#73.4 Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Historical Setting: Northumbria, 793 C.E.

                Religious rule is narrow. To a monk bound to the community by the Rule it may appear that another’s relationship with God is no relationship at all. Brother Ealdwin knows my robe is borrowed and assumes I am spiritually adrift because I don’t seem to value the Benedictine Rule. I seem to be on an opposite side of this centuries-old controversy.  Should we chant the Hallelujah of Easter on the day the Pope proclaims it to be, or should we follow the tradition of the Celtic saints who apparently founded this community?

         “Good Brother Ealdwin, I know you think I’m lost in spirit but God still knows me. I am only lost in the earthly sense, a stranger in a borrowed robe, showing up here amid all the sorrow, arguing against the Rule. I do keep a hermit’s spirituality.”

         “You are searching, Brother. Perhaps, you’re not ready to become a monk at this time.”

         “Maybe I should just shake the Lindisfarne sand from my shoes and go to Jarrow on this quest to learn the history of this place.”

         “What do you even know of Jarrow?”

         “I’ve heard it is one part of a double monastery, the St. Paul, of Peter and Paul.”

         He says, “If you don’t appreciate the rule here, just wait till you get to Jarrow.”

         “I’ve heard they have a very fine library there”

         “The writings of the Venerable Bebe are in that place. It was his home.”

“As I’ve heard.”

         “That will definitely put your studies on the righteous path. If you can ever bend to the rule, Jarrow is the place that will bend you.”

         “So, I’ve heard.”

         “There is a merchant, Cloothar who sails down the coast to the rivers Wear and Tyne to Jarrow. He trades in dry goods and will gladly take Jabari’s robe that fits you so poorly and provide you more suitable clothing for a layman.”

         “Of course – new clothes can make all things right. My tonsure, pretending a crown is already giving way to my common hair.”

         “Farewell Brother, may you one day learn to value the orderly teachings of Rome.”

         I walk the causeway to the mainland to find this merchant, Cloothar.

I hope Ealdwin’s parting wish won’t follow me. I’m not craving more Roman order for my prayers just now.

(Continues tomorrow)

#73.3 Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Historical Setting: Lindisfarne of Northumbria, 793 C.E.

         As we walk with the visitors to the causeway, I’m hearing more divisive talk of the old debate. The patron I walk with tells me of a monk at Jarrow who wrote a book of the history of these people affirming the singular righteousness of Rome. It’s written as history but it includes a biting commentary on this place.  Dressed, as I am as a monk with a crown for a tonsure, this chatty fellow assumes I fully agree with the Roman pope’s edicts. But the division between varieties of monasteries still seems a raw issue here.

         Once I was a victim of this controversy, (Note: Blog post #44.5, May, 2023). Yet, it still seems trivial to argue over uniformity of external matters among Christians. It is what it is.

         Dear God, your love is all around, never failing us.  Thank you.

         If God answers this prayer, it is simply to tell me, “You are welcome to love me uniquely as you do.” And I believe God heard my prayer and I am beloved too.

         If the spiritual nature of Christianity is a love relationship and we have so many models for love and they are all varieties and experiences, nearly always beautiful and gracious, rarely uniform and orderly, then… why do brilliant, respectful and holy people persist in finding a singular rule for religion.  There are many varieties of holy metaphor of love in our earthly ways of family. Even though each person comes as an infant into some sort of relationship of family yet one familial pattern is never the same as another. There is no orderly sameness of love among siblings and parents — brother to brother — mother to child, sister to father — and on. There is no particular righteous order on earth as it is in heaven. Love takes many forms. One person’s love is never the same even within a relationship. Love is always many faceted and often disorderly and usually completely unique and yet we are always calling it love regardless of how it is not exactly what another would call love.  So, over and over again, I am befuddled by our human controversies demanding a singular righteous way of being Christian. 

         I’m just wondering, or maybe I know, and this prayer is simply my prayer of gratitude to thank you for letting me love God and everyone else in my own way. Dear God, thank you.

 (Continues tomorrow)


#73.2, Thursday, October 2, 2025

Historical Setting: Lindisfarne of Northumbria, 793 C.E.
 

