"This was a faith of the edgelands; there was nothing comfortable about it." Makes me think: the period of 'rapid and extreme' change is also very deeply uncomfortable to me. What's the difference between the green martyrs discomfort and our/my current cultural discomfort? Is this difference purely fysical? Thanks for the story, looks like a great place to visit and to be visited by.
Yes, I think it's uncomfortable for everyone. It's a hard time. The martyrs chose personal discomfort in pursuit of God, which was also a conscious withdrawal from the world. In some ways, that seems like choosing a meaningful sacrifice over a powerless one. Perhaps.
The collected works of Li Po are a good place to start. Han Shan is also rather glorious. He wrote all his poems on rocks or trees for the rain to wash away.
I am no expert at all. But I have found anything translated by Red Pine is great. Also, I just bought "Studies in Early Celtic Nature Poetry" by Kenneth Jackson. There are truly times the Chinese and the Celtic poets really do seem to be following the same spirit.
Helen Waddell, the great Irish Latinist, published LYRICS FROM THE CHINESE which you might like. The extraordinary John CH Wu, sometime minister in the government of Chiang Kai Shek and, later, convert to Catholicism published FOUR SEASONS OF T'ANG POETRY: both well worth a look
Paul, what a great piece. There is of course a school of thought that the ancient Irish and British Christianity is the same faith as practiced in the East that eventually became Orthodoxy, and the arrival of the mission of Augustine represented the capture of the ole faith by Rome. (There is a book called The History of Early Christianity in Britain, written around the turn of the 20th century, that makes this case from original documents and the Fathers). The Orthodox of course recognize all early British saints pre-schism; my church has icons of Cuthbert and Aidan of Lindisfarne and David of Wales, among others. I think it’s a valid argument; early British Christianity was more contemplative, monastic and rural vs the more urban tendencies of Rome. Dmitri Lapa writes good pieces on the British saints at OrthoChristian, and I should also recommend Sabine Baring-Gould’s lives of the British Saints, available from Llanerch Press in eight volumes. He does a great job of working through the existing documents, much of which were lost during the Saxon invasions. And there are all the Northumbrian saints, including Oswald, on whom Tolkien based Aragorn. It is indeed “good” for the Orthodox in the west to have this tradition, another that needs wholesacale rediscovery.
There are, however, plenty of scholars who will tell you that there is/ was no such thing as a specifically Celtic Christianity - that the ancient Irish church was as Roman as anywhere else in Europe. Nonetheless, the lyric poetry that survives from this period does suggest a very different atmosphere to that prevailing further east. Has anyone done any work on the Anglo-Saxon church to show in what ways and how much its tradition differed from the Irish, I wonder? I bet someone has!
Yes, there's a lot of debate about 'Celtic Christianity', and the phrase has been so hijacked by a kind of New Age fluff that I try to avoid it. But while the division between 'Celtic' and 'Roman' might be overblown, it seems undeniable that, before the Synod of Whitby in Britain (which was called precisely to end the divide) the British and Roman models differed. It's true that British/Irish and indeed Anglo-Saxon Christianity, in the early years, was 'wilder', more rural and less centralised. One reason the monks left the Skellig in the 12th century was that they were called to the mainland - where they could be more easily monitored by the Bishop - and called order to the order of St Benedict, which was also designed to rationalise the faith.
I need/want to do a lot more research myself, and I think I will. The monastery I worship in - the first Orthodox monastery in Ireland since the schism - celebrates by St Ciaran and St Brendan, both founding Irish saints. Some re-emergence - small shoots - is perhaps already beginning ...
This might be an interesting place to start. It’s by an Anglican minister who has an obvious dislike for Rome, but it is a great discussions of the legends (Joseph of Arimithea, etc) and his references to the Fathers are all valid. He also references some other historical works.
Also, perhaps this is just a “prejudice” of mine but I think people were in general less dishonest and more honorable back then.
On this note, the timeline at my local Greek Church marks the end of orthodoxy in the British isles concurrently with the Norman invasion. I have kept this in mind while reading The Wake. ingengas indeed ;)
Indeed. I don’t think the Roman Church was anything like what we think of today until the “papal revolution” of the late 11th century. And really the Roman Catholic Church that we know today is to a great extent the product of the Counter-Reformation.
The Greeks and the church that rose from their culture were certainly not short on cities. When Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, there were wolves prowling the streets of depopulated Rome. But very early Christianity was urban, which is why pagans are called pagan — that is, rural. But every Christian culture sank roots into the earth and developed strong rural, semi-pagan traditions, regardless of what the elites in Constantinople or Rome were up to. What mattered more than anything, I think, was language, the stuff one had access to thanks to the lingua franca—Latin or Greek.
