#80.2 Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Historical Setting: London, 794 C.E.

 These weeks are mostly spent rowing, rarely sailing along the wooded coast of Anglia. This journey seems to yield little in new markets for Cloothar. Yet we make our stops on land wherever he catches a glimpse of fishing buoys or a whaft of smoke rising, marking the presence of people. He trades fabrics for firs and perhaps a meal of whatever was hunted that day. And if the hunt failed, we join people in sharing a pot of thinned stew. [footnote]

Cloothar is good at finding us food and shelter, but he is no brother — neither by family or monk’s vows. I would like to call him a friend, but he has trouble quantifying friendship in his way of understanding. He doesn’t expect me to be a source of comradery and he assumes that any friendly chatter must be purposed with some material ending. Yet I yammer on.

         “Did you learn your merchant’s trade from your father?”

         “What matter is that to you, Eleazor?”

         “I was just wondering the source of your gift.”

         “Knowing things of a person gives you power over them. Do you hammer me with questions because you think it will make you the captain of this ship?”

         “No, of course not. I was just…”

In this silence between us now, I can only enjoy the humor of his miss-understanding, imagining myself taking over control as this so-called ship’s “captain.” That would only mean I would be privileged to tell him when to draw the oars.

Since I am longing for conversation, I find our stopping places a reprieve. I’m already comfortable with the language of the Saxons and we share stories.

One would think my prayers without ceasing would satisfy my need for conversation, but neither does the merchant offer me his own company nor does he yield the tranquility of sanctuary. When I put my complaint in a prayer I ask God for solitary time, and also, to retool Cloothar into a friend. I believe that prayer was answered, but not by changing Cloothar. Rather, God answered by changing me to accept him as he is.

After this long journey following the shoreline south, the rivers flow into the sea with the fresh water mixing with the brine, and each river entices Cloothar to follow it in search of a market.  Rumors among merchants tell of a town rising from the old Roman walls of a city, now a thriving marketplace. [Footnote]

[footnote] https://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/ (retrieved 9-2-25) organizes the history of the rise of settlements and urbanization in Southeastern England broadly by periods of occupancy. The late eighth century after the Roman occupancy crumbled, and before the Vikings made their lasting settlements in the mid-ninth century and on, this area was under Saxon rule.

(Continues tomorrow) 

#80.1 Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Historical Setting: The Eastern Coast of Anglia, 794 C.E.

Setting out with Cloothar, I know this fellow’s purpose is the market yield. Always used clothing needs airing, not cleaning.

I planned to travel to Iona on the other side of this island of Anglia. Like Lindisfarne, Iona is an island monastery. Most would travel between Jarrow and Iona on land, but I have no horse, or purse or coin, and Cloothar offers me this journey and a silver penny for my help at sea. He deals in gold and silver in the major markets, so I am pretty sure I won’t have to take my due this time, simply by trading up my own cloak for a better one.

Neither of us has taken this sea journey along the eastern then southern shores of Anglia and north again to Iona. But he has choosen this route hoping to find new markets along the way. Today, on the first leg, we find long forested stretches sparsely inhabited. The clusters of houses are at the mouths of rivers. In these villages Cloothar trades in simply spun fibers, with no tailor’s touch to any of the garments. Most of his bounty is in the center of this little craft as heaps of moldy rags.

But he knows his customers well. At first glance he can see if someone is a buyer or a gawker. He recognizes people by their wants and takes account of their station and wealth even before a word is spoken. All he really notices of people is the bulge and brim of their pockets. His guise of empathy is always purposed with making a deal. As Cloothar’s traveling companion, I should simply consider myself alone. He spins no stories that don’t end in a deal for him. He sheds no tid-bits of wisdom of life and love… And he sails south when he means to go west.

I guess I shouldn’t expect him to fill my need for a companion. All he needs of me is help in rowing when the winds are calm. I suppose I just have to let him be as he is. And in the silence, I have my prayers.

Dear God, thank you for all these new wonders of the lands and sea. For the tender season, newly green and flowering simply by nature I am grateful always, I know you are near in the beauty of new places. 

