#69.10, Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne Monastery

         The raiders were in this holy place at Lindisfarne an hour ago when I was still their slave.  They came here to find an unguarded stash of wealth, knowing nothing of the Christian nature of a place for worship. Unable to find the “Jewels and the gold” inside the precious covers of a gospel, they saw it as worthless and feared Christian magic and curses, so I was assigned this task of returning it. Now, from this high place just outside the walls of the Christian oratorio I watch the sea as the sails of the longships that brought me here catch the west wind to take them swiftly back to their own lands. I’m wearing a borrowed monk’s robe made for a giant, having shed my slave’s shirt. As they disposed of me along with this book that I’m returning to the altar they are set free of owning me and my Christian conscience. It was a convenient fix all around.

         Inside, the oratory the wash of light is tenuous in narrow shafts, harboring mostly shadows in dust. There is the smell of fresh blood. My eyes adjust. Naked corpses are at my feet splayed and strewn, each in his own dark pool. Walking in this long robe in this place has stained the hem of the borrowed garb in crimson. The altar here is stripped clean of linens by the Viking raiders and is an empty place now. There isn’t even a candle or a lantern. The sconces were ripped from the walls.  I place the gospel on the stand where it had been as though it was simply out of place for a few moments for the housekeeper to dust.

         With only my own voice in this void, I speak my prayer aloud.

         “Dear God, As I return this great gospel to your post, let also, these devoted and precious souls of your servants return to you, broadening the depths of love, as all of Creation weeps for them. Amen.”

         “Amen” I hear echoed.

         I turn around to see who is here. In a dusty shaft of light is a living monk, all properly shaven in shorn, in shock, frozen in terror at the glimpse of my face. I believe he is the monk I saw peering down from the tower outside.

         He stares hard into the darkness riveted on my face, trying to make sense of me, “I thought you were Brother Jabari.”

Maybe he doesn’t even see the horrors and deaths all around in front of the altar. 

(Continues tomorrow)

#69.9, Thursday, June 19, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne Monastery

         I’m reaching the priory of the Lindisfarne Monastery, the gathering room used as a sanctuary and probably also the scriptorium. I find the marauders stopped here outside the walls. The stains on the earth mark their feet and axes soaked in the blood of innocent monks. Here they sorted through their sacks of loot to decide what was valuable.  In their way of seeing, a reliquary was valuable for its outside, the gold and jewels, so here they emptied out the contents of these little chests.  Here, mingled in the blood of unnamed monks are the treasured remains of more ancient saints – the gray dust of ash, the yellow spikes of teeth, the clump of silver beard hair, a bone or other remains.  These physical, earthly remnants of ancient saints, for some Christians, are a desperate grasp at something physical when possibly the need was really for something spiritual and invisible, the mingled namelessness in the fullness of the one love.

         I’m not the one who values this, who would be chosen to gather up these remnants of saints and return them to the altar from which they were stolen. But this gospel on its vellum pages, yes, I will return that to its proper place.

         Dear God, I know you don’t expect me to return the bones of the saints to make a shrine for lost pilgrims to come seeking their legendary three magical wishes.

         Looking up, I see someone in the tower here is looking down at me, but when I notice him, he is gone in an instant.

         I trudge my way around the outside of the wall to the entrance.  Out here, in front of this larger building in one direction are hovels for monks, made by hand as leafy shelters or rocks stacked, as the dessert fathers and mothers have always done. And in another place on this hill is a smoldering fire, oozing with molten lead perhaps a wooden chapel. So, this place was once in the Celtic style, even though the Benedictine rule was so prevalent when I last visited monastic communities.

         Now I see, stretched out on the steps just as he fell, the naked body of a man, reaching out an arm ahead of his fall, blood pooled beneath his wound, slaughtered as Jesus was by a spear to his side, a single cut in the same way young calves gave their lives for the vellum for the pages here.

(Continues Tuesday, June 24)


#69.8, Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne Monastery

         The robes of murdered Christians are laid out on the sand. I can see from the silks and brocades they also raided the vestry. In another heap are the robes of monks delivered to these sands unbloodied. I can imagine these monks were stripped of their robes before they were driven through with these weapons. What will I see at the altar when I return the gospel to its rightful place?  What has become of the monks of Lindisfarne?