I would also recommend Max Adams’ book “The King on the North,” which is about St Oswald and with a good deal of background on pre-Augustine British Christianity. It’s much more complimentary to Oswald than the Morris book. The introduction to Baring-Gould’s Lives of the British Saints has a great deal on the more idiosyncratic aspects of the early faith in the British isles.
Thanks for all these recommendations. I haven't read Morris' book, just saw the review -- by a scholar who is, I believe, an English Catholic. I was somewhat surprised by how hostile to Oswald it sounds like Morris is in the new book, though I probably shouldn't be, as this sort of thing comes and goes according as the trend is in or out. The book nonetheless seems important.
Urban was probably not the best choice of words. My point was that the early Christians in Ireland, Cornwall, Wales and England tended toward asceticism and monasticism, similar to the Greeks (Mt Athos, for example) and the Russians (Solovki and any number of hermitages and monasteries in the Russian North). This indicates a somewhat different spirit than the Roman model, which in the 600s sought to bring the churches of the west under Roman aegis. That’s why Gregory sent Augustine to Britain — it wasn’t to convert the British, who already had a living tradition of its their own — but to bring them in line with Roman doctrine and practice. As seen in the debates over setting the dates for Easter and monastic tonsures.
However our host is right, the whole Celtic Christianity idea has been captured by New Agers (much like Glastonbury itself).
It has been captured, yes. Even its preeminent philosopher, Scotus Eriugena. But there is also good work on him now. And that’s good, because he’s crucial, as there’s a direct line from Pseudo-Dionysus (Greek!) through him to Eckhart and Cusanus (and via Cusanus to Semyon L Frank) and Boehme, among others. Dermot Moran links Eriugena to Hegel… all of which is to say that the Celtic fringe of Europe is not so cut off, in some ways at least, from a fairly central stream of European thought, though it is a stream that has maybe become too polluted or convoluted and perhaps marginalized by now.
Eriugena is tough going, and his magnum opus, the Periphyseon (On Nature) has not been completely translated into English. But I hope he gets his due someday. I have never read a more brilliant explication of creation as theophany. The New Agers and “creation spirituality” folks of the 60s and 70s were not totally out of line in hitting upon various Irish and British figures as foundational for a “greener” Christianity.
Thanks - I will look at those authors. In the same way, the (non political) hippies of the sixties and seventies had a sound insight that something had gone badly wrong with consumerist, war economy culture. A lot appeared in the Deep South who just wanted to plant organic gardens and learn old folkways and crafts. I used to sell them raw milk from my cow Betsey along with eggs and the like. Those were good folks and a lot made a good transition to a rural lifestyle.
Beautiful. You have succeeded in making a pilgrimage that I have tried and failed to make several times, once due to bad weather that almost drowned us. That wasn’t even the only time I’ve almost drowned off the coast of Ireland. The number of times that has happened is surprisingly high, given the limited amount of time I’ve spent in the place, and yet I love it still.
The story of the Christianization of the British Isles, and the way that the Christian religion evolved in and with and through the cultures of the British Isles, has long fascinated me. It is a rather green story, so to speak, at least in my reading of it, and it is not a story that is finished yet. But it is good to look back towards origins. I’ll be interested to see what you turn up in your researches into early British and Irish Christianity. If asceticism is a way forward, then the fierce and daring asceticism (and cenobitism) of early Christian Ireland and Britain is still important.
In another comment here I see Alexander Norman has mentioned Helen Waddell. I can't resist jumping in to say that she was a rare gem. All her books deserve to be back in print, but none more than the one that might appeal most to folks reading here, her little collection Beasts and Saints. These are are quite short stories from Latin sources in the Christian tradition. Three sections: the Desert Fathers (so translated from Greek into Latin); medieval Europe (including Britain); and Irish saints. I especially recommend the book to anyone with children. I don't believe Waddell ever learned medieval Irish and Welsh. I wish she had, because she would have worked wonders with the literary traditions of those languages, as she did with her knowledge of medieval Latin. She was the daughter of Presbyterian (I think) missionaries in Japan, influenced by her childhood in early 20th century Japan, a rather free-spirited Christian scholar, and a damn fine writer.
Yes indeed! Her STORIES FROM HOLY WRIT is also charming, a wonderful book for children. The introduction, about a stray dog, is unforgettable. One of the many books I am planning not to write is THREE STOUT LADIES, a joint biography of Helen Waddell, Dorothy Sayers and Elizabeth Anscombe, three scandalously overlooked ragers against the machine.