(Continues tomorrow)

#79.14 Thursday, April 30, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

I’m not sure I need a merchant to fill my emptiness. My spiritual need isn’t like a cloak or a hat. I am missing the thin places, or the beautiful window where I meet God.

It’s Cloothar who tells me of Iona, a monastery founded by the Irish that is set apart from the politics of kings.

         He says, “Iona is a place that needs these black monks robes I’ve collected. Some brothers on this side no longer find refuge with the saints, and are shedding their holy ways as well you understand.”

         “And Iona needs you to supply them with monk’s robes?”

         “Just come with me to Iona.  You will like it.  It was the school that sent the first Celtic fellow, Aiden, to establish Lindisfarne.” [Footnote]

     “And you need an extra hand to sail that far?”

     “You read me too well, Eleazor. I’ve never sailed that far west. I don’t know what it will be. I may need a hand at the oars.”

     “You would think a monastery as old as Iona would already have a trunk of old monk’s robes.”

     “Ah, but they aren’t the newer standard of black. Their robes are just anything. You see how it is, Eleazor, they have the Celtic Rule still to this day, and it doesn’t follow the rigors of the papal communities.”

     “You mean it doesn’t follow the Benedictine rule.”

     “And oh, how I’ve heard you argue against that rule.”

     “I didn’t know I’d been so vocal about it.”

     “Don’t you remember how you were wound so tight on our little trek from Lindisfarne when you wanted to wash the old robes in lye water, and shrink them up into useless rags, when all they needed was a good airing?”

     “I remember our arguments over new monks in old robes. And now you want to go to Iona and trade the black robes for whatever the novices happened to have on when they took their vows?”

      “Not exactly. The rumor among the markets in the north lands is that Iona has riches.  I will meet with the abbot and make one good trade and sell all these black robes for gold coins.”

Cloothar has an empty coin chest just waiting. I can use it as a rower’s seat. He said he learned of Iona’s riches in the north lands. So, apparently Iona is already a target for a Viking raid.

      Dear God, watch over Iona. Amen.

[Footnote] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona retrieved 8-27-25

(Continues Tuesday May 5)

#79.13 Wednesday, April 29, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Weaponry and wars make no happy endings, because there are no endings, just changes in populations and power structures. But, of course, mortals, by the very nature of mortality, draw conclusions, set goals of completion, grope after legacy and prepare for whatever afterlife their religion dictates. No mortal person has touched an angel strutting among the clouds; but even I, in my persistence in earthly life, often experience being touched by the Creator love that surrounds us. Thank you, God for being present with us.

So, now, as a repetitious mortal, I imagine a destination. It is a place where the earth ends and heaven begins. It is a thin place shared in the Irish way of mysticism. I know of thin places, and I once knew an Irish mystic who established monasteries across the land of Gaul to offer the tranquility of thin places far and wide. Now, again, I am looking for this veil of heaven as I do in these spiritually needy times. It feels like the vision of mortal life has come to a solidly opaque barrier — an ending, as though there is nothing more. Then I find a spiritual place, and this seems to be the translucency of mystery allowing me a contemplative passage through. What is thin in a thin place is the barrier between me and God, not between life and death, or good and bad, or any of those other mortal walls.

I didn’t find it in the library of Jarrow. So, I come now, down to the little harbor where boats await the rising tide to access the river. And as I’d hoped, Cloothar’s little craft is still moored here.

He seems welcoming, as though he thinks he knows my need. Maybe I am allowing myself to fall into the snare of this professional profiteer. But Cloothar, the merchant of used dry goods, first told me of that distant place I’d never been.

         “Eleazor, my friend, what do you know of Iona?”

         “What is there to know?”

         “It is an Irish monastery on the other side of this island, a long haul by donkey on land, but with the right wind, it can be reached by sea, in days counted on fingers.”

         “More simply, you mean ten days.”

         “But you like the obtuse do you not? It is my business to read the minds of men, and know their naked need. Afterall, I am a highly successful merchant.”