         Gunnar would have me wear the finest garb to return the book, but I would rather pretend my way into the church as a monk than a father with higher authority. This is no task for a saint. As I choose the monk’s robe from the heap, there is talk among the raiders about the value of the haul and the risk of letting a slave possibly escape into the monastery wearing valuable fabrics. I leave the red shirt on the sand to assure them I am not coming back. It is obvious I am “escaping” and I will leave as a monk.

         I’m sure they were already of a mind that I wouldn’t be returning to the boats. Gunnar acknowledges a farewell to me, as the ships prepare to sail back on the westerly winds.  So now, I wear a borrowed monk’s robe and take up the weighty treasure to follow the path back from the sea to the church. I don’t look back.

         It is a steep climb with a heavy book and a robe too big. I climb onto each wide stone, setting the great book ahead of me for each step upward. All this way I see where the feet of the marauders left their footprints in the sands between the large stones. 

         Now, reaching the edifice walls that saved no one, the path of the raiders returning to the sea tells the gruesome story. Stains of blood – droplets & stained footprints, become more intense as I near this summit. And here is a place with sanctified debris – ashes and teeth and bits of bone – this is where the marauders stopped to open the reliquaries when they found no jewels. They, no doubt, kept the golden and bejeweled boxes anyway. 

         Dear God, I only come as a borrowed monk, not a true pilgrim seeking miracles, forgive me if I don’t seem appropriately devout. You know my heart, and for all the terrors and losses in this, I still grieve. Stay near. Amen.

(Continues tomorrow)

#69.7, Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne Monastery
 

         This beautiful treasure of Lindisfarne, a magnificent work of art is a gospel now laid out on the sand before me, right in front of the thieves. They were expecting a great hoard of jewels and discover now, that all they have are pages of artwork and inked letters imagining words not even carved as a rune stone. It is opened to the beginning of the gospel, where, amid the scrawls of Latin words, is a great illumination of the Chi Rho. I know these Greek letters are the initials for Christ. Even before the symbol of the cross was venerated, Christians understood the Chi Rho. And now, that is questioned.

         “Look” Gunnar, is standing right behind me, seeing this right side up and he wants everyone to take notice of this. “It is a bind-rune!”

         Gunnar reaches over my shoulder, with a pointing stick and traces the “x” of the Chi, then the Rho, to show these letters to us as the whole symbol.  How does he know this?

         “What is a bind-rune?” I ask. That was the word I heard Sjókona say as I was leaving her, “I hadn’t learned the bind-runes,” she shouted at me.

         “It is when runes are stacked together to make one meaning. Here is the Gebo,” he points again to the Chi, “It means ‘gift’” And this other, Wunjo is joy.”

         What can I say?  What can anyone say? We are awestruck by the presence of the holy in this. What do these murderers know of holy? Yet this circle of men is muffed in solemn silence. It is such a quiet that the blood dripping from an unsheathed sword makes a wailing sound as it slides off the blade.

         Gunnar speaks for all the men. “This will have to be returned to the place it was.” There are nods and whispered “aye’s” and someone says “keeping it would be a Christian curse on us all.”

         Now there is an expectation that the one who brought it out will be the one to return it. Gunnar glances back toward the ruin, then he looks at me, and says to the men, “It should be a Christian slave who returns it.  We should dress him up as a Christian brother.”

         Is a thrall in a red shirt not already dressed up a Christian? They paw through the booty of silks and satins, deciding what of their loot they will render for the Christian to wear who returns the book.

(Continues tomorrow)      


#69.6, Thursday, June 12, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne Monastery

         Some of the marauders are returning to the boats with blood on their swords and laden with the booty they’ve stolen. No one from the monastery is chasing them.

         Gunnar knows my Christian nature and he chooses me to help in opening what might be Christianity’s greatest treasure, since it was placed as the centerpiece of the elevated table in the main oratorio. But it is no chest of jewels as they hoped for when they carried the heavy thing off. It is a beautiful book in a jeweled binding.

