#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)

#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)

#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)

#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)

#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)

#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)

#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)


#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)

#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)

#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)