continues tomorrow)

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#82.11 Thursday, July 23, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

On this new day I step outside the cell and watch for Sister Brigid to come up the rise.

I’m grateful for the walking stick. This trek, like everything in this place, requires a serious climb. Gratefully, there is a path with stair-like layers, but were it a staircase there would be more than six hundred steps. I take stops for resting all along the way. 

These monk’s cells are what account for buildings on this island and they remind me of deep forest mushrooms, but without the forest. They are built of dry stacked stone. (No mortar is used.) So the secret of this strength that stands through centuries unfazed by wind and storm lies in the dialogue among each of the layers of stone, with the pull of the earth. [Footnote]

At the base the walls are in two layers, the straight interior walls as any house or hut, and a curved outer wall that continues above the straight interior, rounding like a Roman dome, with the weight of the stones laid one against the other in a unity of strength.

Where the straight walls end, the round exterior is set with cobbles, as is any stone house prepared for a thatch roof. Apparently, there once was an expectation of thatch. But here there is so little material for a nice weave of thatch, so, some have their roofs sodded with mossy grasses.  And there seems to be plenty of dampness here to maintain mosses.

I think, with the slightly angled vertical “stalks” for stems and the round flora lay of the roof, the cells with sod look like huge mushrooms just up from a forest floor.

I gaze across the valley that makes a curve between the two peaks of this rock from this somewhat high place where Brother Timothy’s cell perches, across to the higher rock face of this Great Skellig where the rocks were stacked to be the monastery.

Sister Brigid calls this wide U-shaped valley “the Christ’s saddle.” In this season it is a green valley where the goats graze. Despite the abundance of birds that make a fertile garden place of this whole sea rock, the wind and the sea support the bleakness, and the garden patches require an intentional gardener.  No doubt Sister Brigid has worked the soil of her garden since she was a child.

[Footnote] A most interesting aspect of historical fiction is when old history has new finds. Another internet search of Skellig Micheal provided a more detailed, and a first person observation of this setting. This blogger attempted some amendments, like learning that the actual stairs were a later creation — I only assumed some sort of path was there. https://petercox.ie/blogs/a-life-in-the-landscape/the-monks-of-skellig-michael?srsltid=AfmBOoqYm2UmxaPDLdI29VUvmuE1e0WfFs9-Pj0H41rUxSBwVxdHk5ER  (retrieved 4-11-26)

  (Continues Tuesday, July 28)

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#82.10 Weds., July 22, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

The Sister understands my need to leave the care of her brother now.

      “Tomorrow follow me across the Christ’s saddle to the monastery so you can make yourself known there.”

      “I’d like to do that.”

I can see the path through the green valley (known as the “Christ’s saddle” here) and a pathway nearly like steps rising to the stone works of monks.

      “So, I should look for the abbot.”

      “No. You should go first to Brother Lugh. He was the monk who came up the climb, breathless, panicked and pale, saying that a dead man had washed up on the rocks.”

      “I must have been a grotesque find.”

      “They had just experienced the first death among them. And these monks, who only recently arrived to fill the shell of a monastery were vowing to God they would be here forever. They haven’t even been here through all the seasons around, and already one of them passed. Then, just as they were preparing for that burial, Brother Lugh reported that a dead man had washed up. Fresh on the edge of mortal fear, every tide turned with the trepidation that it might expose something more of death stalking every nightmare. They are young and mortal fears still haunt them.”

      “Then I just landed here like a piece of driftwood on an island that never had a tree. I can imagine that the sight of dead stranger would be horrifying.”

      “So, they set about preparing a second grave, but this one was beyond the monk’s cemetery where they had just prepared to bury one of their own. But making a grave in the unturned rock was daunting. Any untilled earth here is solid rock. So, they didn’t chisel a dent.”

      “So sorry to put them through that.”

      “Well, it was good there was no body to be found so they didn’t have to finish it. The abbot assumed the dead man was invented by Brother Lugh because finding death was new to them. The abbot accused Lugh of dancing with the devil in lies.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      “The abbot doesn’t easily let go of the devils he evokes so you will be a blessing of truth for Brother Lugh. You can understand why Lugh would welcome you. “

So tomorrow, when Sister Brigid delivers the goat’s milk, I will follow her across the valley and up to the monastery to the cell of Brother Lugh.

Returning now to Brother Timothy, my prayer is for strength for the long trek in this healing.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#82.9 Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Sister Brigid affirms my concern that Timothy only perceives me as a creature in his care. If I were a bird, I would be released into the sky. But as a human being, my release poses a problem. Am I seeking his friendship and expecting belonging? I’m finding all Brother Timothy chooses to offer me is his relentless care and maybe some pity for my brokenness.

      “This isn’t like the bird’s healing, where one day I just fly off.”

      His sister says, “This is something to talk with him about.”

      “How can I do that?  It can’t just be explained in pointing to some simple metaphor or guiding him in the recipe for steaming the Swiss chard.”