         The marauders and slaves crowd around as I open it before us all on the sands of the beach. I open from the back of the book, at the end of the fourth gospel, where Jesus is on the beach amid the boats pulled onto the shore, asking Peter, “do you love me?” [John 21:15] Opening from the back, I turned first to these pages in John hoping to catch sight of the dialogue on the beach. This gospel was copied into the language of the Romans so I find myself translating the words into the Norse language I barely know. There seems an annoyed sense of disillusionment among these Vikings in finding no jewels inside, but here, instead, these written pages.

         And it surely makes no sense to these marauders that the human-God shape-changer who is the subject of these gospels would end, not with a proclamation of victory, but with a begging for an affirmation of love. Instead of orders for retribution, Jesus orders the feeding of his lambs.

         I flip the pages from back to front, pondering the details of the artwork. From end to beginning, it is ever more brilliant — full pages of color and miniscule decoration – beasts and birds, spirals and leaves, all good things of nature, monsters, dogs and cats, inked in the style these Norsemen recognize as their own. 

         This is an odd wealth for these who would steal riches of gold and silver. It is the human response to nature with art and imagination they already know well.

         Turn back, again, each page nearly to the front, and here it is in Matthew 1:18, right at the first shape change story, the Incarnation, [Footnote] when the holy became a human infant, now with the murdering horde looking down on this page in awe. All spread out on the page like a great living form, are the Greek letters, “Chi Rho.”

[Footnote] Eleanor Jackson adds text to the picture book The Lindisfarne Gospels, Art, History and inspiration, The British Library guide, “With their apparent ability to metamorphose, expand, contract, progress and interact, the letters seem to be living beings, reminiscent of the interlaced and contorted creatures that are so prominent to the decoration.” (p,59)

(Continues Tuesday, June 17)

#69.5, Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne Island

         The slaves wait with the boats while the monastery at Lindisfarne is being raided. We talk among ourselves about our own Christian ways. I find these men who once called themselves Christian, in these times, have no idea of the Jesus peace.

         How does God answer the prayers of people when twelve slaves on a beach are praying different prayers and each one of us trusts God to be just, though we have vastly different notions of justice? 

         Dear God, how have our human ways taken us so far from the constancy of love for neighbor? I know the slogan from the teachings “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  It should be simple, except maybe for that “self” part. It is the human way to come before you despising the self, claiming sin as our spiritual nature. Dear God stay near us.

         From this beach we can see nothing of the raid. We heard the battle cries as they went ashore, but nothing now. 

         Now, one raider, Gunnar, comes dragging a bag of loot. He comes right to me, with a wide, flat jeweled case. Others are coming now. Everyone gathers around to see this thing. He believes it is a chest of sorts or a drawer that contains the most treasured jewels because it was found in the most special place on the high altar. It has a beautiful case with what looks like locks and hinges though has no real lock or place for a key. Gunnar suggests I will be able to open it because I know “Christian magic.”

         It is wide, but not very deep as a chest of jewels. It’s very heavy, and yes, it is beautifully set with gold and silver and precious stones.  It’s clear why they would think it is a chest to display gems, because they have never seen a book before.

         “It has no lock because it isn’t meant to be locked.” I simply unhook the clasps, and it is the most beautiful rendition of gospels I have ever laid eyes on.

         “It’s nothing!” someone shouts.

         “Let’s just keep the jewel case, and cast these innards into the sea.”

         I know that is what they would do. Others are returning from the raid with their swords bloodied and armloads of silks and satins — brocades cut into liturgical garb — golden crosses on heavy chains –and here are simple weaves of wool — the robes of monks. There has been a terrible devastation.

(Continues tomorrow)

#69.4, Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne Island
 

The red shirts have the longships pulled onto the sand facing the sea waiting for the signal. We talk among ourselves.

         “I was once a Christian.”

         “I am still a Christian.” I answer.

         “How can you be a Christian when we belong to the pagans and have no priest?”

         “I guess Christian is who I am and not what is done to me by the Church.”

         “That’s what the poor blokes in Christian robes say as they are getting bloodied by the swords of our pagan masters! This is not the time to hold fast to old ways, my friend.”

