Lindisfarne
I have just returned from giving a talk and preaching on Lindisfarne. Recently, I was 'ticked off' recently for being cynical about things Celtic. I described it scathingly as 'fashion' - more about 'Mist', 'Clarsachs' and 'romantic longing across blown sand on the machair', as it were. As a result of my visit to Lindisfarne, I repent! What I am discovering is that both around the Iona and the Lindisfarne phenomena, there is a hunger among those that work in these 'sacred spaces' [?] to have a 'prophetic' role in our culture and a heart-warming honesty that they don't really know what that might be. Each may offer R and R, but those who live and work in the the different Christian 'resources' on each island feel a responsibility to 'disturb' visitors as well as 'comfort' them. To quote John Saxbee the Bishop of Lincoln: 'To comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable'.... perhaps...
Brother Damian, an Anglican Franciscan friar, who is the Vicar of St Mary's Lindisfarne, asked me, given the connections and responsibilities I have on Iona, what Lindisfarne and Iona might learn from each other and what appropriate and enduring connections might be made. After all, it was a Columban community that was set up on Lindisfarne by Ss Aidan and Cuthbert. Aidan was a Bishop who followed the 'way' of Columba and was brought to Lindisfarne for mission to Northumbria. One response, which was very tentative, I did make. I can't help wondering whether it might be possible to have a pilgrimage not to Lindisfarne [walking, of course!], but from Lindisfarne to Iona. However, there might be a mission of a distinctly topical sort.... Would there be any interest and challenge in having a combined Islamic and Christian Pilgrimage from one to the other, ensuring that it was an interfaith venture, particularly as piligrimage is important to both 'traditions'....? Just a little thought....! After all, that relationship might well be considered the one where most alientation, fear and rejection is experienced. Any responses?
...and there's the journey inwards.... Before I move on to the place of feelings in the context of meditation, I want to look a little further at emotions. From the comments I have received, I think I have been remiss in not returning in each 'post' to the reminder that I am describing an approach to Christian meditation. For example, a comment was made about a 'desirable emotion' arising from letting go 'undesirable emotions'. In the context of Christian meditation, the danger of naming a desirable emotion is that that too becomes less than 'being in God'. In other words, as that marvellous English Mysticism text 'The Cloud of Unknowing' has it, we come to 'knowing' God by the way of 'unknowing'. In other words, by acknowledging all the emotions I may have, desirable or undesirable, I learn gently to be detached from them in order to 'be in God'. Being detached is inclined to feel like being aloof or distant - spiritual stand-offishness! No... being detached is being loose - smiling, as it were, on the attachments that hold me from moving into a deeper love for God and therefore for others.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles.
Brother Damian, an Anglican Franciscan friar, who is the Vicar of St Mary's Lindisfarne, asked me, given the connections and responsibilities I have on Iona, what Lindisfarne and Iona might learn from each other and what appropriate and enduring connections might be made. After all, it was a Columban community that was set up on Lindisfarne by Ss Aidan and Cuthbert. Aidan was a Bishop who followed the 'way' of Columba and was brought to Lindisfarne for mission to Northumbria. One response, which was very tentative, I did make. I can't help wondering whether it might be possible to have a pilgrimage not to Lindisfarne [walking, of course!], but from Lindisfarne to Iona. However, there might be a mission of a distinctly topical sort.... Would there be any interest and challenge in having a combined Islamic and Christian Pilgrimage from one to the other, ensuring that it was an interfaith venture, particularly as piligrimage is important to both 'traditions'....? Just a little thought....! After all, that relationship might well be considered the one where most alientation, fear and rejection is experienced. Any responses?
...and there's the journey inwards.... Before I move on to the place of feelings in the context of meditation, I want to look a little further at emotions. From the comments I have received, I think I have been remiss in not returning in each 'post' to the reminder that I am describing an approach to Christian meditation. For example, a comment was made about a 'desirable emotion' arising from letting go 'undesirable emotions'. In the context of Christian meditation, the danger of naming a desirable emotion is that that too becomes less than 'being in God'. In other words, as that marvellous English Mysticism text 'The Cloud of Unknowing' has it, we come to 'knowing' God by the way of 'unknowing'. In other words, by acknowledging all the emotions I may have, desirable or undesirable, I learn gently to be detached from them in order to 'be in God'. Being detached is inclined to feel like being aloof or distant - spiritual stand-offishness! No... being detached is being loose - smiling, as it were, on the attachments that hold me from moving into a deeper love for God and therefore for others.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles.
posted by Martin at 7:13 am
6 Comments:
Cynicism about "things Celtic" stems perhaps from concern/impatience over the woolly romanticism with which people cling to a past they don't really know and which may never have existed. I am not immune to that. However, sitting "loose" to the things of this world does connect in my mind with "things Celtic" e.g.some of the ancient poems and prayers of the Highlands, collected in the Carmina Gadelica, in which I see reflected a people for whom every action and thought of the day was handed over to God in love and wonder, for his guidance and blessing. I'm sure they would even have had a prayer for use when switching on a laptop!
A combined Islamic and Christian Pilgrimage, Lindisfarne to Iona? Splendid idea - we would walk with you on that.
John.
Lindisfarne to Iona - yes.
Christian and Islamic - yes.
Walking together between two sacred Christian places - hmm.
Walking together from a sacred Christian place to a sacred Islamic place (or vice versa and allowing for obvious practical difficulties) may be a better starting point?
Jane
Alternatively instead of trolling round the country at great expense we could stay in the place where we live and pray our socks off like them until our locality becomes a 'thin' place where 'prayer has been valid'
'Lindisfarne'
has always been a name that has given me a leap in my heart whenever I've heard it or read it
God willing I'd like to visit there someday .
I would really like to walk from Lindisfarne to Iona in a group. lucyawilliams@yahoo.co.uk
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