She shows me a sign they use with their fingers that means “sibling.”

      “You need to use this sign of grasping hands, then pointing from one to the other to say to him, I am your brother.”

      “And I also need to thank him. How do I sign ‘thank you’?”

      “I don’t know.  We never say that to one another.”

I interrupt the introspective silence she sets between us in this moment.

      “I’ve seen that the others he rescues know how to speak gratitude. The hound sits with him in the storms, the bird returns and always knows who he is. So maybe my gratitude to him isn’t a simple sign for a spoken word but a commitment.”

      “Indeed, Lazarus, but I’d guess the real communication challenge you have isn’t to thank one who doesn’t hear, but it is how you will explain your presence at the monastery. Last they saw you, you were dead.”

         “I’ll just tell them I’m Lazarus, risen again.  They’ve read the gospel. They’ll know the story.”

She laughs.

      “You probably don’t want to take that news to the abbot. In fact, I will suggest you follow me tomorrow when I deliver the goat’s milk up there, and we will go first to Brother Lugh. It was he who claimed he saw a dead man in the tidal wash, and he may be glad to know he wasn’t imagining that. The abbot assumed he had invented a lie. But maybe you should introduce yourself with your real name, then say, ‘like Lazarus.’ who returned from the dead.”

      “So, I shouldn’t say I am Lazarus?”

      “I think not.  Brother Lugh actually does have fits of fantasy and he would be one to believe you.”

      Apparently, she doesn’t believe me.  What can I say?

(Continues tomorrow)

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#82.8 Thursday, July 16, 2026

Art notes The [Irish text] text as edited by Stokes 1888,  is here shown alongside the literal translation [English]  due to Todd. (Footnote)

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Sister Brigid offers the human conversation I’ve been craving.

      I ask, “How is it possible that a Brother in a community of faith, such as a monastery on a remote rock, could be excluded from the monastery as you suggest.”

      “Timothy and I are not excluded.”

      “You aren’t?”

      “No, we belong to God the same as they do, but we don’t belong with them. It happens here that bands of monks come and go. They show up for a season as though they are here forever, but then they’re gone. They come here to belong to God alone. But they always keep a boat for the return or they arrange for a boat to show up from time to time. Timothy and I don’t have a boat.” [footnote]

      “How did you get here?”

      “We were delivered here as children by the ‘holy person’ God sent to rescue us when we were discovered to be homeless orphans living by the sea.”

      “You mean, you were just abandoned all alone on this bleak rock?

      “We are never alone, of course. God is with us.”

      “Of course, I know that. I too feel God’s presence here in the silence and the sounds of this place.”

       “The holy person taught us the breastplate of St. Patrick, “Christ before me, Christ beside me, …”

         Interrupting, “I know it well.”

She continues speaking it with her hands. Then she folds her hands in a silence at the end and tells me more of their deliverance here.

      “We could have survived on the land over there, fine enough, but people misunderstood Timothy and cruelty is the human nature of misunderstanding. We were in danger so it was a blessing that we were delivered to a place.

      “It has always been known that this Skellig is a holy rock where only the most God-fearing come for solitude. It is the dessert place, for the sacrificial commitment to God alone by the living martyrs.  Here, we found the birds and sea creatures and the life we had known living by the sea. But we also found the little gifts left behind by the past people, the stone stackers: hounds and goats and gardens, their little cells and a cell for worship. Some have even left their graves up there in the cemetery. When my brother knows of a death, he chips a marking stone for them. The stone-stackers left their tools for Timothy — the mallet, chisel, sledge and rod.”

Art Footnote — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Breastplate

retrieved 1-17-26

Footnote The Great Skellig has long been known for the ruins of an ancient monastery. It was the launching pad for Star Wars. and the speculative source for many other fictional tales, like Sun Dancing by Geoffery Moorhouse, and recently Haven by Emma Donohogh.

(Continues Tuesday, July 21)

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#82.7 Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

Things are different now. I’m not needy and helpless and Brother Timothy is not the caregiver. One healing changes us both, and just as the stretches of healing are painful for me, the new stretches of relationship for Brother Timothy challenge his power over me. Healing is miraculous, but also, it is a severance of care. He will have to rescue another broken bird, and I will have to find my own way here.

On this new day Sister Brigid delivers the more abundant flask of goat’s milk and now she goes on her way with her other deliveries as she does daily. I step out of the cell, and watch her cross the deep, green divide and up the stone stairway to a higher place. Now that she knows of me, here, she has filled her brother’s flask more fully, so sharing with me isn’t his personal sacrifice.

I’m hoping he sends me back this morning to return the empty flask so I can thank her with words; but the little monk goes off as he always did until yesterday and returns it himself. So today, after he comes back, when he settles into his routine of silent prayers, before he begins his daily task of chipping stones, I go back again, down the path to the Sister’s cell.

I see her pouring fresh water into the goat trough.

      “Good morning, Sister Brigid.”