         Ealdwin and I are washing the dishes and I find it is a perfectly unsanctified time to ask Brother Ealdwin the questions I have about the Irish traditions of this monastery.

         “I’m hearing the patrons and the pilgrims talking among themselves, cursing an Irish root of Lindisfarne. But did this monastery once follow the Celtic Rule?”

         Somber and serious, Brother Ealdwin stacks another heap of bowls on the table, then answers.

         “We are obedient to the pope and follow the righteous Rule of Benedict now.”

         “Of course.”

         “You know, what you are calling a ‘Celtic Rule’ is no rule at all.  It is haphazard and disorderly with complete disregard for righteous obedience.”

         “It’s such an old matter; I didn’t expect to hear it discussed in this new time.”

         Brother Ealdwin doesn’t actually discuss it with me.  He just continues stacking the bowls in silence and I nod my gratitude for his help with the chore.

         I thought the divisive issues of Rule were more than a century in the past and at that time it seemed only a local issue in Francia. I thought it was a personal rift between Columbanus and the Frankish bishops and it was settled when Columbanus yielded to the Benedictine Rule calling for the date for Easter to follow the papal decree. And of course, there was that issue of tonsure.

         Over and over again I fall into the trap of thinking all of us humans in time progress from ignorance to wisdom. In this new awakening it is true that travel by sea is faster and new ways of navigating give sailors better direction. Towers are taller and horses wear iron shoes, and the plough horse wears a collar. But the olden ways of pettiness that divide God’s beloved Creation into warring factions seem only to grow deeper roots so ancient weeds of dissension keep showing up. Old controversies always find a way of sprouting back to life.

         Here, in this new time, this great future of humanity where I have awakened from darkness of death into the new, there still lingers the dearth of old Roman hates.

         Brother Ealdwin suggests I read the writings of a Northumbrian who was collecting the history of olden times here. As Ealdwin says, Bede thought more of ancient dust than new wonders. The tide will be turning soon, so we walk with the visitors toward the causeway before Vespers.

(Continues Tuesday, October 7)

#73.1 Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Historical Setting: Lindisfarne, 793 C.E.

         The reading of the scholar’s letter concludes, then the bishop blesses the squash soup such as it is – without salt. The benches are reset to face the dining board and the held breath of long-listening to the bishop exhales, relaxed now. Regardless, the fasting monks attend their prayers walking the shores with God.  After the meal visitors, pilgrims and patrons await the shift in the tides, mulling the emptiness they came here to see.

         Like little eddies roiling the waters in a rocky creek, the talk among the patronage and the episcopates is lots of little swirls of hates and not a healthy harbor for the flow of Spirit.

         Those who are only rare visitors here may have expected to find everything burned to the ground thinking all this was made of wood. That was just gossip to decry the Irish root of Lindisfarne. It was only the old church of wood, later sheathed in lead, that burned.  In these times the pope’s rule is kept. And in Rome, stone is used for buildings, so the newer oratorio didn’t burn.

         I walk quietly among the visitors as a borrowed monk in another’s robe but with the required tonsure I appear rooted here. I hear the talk among the dignitaries as I gather up the dirty bowls. I thought all this divisive worry over the Irish tradition was well behind us two centuries ago when Faither Columbanus, the abbot of the monasteries I knew in Gaul, finally rescinded to the wishes of the Frankish bishops, and yielded to celebrate Easter on the day of the Pope’s edict rather than following the Irish tradition.  But here we are again, in a completely Benedictine community of monks, resurrecting the same old arguments.

I would have expected to find the future of Christianity unfettered by seemingly petty issues of differences so we could all just celebrate the universal love of Jesus. To say I’m disappointed with the redundancy of all this political maneuvering is an understatement.  To me, all of the contrivances of division are a dark shadow of hates and hurts that continue to divide people in spite of God’s love for all people.

Brother Ealdwin is here feeding the kitchen fire preparing to help me wash the bowls.

(Continues tomorrow)

#72.13, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne
 

         I keep awakening in new times always born into a future and yet remembering the past.  Old people know this well.  We who lived in the past, also live here and now in this time we once called future. Now this future where we are, is harder to navigate than the past because future doesn’t know its outcome.