(Continues tomorrow)

#79.12 Tuesday, April 28, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

The Viking raid on Jarrow was swift and the tragedy was mostly on the Vikings’ side. All of the preparations for attack worked: the rocks across the river at the place of the tidal rise; the guards hidden in monk’s clothes; the swords and daggers sprinkled throughout Jarrow.  Lindisfarne’s painful warning served Jarrow well. In the stillness of aftermath, Ousbert is in his glory, and by his very nature he is well rehearsed in glory. He rallies his men for a headcount. He stops the killing of the last of the captured Vikings, holding them back from the Halls of Valhalla, this time, because he has an earthly use for them.

These prisoners are bound and waiting with the beached longboats. Ousbert’s soldiers disarm the dead, collecting up the swords and shields, stripping the bodies of helmets and chains. Then the last living dregs of these marauders are set loose to dispose of the corpses at sea.

Even among these Christians ordained as holy monks, there are no bodies anointed and no prayers needed for these dead. The prayers are only of gratitude. The deaths are bleak and unforgiven. The survivors take the oars of their burdened boats and slip away into the deep. Ousbert glories.

         Dear God, may my own prayer not begin with my usual gratitude because just now, the thanksgivings I hear around me, maybe rising for you to hear, seem to be about saving the treasures of the monastery and sending the dead Vikings away for burial at sea. I’m not grateful for a win for one side or the other. I’ve seen enough crucifixion, warring, marauding, angry spears and deaths at human hands to know violence is no different from any other plague or mishap, except that this hurt is by the hands of the very species that also suffers the grief of it — your own beloved humankinds. Guide us in your wide loving way, Amen.

It is still an intimate secret that God is the Creator and the love force that set the stars in place and moves the planets. God’s judgment lifts up the beauty, the life and the love; it does not diminish it with punitive measures. It isn’t the nature of an omniscient God to sort people into teams of righteous winners and wicked losers.  In this euphoria of release from fear, the prayers rising thank God for the win. But in all the lifetimes and deaths I’ve known, God’s compassion doesn’t choose sides.

(Continues tomorrow)

#79.11 Thursday, April 23, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

At matins I chanted with the monks. Now in the full light of dawn, I walk with the monk-clad guards from the river to their posts at the sea. The tide is high and the river into the sea is roiling and deep. The heap of rocks that become the footpath at low-tide are deep under the tidal waters that will soon surge against the river’s flow. On the sea, the swells from the depths heap into shore — waves, peaking, breaking, foaming then rising again, churning up from the depths to again break on the shore. At first, I think the dark lines on the sea are debris from a distant storm, then I realize what we are seeing.

The guards shed their monks’ robes and draw swords. I turn and run back to warn the people in the monastery and the woods and the villagers of Jarrow, but faster than I can run the longboats are slipping up the river past me.

I shout it at the monastery, and the monks are going into hiding, except one nimble young novice who joins me in alerting others in the countryside. Our warning was meant to give people a chance to hide, or run, but everyone along the way is drawing swords and taking up knives.  When we hear the bell ringing from the tower alerting all of the danger, the warning is complete and we return to the monastery.

Some of the Viking ships are abandoned on the shore at the place where the Don runs into the Tyne. The tide is receding carrying ships sparse of men at the oars smashing them against the rocks laid across the river exposed in the ebbing of the tide. [Footnote] At the monastery, it was said thirty swords greeted the marauders and now many are dead.

The watchman posted at the sea this hour killed the Viking leader as the marauders came ashore, leaving the attackers driven by nothing more than personal greed. As one, who is a stubborn pacifist, I would think that lives on both sides could be spared with letting go of earthly treasures for the sake of saving lives. Maybe there is the necessity of taking prisoners and holding trials. But fear offered no place for conversation. Any kind of reconciliation did not happen, and now Jarrow celebrates keeping some of its treasure.

Prayers of thanksgiving rise over the bodies of dead Vikings. I have no understanding of warfare on either side.

[Footnote] https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=1579441&resourceID=19191

(Retrieved 5-28-25)

Only one footnote is needed here, because the noted source analyses a variety of theories about this attack. This blogger, being a fiction writer, considered the discrepancies among the later written accounts, and the lack of archeological evidence of storm battered ship wrecks, based this telling of the story on the likely preparedness of Jarrow, after Lindisfarne, and the excellence of the ships and the seamanship of the Vikings, inventing the notion they were snagged on a low-tide rock wall used as a walkway to Monkwearmouth. 