      “Good morning, Laz. Did my brother send you back down? He was just here.”

      “I know. I just wanted to thank you for adding extra milk today, now that my presence isn’t a secret anymore.”

      “Not a secret now, from me anyway; I am pretty sure the others haven’t a thought he’d rescue a man among all his saved birds and critters. But if you wander up to the monastery, you may find that you, just showing up on the Skellig, will be very hard to explain.”

      “I see that Brother Timothy finds joy in the healing power as he released a bird from his care. And he probably needs to release me as well, so I need to go on my way to find myself useful.  I’m not needy anymore, but I’m not needed either. And I don’t know how to speak to Timothy so I could be a brother for him.”

She laughs.

      “Even the brothers aren’t brothers for him.”

         (Continues tomorrow)

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#82.6 Tuesday, July 14, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

Sister Brigid sends me with a sack of Swiss chard which she promises will be a treat for Brother Timothy when it is cooked properly.

      She says, “Brother Timothy has no idea how to prepare this. I’ve tried to instruct him on this method for steaming it, but he insists on boiling it down in brine like sea kelp and it just blackens into slime proving to him that sea stuff is better than garden greens. Now he will be amazed to find how good this garden thing can be.”

The climb back up around the rock from Sister Brigid’s cell is a good stretch for me — not unbearable pain, but the stretch of healing pain. Trinity is waiting at the hillcrest as a hound does when one from his own abode is returning.

I’m reminded of the Sister’s story of Saint Brendan, who was greeted on this Skellig by a hound. The wonder of the story is that the hound was expecting the Saint and his monks, as though all of Creation welcomed them home to a place where they had never been before. Whenever I hear these stories of saints, the awe is supposed to be in the oddity of miracle, but to my ears, the message of God’s love is hidden in the mundane details of the story. There is an obligation to the storyteller to include the details, even though they seem usual but that is where the signs are hidden.

Brother Timothy takes the gift of chard with a scowl, as he prepares to untie it from the cloth and drop it into his boiling pot of sea stuff. But I take it from him and re-tie it to the stick to lay across the top of the pot, dangling  in the rising steam. He keeps his stubborn scowl.

When the chard softens in the cloth and the drops from the cloth redden the water, I remove it from the steam and open the cloth. I touch the reed stick to the wilted leaves, dangling the morsal which I try first. It is excellent. So, the next bite I capture on the stick, I offer to Brother Timothy. He hesitates before he takes it, like a baby bird receiving the first worm, then I see his grinning gratitude. We share all of the chard before the stewpot of rosy stewed sea stuff is thoroughly cooked. The brother will have to admit sometimes his sister has a good idea.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#82.5 Thursday, July 9, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Brother Timothy’s sister tells me of Saint Brendan here on this Great Skellig. Discussing signs and miracles and we discover a twinkle of humor in the distinction between a saintly miracle and a simple sign of God’s gracious abundance. Apparently, a miracle has furniture. Her humor is gratifying. A miracle requires a great hall with tables, and an earthly sign is just a picnic with an abundance of food.

From my viewpoint though, as one who was rescued to be a redundant mortal as a sign, I too, find it better to be a sign than a saint. I tell her my name is Eleazor. It has more clarity than “Lazarus” just now. 

She tells me how she was charged at birth to always care for her twin, Brother Timothy.

      “Then I was named Brigid after a goddess, but the old woman who kept infant orphans wanted to call me Eunice to pledge my care for Timothy, as though giving me the name of a mother would provide him with a mother. But when we were cast out no longer infants, to live by the sea, God was with us and sent a ‘holy person’ to watch over us, who always called me Sister Brigid so that’s who I am.”

      “Very well, Sister Brigid, may you know me as Lazarus.”

      “Lazarus, who rose from the dead in John’s gospel?”

      “One in the same.”

She laughs. She thinks that’s funny.

Returning to her cell she ties some hands full of chard in bundles to take to Brother Timothy.

      She asks, “Do you know how to cook chard?”

      “I’ve always prepared it with the roots or beets boiling in the pot first, then when the skins are loose, I add the chard; it softens quickly and it is all good to eat. But here you leave the roots in the garden.”

      “Set in your old ways, Eleazor who calls yourself “Lazarus” you don’t need beets to redden the stew, the chard will grow again from the root left in the ground.”

She wraps a bundle of chard in a swath of cheese cloth.

      “When the pot is boiling take a stick and hold this bundle in the rising steam.  When it softens, and the blood-red drops redden the frothy boil the chard will be sweet and soft and warm to eat, and the water will be a very fine broth as well. And in the garden chard will grow again from the beet. It is a sign.”

 (Continues Tuesday, July 14)

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#82.4 Wednesday, July 8, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Gardening with the Sister, I can ask my questions about the people who come here.

      “Why is Brenden a saint and Brother Timothy simply a good man with a dog? Or does it matter?”