         The now explains monasteries emerging from the past.  What seemed like a natural merger with the Holy Spirit in prayer, became a pilgrimage, a movement, a democracy of many with a single song, a harmony of voices, a prayer, and of course, God only knows, it became deep and significant. Our spiritual nature starves for it. It happened with the early Christians. It happened in solitude, and it happens in monasticism. It is an intentional human closeness with God. Spirit is an invisible realty and like all of God, invisible like air surrounds and is our very breath.

         It isn’t a thing as much as it is a power, but not forceful — just present.  It seems beyond us and unfathomable but for the constant reality, the touching reach of it. Reality would be nothingness, without God, and that same nothing shows up as an emptiness longing for power. Vacancy of power yearns for something. And the yearning seems to the human spirit a need for control or rule. The wilderness seems a dearth, a weed patch, a mustard seed overgrown into a magnificent weed, and the controlling nature of humankind invents a scythe. The wilderness is shaven and shorn to become orderly and controllable.

And that is what happened in early Christianity when Roman order separated Christianity from Judaism and made a religion of it. It happened to an emperor’s army when the bind-rune or the Chi Rho became a good luck charm on a military flag — and when the emperor Constantine announced it was Christianity that won his war.  And it happened again when thirst for the invisible Spirit led people to find the quenching in ecclesiastical polity — making order of the hierarchy and designed the rule.

It turns out, the yield of all this order and control is the increase in wealth and power. We label that a good thing, right? So, religion should be good. right? But sometimes religion gets in the way of the spiritual connection, and the monastery that succumbs to the religious rule struggles to meet the spiritual need of its origin.

It is what it is.

(Continues Wednesday, October 1)


#72.12, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne

         Before Alcuin signs off, he offers his own personal and political act in response to this tragedy. 

The scholar adds, “I plan to go to him, [the king] and if I can then do anything for you about the boys who have been carried off by the pagans as prisoners or about any other of your needs, I shall make every effort to see that it is done.“

This letter becomes the mark in history. It explains why a stone at Lindisfarne depicts a marching army in the end of times going into battle but not fighting as seen in carvings on the triumphal Roman arches commissioned by the winners of heroic battles. This ending war has no image for after the end.

This monastery is left with the unsettling crisis of Jesus’ own teaching and example of pacifism pitted against the realities of a warring world. As I am now, and as I have been before in many other awakenings into life wearing the garb of a monk, I see this through the eyes of an aesthetic.

These Christian communities began as cells of dessert mothers and fathers, isolating themselves from the world for purity of prayer. But it soon was apparent in isolating for prayer, that amid God’s constant answer to every prayer the law is not only “Love God above all else,” but that can’t be accomplished alone with God in a dessert or wilderness. There is something more, more than thirst, more than hunger, more than any suffering or punishment, “Love God above all else – and…”

I’ve prayed it many times. Dear God, I love you above all else, beyond my human comforts and needs, I love you more than even the beauty of this desolation, beauty that you send over the grieving and the pained, even though we, here, I included, didn’t ask for beauty. We did get beauty. Yes, I love you.

Then Jesus answers, “feed my sheep.” And the aesthetic realizes the law is “Love God above all else and.” The “and” is “and your neighbor as yourself.”

The “and” calls people together for the song – Psalms sung climbing the steps to the Temple in ancient times – Chants in the catacombs and in the caves — a convergence of separate “oms” into song, and song into the shared voices of choir, and the oneness of all, then the oneness with the neighbor, and the enemy, the needy and the thirsty, belonging one to another in God. So, these communities of monks were just a natural response, not an army or a plan.

(Continues Tuesday, Sept. 30)

#72.11, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne

The patrons and politicians, monks and pilgrims all expect to hear the scholar proclaim God’s side in the issue of the burial of a sinner among the monks. Alcuin’s letter does address sins as personal displays of wealth and drunkenness, but he doesn’t really speak to that one big issue some believe was God’s purpose in dispatching Vikings. There was an expectation for hearing Alcuin’s authoritative blame for a holy curse on Lindisfarne. But it seems, Alcuin listens to a God who is all loving and takes no side in political disputes. And now a curse is not a curse without the authoritative pronouncement of it – the “aha, I told you so.” [Footnote]

The scholar doesn’t curse the whole of this place, he concludes, continuing only with individual responsibility.