         “It is who I am. And didn’t each of us just make the sign of the cross as we watched the raiders running through the grasses toward the monastery?”

         “Aye, my friend, but our prayers were silent then. We could have been blessing our masters on their ways.”

         “And you think God doesn’t hear your silent prayers?”

         “Even if the masters don’t know it, this raid was clearly the work of the Triune God of Christ.”

         “A Viking raid the work of God? How is that possible?” I argue.

         “It’s clear when you read the signs.  First the signs of doom filled the heavens, then, the longships were carried briskly and directly to this exact island they set out to find. [Footnote] The Christian God brought this down on the monks and it is the Norsemen’s duty to God to carry out this raid.”

         “No,” I know that can’t be, “I’ve known the God who is and worshipped by Jews and Christians throughout all of my years, and God doesn’t manipulate violence.  God doesn’t punish people with pagan warriors. I know God well and God is love.”

         “Haven’t you heard the ancient stories man? People, even whole tribes and nations are always at the mercy of God’s mighty justice!”  

         What can I say?  Here we are, twelve men on a sandy shore in a respite of worldly violence.  Jesus served the fish that morning and begged Peter to affirm his love. Peter said you know I love you. And Jesus didn’t say, then punish my sinful sheep. He could have said, “Bring your swords and slaughter my lambs and eat well, you deserve it.” But Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” [John 21] If I would say this aloud, it would make no sense to these men whose Christian vision is clouded with narrow notions of justice that simply means paying back hurt for hurt.

[Footnote] That early navagation tool would have allowed Vikings to approach an island from the sea, without having to follow the land. It was the Norse Bearing-Dial (based on sun shadows) Ibid, the drawing of this is on page 193 of Gwyn Jones’s A History of the Vikings Rev. Ed. (Oxford University Press, 1984)

(Continues tomorrow)

#69.3, Thursday, June 5, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. The far shore of the North Sea

         Several days and nights of sailing and rowing – now swells of stubborn waves on a calming sea are breaking ahead of us and were it not nighttime, we might see the dark line on the far horizon is the foreshadowing of land.

         “Drop the sails and secure the beam. Man the oars. Silence.”

          Among the Norsemen, anticipation is building like a lidded pot on a blazing hearth, ready to boil over with the howls and cries of battle – but silence is ordered as we move swiftly and quietly, closer, ever closer to the shore.  If a wandering monk were saying his matin prayers by the sea this morning he might notice shadows — shadows between the cresting waves — like logs floated onto shore from a distant storm-fallen forest. We are so many here, but even looking from one longship to the next, we are no more than deep darkness between the breaking waves. The shore waves are hitting us broadside now.

         The first ship with the officers and slave masters has a wooden navigating wheel to capture sun shadows and so maintain our direction for navigation. [Footnote] Now, with the sighting of land confirmed we see the leaders of this fleet have, indeed, navigated well. We are clearly approaching a large island populated with the hovels of monks around a central building  high on the land overlooking the sea. This is one of the Christian monasteries said to be on the islands off East Anglia.  Closer now, we draw in the oars and drift with the shore-bound breakers. The warriors, still shirtless for rowing, gird themselves in chain-mail and weapons and pluck their shields from the hooks on the gunwales.

         The thralls are given the signal and I find the water cold and nearly waist deep, though we are very close to the shore. We walk the boat onto the rocks in the wash of the waves. As the last boat is ashore, the raiders are screaming their terrors and running toward the little mounds where humble monks are probably just rising for their morning watch.

         We thralls, holding the lines for the boats, now are making the sign of the cross with our shared Christian prayers, not for the Norsemen but for their victims so brutally awakened this morning. Probably all of us who are slaves were captured from Christian lands. And now we wait here on the edge of the sea.

[Footnote] Vikings used a predecessor to more modern navigational tools, a Norse Bearing-Dial  A drawing of this is on page 193 of Gwyn Jones’s A History of the Vikings Rev. Ed. (Oxford University Press, 1984)

(Continues Tuesday, June 10)

#69.2, Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. The North Sea

         A stiffer wind and we are reefing the sail to give the wind less of us to chew on. With the speed of these ships, we can cut across the waves like well-honed blades skinning the vellum from the meat. It seems we are moving very fast, even with a lesser sheet.  In all my days I’ve really never traveled this fast by any means, unless I was falling off a mountain. Yet without the landmarks of shore this speed really means nothing.  How long will we be at sea?  Days? Weeks? No one is asking.