      “Oh, it matters. When the stories that the monks tell are of the saint, they are filled with amazing wonders and miracles, where earthly us would see only signs.”

      “Signs? Signs can be holy.”

      “Signs are everyday things, like the leaves of the Swiss chard that grow back from the root when harvested. It is a sign of God’s gifts of abundance. A holy gift isn’t used up, but comes back again and again. Like goat’s milk. That is the sign in nature, but it is no miracle or wonder. It only speaks of the miracle of God’s gracious abundance. So, it is a sign.”

      “So, when the Saint and the monks were sent to this great rock soaring from the sea…”

      “…This Skilleg, God did not simply give them a path onto the rock. First, they struggled, they circled the wrong rock, then they circled around this for three days, prayerfully, of course, then the miracle. It is told for all the generations, exactly in this way:”

‘…and they saw a great rock of stone appear above all the water, and three days they sailed about it ere they could get into the place.

         But at the last, by the purveyance of God, they found a little haven, and there went a-land everyone. And then suddenly came a fair hound, and fell down at the feet of Saint Brendan and made him good cheer in his manner.

         And then he bade his brethren, ‘Be of good cheer for our Lord hath sent to us his messenger, to lead us into some good place.

         And the hound brought them into a fair hall, where they found tables spread ready, set full of good food and drink. ‘ [Footnote]”

      She adds, “So this is a story of a saint, because the hound led them to a miraculous feast, in a hall with tables and an abundance of food.”

      “Isn’t that also how Brother Timothy makes the relentless climbs, guided by the creatures, and he also finds the most needed things — the eggs and sea plants for food, and the rain water in the clefts of rock — is this not the sign of a saint, also?”

      “No. To be a saint, requires the miracle of finding the gracious feast served in a great hall with tables.”

[Footnote] Caxton, William, Modern Spelling Version The Voyage of Saint Bredan (Published by Langley Press, Copyrght 2016, Simon Webb, noted as the author.) The introduction to this hagiography is informative, and sets this publication in its historical context 1470’s, hundreds of years after the life of the saint, but even in that later time it was not in the English words we would expect to read in our century. Author, Simon Webb, made it accessible. Caxton was producing the first ever English language printed books.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#82.3 Tuesday, July 7, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

I’m gardening with the sister. Here she sets the weed sprouts aside for the birds, lecturing me on the human numbness to the gracious gifts of Creation. And she takes from the garden only the leaves of the chard, letting the root stay in the soil. It’s been my tradition to pull and use the beets to redden the pot.

      I ask, “Do you not find the beets would be good to keep for your winter stores?”

      We don’t store up for days that may never come. We are gifted each day according to our need.”

      “Of course.” I recite the prayer words she’s considering, “Give us this day, our daily bread, or Swiss chard, or beets, or whatever this day may bring without worry for the next.” I can agree with her frugality; it just isn’t of the world I’ve ever known.

      She says, “It is the wisdom of Saint Brendan that is left in the place, to grow and grow again. When we have need of the roots, I will come for them, but here, from that root the leaves will grow back soon enough and they will keep on giving back to us for the whole season.”

      “So, tell me more of this Saint Brendan.”

      “It is said that he was an abbot with monks and they prepared hides, oiled to endure the sea water. Then they framed a little currach with high sides for sea tides and covered the oaken boat frame with well-oiled skins. Then they set out to release themselves onto the sea, following only the will of God. If God sent them to the little Skellig and there was no place to go ashore, they circled it three times, ‘father, son and holy ghost,’ and then by the will of God they laid eyes on the Great Skellig, which is this place.” [Footnote]

      I ask,   “So, they landed on this rugged rock, by the grace of God?”

She nods and smiles.

      She says, “Saints don’t beg for ease. Here the saint could hear God speaking to him in the voices of the birds.”

      “So, if a saint is gifted with listening to creatures, then surely Brother Timothy is a saint.”

      She stifles her laugh — being the good sister she is.

      She says, “Whatever that hound tells him isn’t for me to question. My task in life is only to tell him what people say.”

[Footnote]  Caxton, William, Modern Spelling Version The Voyage of Saint Bredan (Published by Langley Press, Copyrght 2016, Simon Webb, noted as the author.)

(Continues tomorrow)

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#82.2 Thursday, July 2, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
 

This Sister is the actual sister to the little monk she tells me. Her twin is Brother Timothy.

She takes the weeding prongs and a garden bag and we follow a well-trodden path that descends then turns steeply. She’s promises to tell me the tales of St. Brendan.

We slide down toward this wider green space on a ledge, rich with grasses already forming seed heads. It isn’t a long way, but it does tax my nearly healing bones and I wonder if I am even fit for this. My walking stick is of little use downward but I cling to it, because I suppose I will be able to use it for the climb back up. Here are rows of chard growing in a sunny spot between the rising rocks.

The sister kneels down on the earth at the chard rows and gestures for me to do the same. Kneeling is a good stretch for my stiff knees, and we are perfectly situated either for gardening or for prayer. Why did I assume we were kneeling for gardening? She folds her hands together, and casts her gaze skyward.