“Encourage each other, saying, ‘Let us return to the Lord our God, for he is very forgiving and never deserts those who hope in him.’

And you, holy father, leader of God’s people, shepherd of a holy flock, physician of souls, light set on a candle-stick, be a model of all goodness to all who can see you, a herald of salvation to all who hear you. May your community be of exemplary character, to bring others to life, not to damnation. Let your dinners be sober, not drunken. Let your clothes befit your station. Do not copy the men of the world in vanity, for vain dress and useless adornment are a reproach to you before men and a sin before God. It is better to dress your immortal soul in good ways than to deck with fine clothes the body that soon rots in dust. Clothe and feed Christ in the poor, that so doing you may reign with Christ. Redemption is a man’s true riches. If we loved gold we should send it to heaven to be kept there for us. We have what we love: let us love the eternal which will not perish. Let us love the true, not the transitory, riches. Let us win praise with God, not man. Let us do as the saints whom we praise. Let us follow in their footsteps on earth, to be worthy to share their glory in heaven. May divine goodness keep you from all adversity and bring you, dear brothers, to the glory of the heavenly kingdom with your fathers. When our lord King Charles returns from defeating his enemies, by God’s mercy, …

Fare well, beloved in Christ, and be ever strengthened in well-doing.” [Footnote]

[footnote—source] Source: Alcuin of York, Letter to Higbald, trans. by S. Allott, Alcuin of York (York, 1974). Reprinted in Paul Edward Dutton, Carolingian Civilization: A Reader (Ontario, 1993). Scanned and proofread by Eric C. Knibbs, 2006.

This text is part of Viking Sources in Translation. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use.

© 2006 Anders Winroth

[Ibid.]

(Continues tomorrow)

#72.10, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025


 

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne

         As the messenger, I told Alcuin only that the Norse raiders had a ready market for fine fabrics.

The scholar wrote, “Do not glory in the vanity of dress; that is cause for shame, not boasting, in priests and servants of God.”[footnote]

The richly dressed patrons seated in the front take no offense in this because they don’t consider themselves priests and servants of God. But Alcuin’s words set the monks atwitter with gossip over the ostentatious outfits of a few who chose not to return after the raid. Apparently, this had been an issue.

With the wine cellar raided, and barrels of ale taking my place on the longship returning to the fjords, drunkenness is not an immediate problem on this particular day, but the scholar chastises:

“Do not blur the words of your prayers by drunkenness. Do not go out after the indulgences of the flesh and the greed of the world, but stand firm in the service of God and the discipline of the monastic life, that the holy fathers whose sons you are may not cease to protect you. May you remain safe through their prayers, as you walk in their footsteps. Do not be degenerate sons, having such fathers. They will not cease protecting you, if they see you following their example.” [Ibid.]

I know Alcuin was working through the issue of human sin and God’s love, thoughtfully and prayerfully taking so many hours for the essence of this message. Alcuin binds love with sin, not as in the Pagan, superstitious way, but more as a touch point for God to humankind to open the channel for relationship.

“Do not be dismayed by this disaster. God chastises every son whom he accepts, so perhaps he has chastised you more because he loves you more. Jerusalem, a city loved by God was destroyed, with the Temple of God, in Babylonian flames. Rome, surrounded by its company of holy apostles and countless martyrs, was devastated by the heathen, but quickly recovered through the goodness of God. Almost the whole of Europe has been denuded with fire and sword by Goths and Huns, but now by God’s mercy is as bright with churches as the sky with stars and in them the offices of the Christian religion grow and flourish.” [Ibid.]

footnote: Alcuin of York, Letter to Higbald, trans. by S. Allott, Alcuin of York (York, 1974). Reprinted in Paul Edward Dutton, Carolingian Civilization: A Reader (Ontario, 1993). Scanned and proofread by Eric C. Knibbs, 2006.

This text is part of Viking Sources in Translation. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use.

© 2006 Anders Winroth

(Continues tomorrow)

#72.9, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne

         The purpose of this gathering is to hear the letter read from the bishop’s friend, the scholar for the court of the Frankish King Charles, who, at this time, seems to be a greater king rising over all the kings of Francia and maybe even Northumbria and all the villages of the Anglo-Saxons — the teacher, Alcuin is in his court.