Great trip, good thoughts, and the pictures are very effective.
Some many years ago I caught a BBC radio 'newsy' interview with a man returning from a longer stay, perhaps a project, on Skellig Michael. It got my attention when he said that he had the very strange feeling that if he had been told he would not leave, then that would have been fine by him. I probably have had the same feeling about a place a few times. I remember an old heather thatched croft house on the Isle of Lewis, and the first trip we made to the inner Farne when our two oldest were very small.
A few years ago I returned to thinking about Skellig Michael and turned up this account online. I hope this might be a useful further source for contemplation.
I do not consider myself a climber but I have done enough technical rock climbing in airy places to appreciate this study of some of the dry stone structures on the South Peak. I like page 51: “On the way up to this traverse one views with amazement a fragment of dry-stone wall built by someone who must have been kneeling on clouds when he placed these stones on a narrow ledge that plummets into what appears to be eternity. (Fig.44)” https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1d5nb0gb;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print
Wonderful essay. I truly miss that feeling of everything being holy. When I was a child it felt like superstition, but it grew into something more. It's gone now sadly.
I read this idea from Watchman Nee as a young woman: that if we desire the cross to work in our lives, to 'cleave flesh from spirit', we need not seek out trials. If we merely tell the Lord in prayer that we yearn for His work in us we will see Him bring the testing in due time. When it comes we must not refuse the cross. The difficulties He leads us through may be very different from those we would choose for ourselves in a monastic attempt. It seems true to me with my limited experience and understanding of theology.
I had just happened upon this book of his, The Spiritual Man, off a used book rack. Much of it is strange yet it influenced me at that time in the holiest way. Watchman Nee, or Nee To Sheng, was a Chinese christian at the dawn of Mao's regime. He died in prison but left behind a converted guard. A good biography of Nee is called Against the Tide, by Angus Kinnear.
One cinematographical aside: Skellig Islands are the setting of the final sequence of Heart of Glass - 1976 film by Werner Herzog, director who is also very "wild" and in some personal way also extatically mystical. The movie itself is unique and really really weird, probably the only film which was made while most of the cast was hypnotised and therefore also excruciatingly slow sometimes. It takes place in 18th century Bavaria is based on a story of some local folk prophet. It can be hard to endure but the opening sequence is monumental and I always found the finale very touching, especially the sentence which closes the film. You can se the finale here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arAdbEGVWOk
It’s also in a Star Wars film. One of the new ones. I try not to think about it. But it tells you something about how the numinous quality of the place breaks through even into contemporary pop culture.
for another pop culture/literary aside - in the witcher series of books by Andrzej Sapkowski, there is a region off to the west of the main continent called the Skellige Isles, which is a home of both brutal viking-style pirates and a strong pagan druidic tradition clearly inspired by celtic druidism - it's definitely the most alluring place to live to me in that whole dark and depressing world - beautifully visually realised in one of the video games based on the series.
I very deliberately did not refer to Star Wars throughout this piece!
Actually I was very relieved on my trip to see virtually no references to it in the area. I expected Skywalker-themes cafes and kids on the boat with lightsabres, but nothing of the kind, thank goodness.
Much as I hate the Disney Corporation, I wonder now if it performed an accidental service by subsconsciouly sewing the Skellig back into the underbelly of our culture. Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi is effectively living as a monk on the rock, complete with robes and holy book. Star Wars is certainly a candidate for the West's only remaining modern mythology. Interesting that it led back there.
Yeah, I shouldn’t be so hard on that film. It’s the best of the new films, by far, and Luke’s role the best part of it. Nevertheless, much of what depresses me about Star Wars and Star Trek (the latter is where I first encountered the Christian Story retold, in such a way as to include the wonder of the natural world), is how much the writing for the films has deteriorated since the 80s. But the original trilogy of Star Wars films was incredibly important to me and so many millions of others, as part of the kindling of a mythical consciousness. Fantasy is one of the last hideouts of traditional religious consciousness in Western culture. You can drive it out with a pitchfork but it always comes running back.
Well, the new Disney films are written in a way that deliberately inverts and takes apart the old mythology; because that's what the West does now. But of course like all products of post-modern culture they can't find a new mythology to put in its place, so the result is a mess.