      “Oh, Holy three, let us not profane your sacred soil with human greed. Let us borrow only our merest sustenance. Amen.”

      “The earth is sacred here?” I ask.

She scratches up some fresh shoots of weeds from among the chard and sets them aside on a particular flat rock near-by. 

      “Of course, the earth is Creation, and all that it yields is gifted to us from God. It is by our human frailty that we cast away any of these gracious gifts simply because they don’t serve people. People can be so narrow to save only the things we plant ourselves as though we are better gardeners than angels or nature itself. The birds, with the wiser palate, will find a use for these weed sprouts.”

      “I see.”

      “And furthermore, this particular land is specifically sacred, because here, in this very place, it is said that Saint Brendan and his monks once trod. When this place was pure, with no rock or grass turned by human labor it was said that the Saint and his little band of monks were welcomed by the sea birds and the creatures.” [Footnote]

The sister takes her gardener’s blade and trims the leaves of chard leaving the root tops standing in the garden rows.  She collects these leaves, allowing the wounded root to stand in the soil. 

Footnote: Wikipedia offers an overview of this Saint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_the_Navigator (retrieved 2-20-26)

(Continues Tuesday, July 7)

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#82.1 Wednesday, July 1, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

The little monk’s sister asks me if I am a merchant or a Viking.

         “Doesn’t anyone else travel the sea?”

         “Of course, but you don’t have the glow of a saint, so I assumed you weren’t among the blessed.”

         “Indeed, I wasn’t glowing of sainthood when the brother dragged my broken body up this cliff. He told no one I was here until I found healing. Today he gave me this walking stick and he sent me here to return the flask.”

         “He probably doesn’t want the abbot involved. If my brother could have his way, he would choose to live across on the Little Skellig with no people at all. He only wants the company of God, and the creatures of the skies and sea.  So” she asks again, “what are you? Why do you travel the seas?”

         “I’m no Viking, nor am I a merchant, though I was sailing with a merchant. And maybe that was the cause that my saintly glow is dimmed.”

She laughs.

         I explain, “We were on a journey in a currach, only made for river travel, bound for Iona, when our craft was devoured by the sea in a storm. I held the empty chest and floated on the sea for a moment, but the merchant held the chest of coins and sunk down straight away.  It was only by God’s grace that I was delivered here.”

         “At sea in a currach, adrift on a journey to Iona — how like Saint Brendan you must have seemed to the angels.”

         “So, who is Saint Brendan?”

         “You don’t even know?”

         “I don’t know anything about this time or place.”

         “He isn’t of this time. Saint Brendan is a known throughout all the world — an abbot in his little currach filled with monks. They were seeking Paradise.” [Footnote]

         “And they found it?”

         “Of course.  He’s a saint.”

         “So where is Paradise?”

         “It is said to be far to the north on the easterly side of the wind.”

         “Really, I hadn’t heard of that.”

         “I am oh so busy today, with the weather so fair. So, if you expect me to tell you the truths of the whole realm of God you will have to follow me on my chores.”

         “Fair enough.”

And so, the little monk’s sister goes back inside her hovel and is back in an instant with weed picks for both of us, and a harvester’s bag.

Footnote: Brendan of Clonfert (c. AD 484 – c. 577) is one of the early Irish monastic saints and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.  .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_the_Navigator

(Continues tomorrow)


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#81.13 Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

I try to explain.

   “I didn’t mean to startle you. The little monk who rescued me from the sea sent me here to return the flask and to thank you for the goats milk… every day… thank you — and for the straw and the oats — all the sustenance for healing.”

   “Do you mean, my brother rescued a man, and he told no one, not even me?”

    “I’m pretty sure he mentioned my neediness in his prayers. He seems to make a practice of rescuing the broken.”

    “Of course, he has always cared for every little needy creature anyone brings to his door. And it isn’t unusual when the birds return here for their nesting season that one or several will go higher on this Skellig to his cell, just for a grateful glimpse, remembering him. Even the seals in the cove know him as a friend for all his kindness. But I hadn’t imagined he would rescue a man.”

    “I’m no different then, from the birds and seals and the dog — I am also grateful. My healing has been slow. This is the first I’ve seen of this land. I’m supposing this place where my bones have washed up is a monastery and there are others here.”

         “If you go down through the Christ’s saddle and up the climb you will find the others.”

         I say, “But here you are, also, on this rocky precipice.”

         “It is a Skellig, set apart from shores and lands — just a rock rising from the sea.”

         “It seems a rugged place to make a garden.”

         “It is where we are. It’s our holy assignment. From our birth together, Tim has the gift of silence, so my gift is simply to voice our faithfulness. If my brother goes to the ends of the earth to be close to God for his careful listening, then I go to the ends of the earth to be the voice for the silent brother.  And in his silence, he searches for the farthest edges to be near the creatures and to live in the thin places nearest to God, alone, without the intervention of a priest or any man. That’s why it is so surprising that he would choose to rescue a man.  Where did you come from? How did you even get here?”