         Alcuin addresses his letter to the bishops and the monks:

         “To Bishop Higbald and the whole community of the church of Lindisfarne, good sons in Christ of a most blessed father, the holy Bishop Cuthbert, [Cuthbert being the bones in the shrine] Alcuin, a deacon, sends greeting and blessing in Christ.

“When I was with you your loving friendship gave me great joy. Now that I am away your tragic sufferings daily bring me sorrow, since the pagans have desecrated God’s sanctuary, shed the blood of saints around the altar, laid waste the house of our hope and trampled the bodies of the saints like dung in the street. I can only cry from my heart before Christ’s altar: ‘O Lord, spare thy people and do not give the Gentiles thine inheritance, lest the heathen say, Where is the God of the Christians?’

What assurance can the churches of Britain have, if Saint Cuthbert and so great a company of saints do not defend their own? Is this the beginning of the great suffering, or the outcome of the sins of those who live there? It has not happened by chance, but is the sign of some great guilt.

“You who survive, stand like men, fight bravely and defend the camp of God. Remember how Judas Maccabaeus cleansed the Temple and freed the people from a foreign yoke. If anything needs correction in your way of gentleness, correct it quickly. Recall your patrons who left you for a season. It was not that they lacked influence with God, but they were silent, we know not why.”[footnote]

The bishop did recall those patrons mentioned here by Alcuin, to hear this reading. This is both the acknowledgement they awaited, reaffirming their “influence with God” as though rich gifts would make that possible, but also, the bishop’s earthly concern – that no one of means cared about the outcome of the monastery. He has gathered them here to see and hear it for themselves.

[footnote—source]

http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2021/06/alcuin-to-higbald-and-christian-view-of.html  Retrieved 10-8-24

Source: Alcuin of York, Letter to Higbald, trans. by S. Allott, Alcuin of York (York, 1974). Reprinted in Paul Edward Dutton, Carolingian Civilization: A Reader (Ontario, 1993). Scanned and proofread by Eric C. Knibbs, 2006.

This text is part of Viking Sources in Translation. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use.

© 2006 Anders Winroth

(Continues Tuesday, Sept. 23)

#72.8, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025

Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne

        The bishop is reading the gospel.  Everyone agrees it should be done as grueling as it is. Now there is wonder – is this the reading of only one gospel? Or is the reading of “the gospel” the whole four of them?  Two hours into it, with only a small portion of pages on the read side of the spine the bishop doesn’t look up from his reading.  The words mush into a drone of parables and more parables, with no surprises or suspense even in the miracles.

         The parts that are most interesting to consider are few and far between, but they are the prophetic words of the end times.  Here in their own Northumbrian skies, they have already seen wonders and omen.  Their own time of drought has passed, and some are missing now, taken up to heaven or to hell, God only knows. Or maybe Beelzebub has a counting of it. Truly this is the beginning of the great eschaton and all will be judged.  Best to stand for the reading of the gospel. And they have made it through now to the foretelling of the destruction of the Temple – the rumors of war – expectation of earthquakes coming soon.

         Matthew Chapter 24, the desolating sacrilege, then Chapter 25, the bridesmaids who ran out of oil, unprepared, missing the moment. How does the bishop read in near darkness, with only a strained beam of sunlight on the book? Only God knows. The judgment of the nations – sorting the sheep from the goats – here those wools that get saved again and then there is the pit.

         Knees numb for the horrific ending they’ve all heard it read over and over in Lent – the season of the hard ending — the betrayal — the denial — the trials — the God forsaken — the death by torture. Even the “rest in peace” burial was disturbed with resurrection. Over and over again, the angels say “Do not be afraid.” Do the angels mock our fears?

         The bishop reads, “… and remember I am with you always until the end of the age.”

         Everyone is gasping along with it, “the end?” “the age?” is this the end of the age now?

         The bishop pulls his face from the pages, and looks out over the guests, still staggering their stances.

         “Thus ends the reading of the Holy Gospel.” Exhale. And clamor to the benches.

(Continues tomorrow)