(Continues Tuesday April 28)

#79.10 Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

I’ve been listening to the talk of the old fellows who gather here in the mornings to consider the state of all things.  Some come disgruntled, regardless of the events of life. But Tam comes with a resilient, joyful spirit despite his losses. It is the simple allegory of Job.

Here in this place where people gather, the murmurs and gossip are not about Job and the trials intended to threaten his faith. Here the talk is of Tam. Here it is Tam’s friends and neighbors who envy his good life and expect his faith to be tested when he faces difficulties and grief. But, Like Job, Tam is persistent in faith. And Like Job, his neighbors don’t fully understand the source of his gratitude.

The real tragedy that visited this deposed ealdorman’s house, or call this a “castle,” was the abuse of a young pauper and then the death of her infant. Apparently, the ealdorman who served here made it his task to sit in this place and measure the wealth of the neighbors, accepting bribes in place of fair judgement, leaving him envious of achievement that seemed beyond his reach — made more conspicuous with the simple joyful spirit of Tam. Envy set the ealdorman searching, and he thought he could name his emptiness “legacy.”

It is some weeks now, when we are well into Springtime.  Ousbert returns with the ealdorman, judged innocent and now restored to his place here. Ousbert and the ealdorman will find the coffers empty, because I’m not very good at collecting tithes, and I don’t make judgments based on bribes.  I suppose I’m not a worthy ealdorman. So, it is probably a good thing all around that I won’t be doing this task any longer. The ealdorman returns to an empty, but clean house.

Now, I am weighing a plan to visit another monastery that is rumored to continue in the Irish rule — Iona.  One of the regular merchants visiting Jarrow is Cloothar, with his traveling market for used garments. He brought me down here from Lindisfarne in his little boat, as he often trades among monasteries. He knows of my appreciation for the Christian communities rooted in mystical Ireland, and he came here to Jarrow making a plan for that long sea journey to Celtic Iona. He is inviting me to go along with him.

While we prepare for the journey, I’m staying again in the guest quarters of St. Paul.

(Continues tomorrow)

#79.9 Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Comparing the things in our lives with others is always a false gauge for happiness. Envy and greed are closely linked to each other. It seems all these seven dwarves of “deadly sins” are false paths to love for self and neighbor, and these things leave us spiritually hollow, not hallowed. That is because envy and greed are always reaching, never grasping. Greed is always chasing after more, never with enough to fill the hollow space, and envy also sets an unreachable, ever-shifting goal based on what someone else has. Envy and greed are moving targets — a mythical leaping stag always escaping into the woods just ahead of the arrow released.

Defining one’s own actual needs and goals is a completely different way of thinking than these motives of persistent emptiness. Jesus explained the respite from this endless chase simply as the Kingdom of Heaven. [Matthew 5:1-13] But then frailties of greed words and envy words moved this kingdom from available here and now to a far distant place in the clouds. To assure it would always be distant and unreachable the Kingdom of Heaven morphed into the folklore of an after-death reward, like Valhalla.

The variety of happiness Jesus spoke of starts simply with gratitude — noticing the goodness of what is already. It is based on abundance, not emptiness.

         “Thank you God, for…” Like the child’s prayers.

         “For mother, father, family, home, enough food…”

Pretty soon all this thankfulness widens to cows and friends and trees and birds, and on and on, until all of Creation can be named, then the asking prayer is simple.

         “Give us what we need to live today.” (our daily bread)

         “Take away the worry so that enough is complete.”

The asking prayer becomes the opposite of envy and greed. The hollow space that isn’t envy is compassion and that becomes the healing power.

So, in the mornings the old men gather on the benches, some with hollowness, loneliness, hopelessness, anger at what is not in their control — like the tithes and taxes and the people who mandate them. They come to the benches to complain. But if Tam shows up with his gratitude in-tact for his sons and daughters, for his cows, and for the grass that feeds them in the spring after a bare-bones winter that left him grieving for a calf that failed, and of course his own father passed this winter. Even in his grief he comes with a sense of joy for his neighbors and friends, who are these other men gathered here.