         “It was a shipwreck; I washed ashore here.”

         “So, are you a Viking or a merchant?”     

(Continues Wednesday, July 1, 2026)


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#81.12 Thursday, June 25, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Trinity hobbles close behind as the little monk arrives on the beaten path with the daily supplies. Every morning someone brings this to our door, or, like this morning, he goes and gets it then he shares the goats’ milk and oats with me and Trinity.

Neither dog nor man is concerned with leaving me alone anymore, now that I have risen in this healing.

I speak to him, though I know he doesn’t hear my voice. Surely something in my face or gesture or soul can speak of my gratitude.

         “Thank you.”

After the dog, the monk and I have had the goats’ milk and the flask is empty, today, the little monk hands me the empty skin and points to that particularly worn path to the southeast. Without words I know he is sending me on this mission to return the flask. It is nothing like the steep path I see rising to the pinnacle. But even on this smoother path I stumble, and regain my footing relying on the walking stick. For someone strong and with steady steps this would be easy. But healing is tenuous.

The path follows the crest of this rill around and just ahead it dips into a green place on a more southward facing slope with a walled garden and a pasture. Goats graze there and some of these sea birds strut around like roosters. Here, the path leads to another little mound of carefully stacked stone with a thatched top, looking like a fairytale acorn, where I might expect to see a little orange beetle keeping house in a fantastically tiny world.

A little cast metal bell is mounted by the door, so I ring that bell to announce my presence here.  The little door, woven of sea-washed vines, opens, and a small woman is startled by the sight of me, and she closes the door immediately, surely surprised to see a stranger at her door. Then she opens the door slowly, peaking out.

         “I was expecting Brother Tim.”

Like the little hermit she has round rosy cheeks shining from the hood of her robe. She wears a linen scapular, very much like my make-do tunic, only she also has a woolen monk’s robe beneath the linen. She keeps her curious gaze on me, as she takes the flask from my hand.

         I say, “He sent me to return the flask this morning.”

(Continues Tuesday, June 30, 2026)


 

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#81.11 Wednesday, June 24, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

The little hermit, no doubt, went out this morning knowing that I might also venture out today. He left the sledge that usually blocks the door laying aside, maybe to welcome me outside, or maybe it is in wait to drag me back up from the edges of these rocks again, as he did that first day.

Outside, I see this little stone hovel is a rounded dome with a thatched roof, that makes the inside space dark, and it also keeps the rain out. It is only the smoke hole that reveals the brilliance of day sky.  [Footnote]

But today the sky is blank and pale. The sun doesn’t really shine and there are no shadows or bright glare for my innocent eyes. Darker smudges of weightier clouds shadow the pale firmament threatening rain, but there is no rain.  It is the perfectly blank page for my attempt at wandering.

The monasteries I’ve visited in forested places construct their buildings with timber; even as the lands become sparse with trees, the tradition in Francia is for timber. Queried stones only offer an outer Roman likeness to buildings in Francia and Anglia. But here, there are no trees so I suppose there was never a thought of anything but rocks for these dwellings. There are no beams for the thatching, so rock corbels support the thatch. Everything is made from rock or the thatched reeds up from the salt marshes.

Guessing or knowing — I knew I would look off toward the north and see the ocean with a steep grade down, because it was such a climb up here for the little fellow dragging me here that first day. Now I see a pathway with stone steps ascending from the sea. Everything here is a climb or a long slide down. This whole rock world demands more strength than I have just to follow the monk-made paths.

I see several paths from this doorway. One well marked toward the east disappears into the valley then rises up with steps into the shadows of the lifting fog.  In that direction, at some distance, stones are stacked for a wall, and maybe other little cloches of rock are on that peak just now hidden in fog.

The drear turns to rain, and I see the little monk coming up from the foot-worn path to southeast and he brings the daily flask of goats’ milk a carrot, and a small sack of oats.

Footnote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skellig_Michael  Retrieved 10-17-25

(Continues tomorrow)

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#81.10 Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

It is a miracle indeed, though it never appears in an instant of shining like a lightning bolt. Healing is more of a memory of how it was, to know that now it is better.  Healing is a rare opportunity — a hope that drives a spirit beyond where a body can go.  Healing is a ceaseless driver through failures and falls, and of course, that horrific dependency on a caregiver who seems relentless in his giving, though maybe only for pity’s sake. And in these times, it seems the whole sake of me is only for pity.

The little monk never knew anything of me except my neediness.  What will he do with his pity for me when I have my strength and the power to rise up as I choose, and to walk, and move, and go out in the day whenever it is convenient? Will my simple gratitude be enough?

Thank you, God. Thank you, little monk.

I will soon be an intruder here. Though I hope I can be useful.