         What sets every sailor on edge just now, are the storm clouds billowing low in the southern skies. And with the favorable wind comes rain, sheets of rain, like a fleet of ghost sails, moving faster than our now drenched craft across the surface of the water. It rains for all the rest of the hours of the day. Nightfall comes early with no farewell sun beams in the West; we light lanterns, as best we can in the deluge, to mark our presence for the others of our fleet. We see some of the other ships have lanterns also. Right now, managing the lines and the luffing sail with these random gusts of storm is the best we can do. No one sleeps tonight.

         By the time the storm subsides, we are sitting low in the water, or perhaps the sea is sitting higher around us and it is the task of the thrall to bail. We are scooping out the water as fast as we can, and now, even those who aren’t enslaved by men, understand the master of us all is the circumstance, and all are helping us bail out the rain water.

Tarps were spread a little late, and maybe not to shelter our sleeping rather to air the wet weaves of their fabrics.

Those of us who worked through the night weren’t beset with the shivers as were the men who finally had turns to sleep. Everyone is cold and wet and sleep deprived by dawn. The clinging fog even shivers the light of day. There is no warm blanket or dry shirt and the wind is stilled to a whisper.

We see the leaders of the fleet have already called for oars, and our boat is not far behind receiving that order. So, the first crew, slaves included, are at the oars. I’d rather row than try to sleep.

         Longing for sun…

(Continues tomorrow)


#69.1, Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. The North Sea

         Sailing east across the North Sea toward the Northumbrian islands where Christians huddle with their riches, each wind gust comes stronger and more southerly than the last. With the lifting of the clouds comes the rougher sea. Ever larger waves are racking us broadside. Everyone is seasick though we’ve hardly started on this journey.

         We look across the waves. Some ships of our fleet are on top of the crests, while others are hidden in the gullies between, all of us bobbing up and down as we are at the mercy of this random roiling sea.

         Advice to the novice sailors — don’t focus on the other ships of this fleet moving as they are with the waves — waves — ever moving, rising up at our broadside, large enough to hide the next ship, then buoy it back into view. It is hard not to become mesmerized by each longship bobbing up and down and the rhythm of the waves lifting and dipping then taking us, always unprepared, for the next. I try to keep a steady focus and not dwell on the churning water as I have often sailed and I know of this sea sickness. But, like most everyone else here, the churning of the ocean has found a home in the middle of me, and I too, am retching over the side.  If I could just sit here a moment… The North Sea is well fed on morning oats this day. Tomorrow I’ll be the experienced sailor who watches the horizon and knows each day at sea will be different from the last. For better or worse, it will be different.

         I’m assigned the second oar, port-side at the bow. Now, with each dive and pitch, the winds seem stronger and a full span of the sail is more than we can manage. Soaked and salted by the sea spray, I’m called now to help with the lines.

         When we catch some glimpses of other ships, some are already reefing their sails. The ship nearest us has dropped the beam, draping the extra fabric of the sheet and tying it down, all the while fighting to keep the lowered, draped sail from gulping the sea. It is the bow slave there who climbs out on the beam to loosen the tangle of the lines for the hoisting back of the sail. May our reefing go more smoothly. [footnote]

[footnote] In these times the internet gives a blogger like me the opportunity to see videos of Viking longship replicas and a reconstruction of a warship ruin actually sailing. My source for this blog, a Youtube video (BBC TimeWatch, 2008) showing a voyage of “the Sea Stallion” a larger and later ship than would have been in the fleet in this story, but the North Sea is the same. To me, the calm voice of the BBC narrator seems incongruous with the hazards. A note in memorial to my brother Jack, who also loved sailing wooden boats, and my own experience going along on Long Island Sound when the wind shift surprised us, he took control with the same calm demeanor as a BBC narrator.

(Continues tomorrow)