         Thank you, God.

(Continues tomorrow)

#79.8 Thursday, April 16, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

He asked about the infant, and I asked the question back to the three old fellows gathered on the benches here. 

         “Why would an ealdorman keep a baby here?”

The man with no teeth answers first.

         “He thaid it were hith own thun.”

The owner of cows, Tam, still smelling of fresh milk from his morning chores has an explanation.

         “He envied those of us with children, and said he also needed a ‘legacy.’

         Toothless said, “He took one look at Tam’th richeth — cowth and five thunth and nary a tithe needed pay for them and he envied.”

         Tam said, “He’d collect the king’s tithe from me in churned butter and straw bales, but my sons are a value far better than land or riches. Children are better than all the riches of earth. They promise a future. I think he saw I was rich in legacy and not even paying the taxes of a rich man.”

         “Let me guess” I added, “without the ealdorman here now, you’ve delivered the butter to the monastery.”

         Tam answers, “The monks came for it themselves.”

         The other says, “The ealdorman’s envy ate him up. He told everyone he thuffered from luthting for legathy.

         Tam added, “He weren’t seeing the value in the wife or daughters, just the legacy of sons.”

         I ask, “Didn’t he expect a son would come with a mother?”

Toothless belts a laugh.

Maybe they know what I know. The ealdorman had no comprehension of family. The tiny infant that was conceived, not in love, and most likely not even in lust, was the object of greed. Legacy through sons wasn’t a taxable treasure, and the ealdorman took this tax loop-hole very personally when his greedy eyes fell on Tam with three cows and five sons, and apparently, he decided the inescapable emptiness of his life could be filled by legacy. He had no notion of his own need for love.

Envy miss-leads us so easily.  We see simple happiness in another and we give our envy the name of whatever it is that person has.  Tam pays the king’s due for his land, and yet the ealdorman saw Tam was happier than others. And he wanted what Tam had. Tam had a legacy. Tam had sons.  But envy is always a flawed map to happiness.

Dear God, release us from the measure of the neighbor’s stuff, that we may see beyond the treasures and find the happiness in the love itself, for neighbors and selves, and for family.

(Continues Tuesday April 21)


#79.7 Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

At the ealdorman’s house, Ousbert left the desk and the chair, the empty shelves and the sleeping mat which I have washed in lye soap and refilled with fresh straw. And in the first room are also some benches lining the outer wall.  I thought the benches were for people waiting to make their required payments — but then, why would they come here and sit and wait to do that?

Now I find the benches are a gathering place each morning for the town elders. It was the baker yesterday with his bread bribe. Today some old men come in and sit and talk chewing long stems of green grasses. They tell their old stories to this new ealdorman, complaining over the power structures, and they fill me in on all the history and happenings in a whole different way than Bede told it, but with the same variety of bias. Here history comes as gossip.

The real work of this ealdorman’s post is supposed to be collecting the tithe for the king, while the Church manages collecting the tithe for the Church. It is all called a tithe, from the old land divisions naming the worth of these lands in terms of “hides.” [Footnotes]

How do I, a stranger to this land know of this? It is because these benches seat the tradition of the old men of the morning gathered and telling all there is to know of this place, truth or gossip, whatever.

Ousbert told me some things: that the ealdorman receives a third of these fees for the king; and that is how he’s paid. And I can see, that since the military and the monastery are exempt, this post thrives more on bribes for justice than on the portions of payments, since this doesn’t happen to be a wealthy corner of the earth for collecting a lot in tithes — and with the king and the church each expecting a cut, paying up the taxes is no simple inconvenience for these people.

I’m still waiting to talk with Ousbert again so that I can report to him the thuggish behavior of the soldiers he posted. Now I can also understand the tension between the abbot and the posted guards there. It is why Ousbert did not ask to have a monk temporarily assigned to this ealdorman’s post.

So, the first question these old men perching here have for me is, “Whatever happened to that other fellow’s little-un?”

Footnote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithing — retrieved 8-17-25

(Continues tomorrow)