On this new morning the little monk brings in the flask of goat’s milk to share as always, but today he also brings me a stout stick washed in the sea, smooth and clean to be a walking stick. He must believe that I will be walking soon. He seems to welcome my new freedom — maybe it is his freedom from me, also.

I’ve pierced arm holes in the linen grave cloth he once lent me as a blanket, so that I can wear it as a simple tunic. I’m sure he notices that I have this plan to clothe myself with the linen grave cloth he assigned to me when he thought I was a dead man. I removed the draw cord at the hem opening and it serves as a cinch at my waste to draw the new tunic up to a walking length. So now I have something of earth to cover my wounded nakedness. If I should take up this walking stick and rise up and leave this hovel, at least my healing wounds will be hidden.

So, I choose this overcast day to venture outside for the first time because the bright sun would be blinding after so much time in near darkness.  I’ve seen very little of the outside but a blur of light on the most beautiful days and the circle of gray, or night’s darkness in the smoke hole at the top.

(Continues tomorrow)


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#81.9 Thursday, June 18, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Dear God, thank you for this life gift. Give me strength and resilience to learn to make use of this broken body again.

In these few days since I begged for the branch to stay in our midst, with the new freedom of stretching my limbs and sitting here on the straw, I find I am already able to grasp onto the branch. I begin to find power in my once useless arms. I can reach up and hold onto the branch, and at least support my imaginary plan to pull myself up and walk again.

Morning by morning in my imagination I rise up, and with each thought and prayer of it, I make a bit more progress. But mostly, it is about falling back exhausted. The monk prays, the dog keeps watch, and when my shaking knees fail the dog yelps and nudges the monk from his prayers. I crawl back to my place. And all we can think of is the failure. But really, morning by morning, though it goes unnoticed, I actually am becoming stronger and steadier.

Some days into this project now, I am nearly standing, leaning on the straight walls, bending my excessive height under the curves of the roof. Trinity is simply in awe of my stature.  At first, she shied back and bowed her head down to her front paw and offered a little testing-teasing kind of growl.  She is the one who can stand taller than the little monk if she would rise up on her hind legs. And I know she is wondering who is the tallest of us all now, and it appears it might be me – the useless one. 

With this revelation we all have to reevaluate relationships anew. The canine is trying to accept this with a tentative wagging tail and a few submissive nudges. I guess that makes this healing official.  In this little place I am the giant. The hound had considered herself to be the largest of beasts, and now, here I am as tall as this house, and I have to bend to fit the ceiling. Of course, as houses go, this is a very small dome of rocks.

Today, the little monk goes outside, and he takes Trinity with him. Maybe he needs his time alone, or perhaps, he is offering me the space to practice putting my legs back into usefulness. He understands the increments of healing. 

We all know healing, miraculous as it is,  is never a single magical moment of painless wonder.

(Continues Tuesday, June 23, 2026)

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#81.8 Wednesday, June 17, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

The little monk surely notices my strength is returning. He sits by me, and with a serious face points to the hole in the middle of the dome that gives light and today, the place of release for the bird back into the sky. Then he starts to remove the branch. I spoke my objection, and Trinity heard me and caught the monk’s attention. I would like to say to the monk that I wish to keep that branch. But I fail in my attempt to rise up and demonstrate my need for the branch.

Now here I am lying flat. I haven’t even a feeble gesture for rising up.  My clumsy attempt to draw myself up to standing only belies my helplessness in rising. And sitting requires my hands for balance, and in using my hands for balance I have no way to say I imagine pulling myself up with that branch in case a day comes when I actually can grasp onto the branch for rising to standing.

Seeing only my frailty, the monk offers his silent language in a more exaggerated and simplified sign and his smile to let me know that he was pleased that I am becoming more able. But rising will be many falls and fumbles and he will pity all my tries.

I think I should practice standing while he is away because his empathy pains him so much. And falling is always the first part of standing. Yet when one of us who is rescued actually can stand or stretch or fly his joy is so grand that I only wish he would see nothing but the successes and never share in the hurt for my struggles. So, the bird and the dog, and now I too, try to keep secret our failings.

At least he understands my wish to leave the branch in the midst, but I’m not sure if he believes in my plan to pull myself to my feet. For now, it stays here, crowding the hearth stone under the smoke hole. If only I ever did make use of it keeping it here would no longer seem a silly whim. So today, when the little monk is deep in his morning prayers, and this little round house is filled with holiness, I move as stealthily as any torn and healing person can move, to reach for the branch. Even my arms lack their one-time strength, and I can only wonder if wobbly legs will ever hold my weight, such as it is, again.

(Continues tomorrow)


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#81.7 Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

I know something of healing. It doesn’t always appear with the fanfare of instant restored flight. Sometimes it is only discovered in the remembrance of the hurt, then it is simply taking notice of the painlessness of the healing scar. A new freedom from the pain and the limitation must be imagined and searched for then discovered anew. It requires one to discover what was thought to be damaged. Healing is just present to be found, not earned. It is grace.

Thank you, God.

I know prayers here begin as they do in all Christian places, with a separate name for each of the three legs of the monk’s dog. The names are Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And it is the fully accepted theology that if one leg isn’t spoken the dog will fall down — a three-legged stool would tumble with only two or one leg.  Standing requires balance. And balance requires three, so if God is invented from human understanding, a tripod is required. But if God is, with or without the pull of the earth, if God created the earth as a beloved work of art, and God created the downward pull that clings all things to earth, then the larger than visible God, possibly also stands on three prongs, or maybe none at all, and in that way is all around us and yet everywhere else at the same time also.

Thank you, God, by no name, by three names, by any name, the beginning and the end, or perhaps no end. And in your namelessness, may healing be noticed even as it is unspoken.

Today, the little monk celebrates the departure of the bird. He grins, and prays, and takes the pail of sea-stuff back to the sea, then returns and starts to remove the branch which takes up precious space in our midst. I object, and he doesn’t hear me. I want to use that branch to pull myself up as I continue healing.

Trinity hears me and argues to him to keep the branch, barring her teeth, and clasping onto the branch when the monk tries to remove it. Frail though I am, I reach for the branch, and draw myself up with it, and finally the monk understands it is my need that the canine begs for.

Thank you, God.

(Continues tomorrow)

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#81.6 Thursday, June 11, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

The shag spreads fine healed wings out in the sunlight on the higher perch of the rim into morning mist-rising; the huge bird’s pulsing red veins show translucent through the pitch of its feathers in this great wingspan that covers the sky hole. Just now, everything in the world shares an amazing, awed stillness up from the depths of joy itself.  The bird is a totem to the victory of healing over pain.

As softly as the shag had hopped up to the outside to spread its wings, it hops back to the inside again, and folds back onto its branch as the little hermit draws the sledge over the door again and so everything here will seem normal when the woman arrives with goat’s milk and greens.

But nothing is the same now. Here, a healing is complete and a bird is prepared to return back to the sky. Frail hope has changed to a powerful, driving joy. The daily duties – the sweeping – the spreading of fresh straw — the receiving of supplies are all different now.

She must have noticed the great wide bird spread out at our peak as she was arriving.  Does she just assume this is the place of the healing miracles? Or did she imagine the hulking black shag just flew up here from the sea? Maybe all of us mending here are just assumed to be the usual work project assigned to this monk. But I have to wonder if this little monk’s collection of us needy is his own secret, and the daily visitor doesn’t even know this fellow, assigned as the keeper of the dead, is really gifted with the task of the overseer of life.

As for me, I am able to move and stretch my healing limbs. A long complete stretch surges energy through me from my toes to my fingertips. So now, if the shag flies off to perch on the rocks at the rim of the sea, I will use that inside branch left here to pull myself up little by little until I am standing. Whenever the hermit leaves the stillness of this little place, I will be the one making this a hive of healing. Like a nesting parent, I’d encourage this bird to just fly off into the vastness of sky with all the birds, and leave this branch for me.

I know something of healing.

(Continues Tuesday, June 16, 2026)


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#81.5 Wednesday, June 10, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Thunder frightens Trinity.  As night comes so does the distant rumbling and flashes of light in the dark circle of sky. The little monk sleeps but I’m awake and very still as the canine would have me be.  In the storm, she’s paces nervously. The shag sees. Then there is a sudden light that fills the eye and the whole inside of our hovel, followed by the boom. Trinity is terrified — she looks hard at the sleeping monk.  Surely, she must know this is just another storm and storms come and go with night noises; but her whole boney frame quivers.

I would speak my worn out mantra, “I can’t help you.” But now I have something new to say aloud, “I can help you, sweat Trinity; come over here to me. I can help you.” And the three-legged boney canine immediately flops onto my own boney frame, her heart pounding, her breath is pacing into panting faster and faster gulps of fear. I find I can wrap her in the safety of my arms. I sing her a soulful lullaby in my own odd Hebrew words; the dog and bird know I’m singing and the psalm blankets us in peace. 

It is all about the healing now. I thank God for these creatures, and for my own healing amid the quivering breaths and the song.  “I can help you to the calming place of the song. I can help you.” I say again and again aloud for my own hearing. “I can help you dear faithful Trinity.”

***

On this fresh new day, I find I am able to move as I haven’t stretched my limbs in a very long time and realize I am on the mend. It is slow, and uneventful, hard to notice. But slow is good.  It is still the opposite of dead.

Then this morning while the little hermit is deep in prayer, the shag silently, without any fanfare or grand overture, hops from the top perch onto the rock rim of the hole for the sky.  It perches on the opening. Trinity paces her concern then nudges the little hermit away from his meditation.

His prayer doesn’t end but becomes a full-on dance of joy. He looks at the nearly healed shag from inside then he goes outside followed closely by Trinity. Dear God, you are celebrating with us this moment, are you not?

(Continues tomorrow)