I will say, my favorite part of watching The Last Jedi was probably the 32 oz. of high gravity beer I drank while it played. But at the end Luke sacrifices himself, right? He sort of does this astral body type of projection thing from whatever Skellig Michael is called in the film and it works to save the day but it tasks him to the last of his life force to do it. And that's in keeping with Obi-Wan's death in A New Hope, he also sacrifices himself so the heroes can escape. That whole film was trying hard to recapitulate the first trilogy. Other of the new films have not done that, which I think is significant, for a reason that's I think clear enough...
Taking apart myths--yes, I would say that's pretty much all that's left to do for mainstream entertainment. It makes me wonder, can a myth actually be inverted, like the way a Black Mass is supposedly an inversion of the Catholic Mass? I think it can be, sort of, and actually I think that's what René Girard (a Catholic who converted himself through his own academic work, like Alasdair MacIntyre) argued Christianity is, or does, it inverts or undermines the old scapegoat mythical structure, exposing the innocence of the victim and thus obviating subsequent ritual sacrifice (or the Temple sacrifice)--unless it's the sacrifice of the Mass/divine liturgy, which is understood (I believe in Orthodoxy as well as Catholicism) as in fact not distinct from the one original sacrifice on Calvary. We can now participate in that sacrifice instead of make new ones. So subverting myths isn't always a bad thing, from a certain point of view (as Obi-Wan would say).
But then you do get this extension of the sacrifice of Calvary beyond the eucharist, in the form of asceticism. I am not the one to make the theological or doctrinal case for that aspect of the imitatio Christi. But that's the justification for specifically Christian asceticism. Yes, it's for the sake of theosis/deification, but it is understood symbolically as an extension of Christ's asceticism to the point of mortification and even actual death, i.e. martyrdom. Now, we don't green-martyr ourselves anymore, but can we still receive that kind of story, as for example in The Last Jedi? I'm actually not sure we can. I think service, self-sacrifice as a value is vanishing, and that film was a kind of farewell to it, a respectful nod to the elders whom we don't really care about any more but we like to be polite occasionally. I wouldn't expect to see it invoked again any time soon. The whole thrust of the new value system or Successor Ideology, whatever we want to call it, is tribal and identitarian, which is to say self-centered, and precisely the sort of tribal world that the pre-Christian system of scapegoat sacrifice operated in.
Thank you for this reference to Herzog; the connection was emerging in the murk of my mind as I was reading this piece and I thank you for identifying it. My siblings and I just cared for my aging mother at home rather than leaving her in a facility, and I described the whole beautiful struggle as being very Fitzcarraldo, so the wildness is definitely a common thread.
You know what this actually reminds me of—and I can’t believe i didn’t mention this first—is your novel Beast.
For those who don’t know but might be interested: the narrator of that book, a contemporary man, is on a mad quest to discover some asceticism in his life. He’s absolutely desperate for it, and he does achieve it in a way, living off little more than water on some desolate moor. (Reminds me of great ascetic saints like Catherine of Siena, living off of the communion host.) What really strikes me now, even more than when I read that book, is that that Buckmaster (the narrator, and literary descendant of the Buccmaster of The Wake) had to leave behind his wife and child for his insane but visionary, sort of redemptive exile. But here you are writing about visiting the site of one of the triumphs of Christian asceticism with your family.
My very earliest living memory was of being a child in western Ireland on a day my parents took me to the beach. I remember the sun shining on the water and the darkness of the sand.
Places such as the Skellig are often referred to as 'thin places', places where the veil between the transcendent and the earthly are wafer thin and the light of some vast 'otherness' comes flooding through.
Each day now I am online looking for remote rural land in the alpine country of Australia near the city where we live. The desire for escape and simplicity and most of all...silence, is becoming so very strong.
Also, today is the feast of St. Bonaventure who wrote:
"Christ has something in common with all creatures. With the stone he shares existence, with the plants he shares life, with the animals he shares sensation, and with the angels he shares intelligence. Thus all things are transformed in Christ since in the fullness of his nature he embraces some part of every creature."
Since St. Brendan has been mentioned let me pop in here with a book recommendation. It’s for “The Brendan Voyage” by Tim Severin. A fascinating recounting of his attempt to build a leather curragh and follow Brendan’s legendary route to the New World. Very much like the voyage of the Kon-Tiki.
This is beautiful. The wild, green, panentheistic spirit of early Christianity it evokes, is beautiful. Until recently I was averse to Christianity. My spiritual path took a similar direction to yours – for Zen Witch read Yogic Celtic Faery. I never thought of Christianity as wild but I’m beginning to see that it can be. It’s drawn me in.
The prayer and poem you quoted recalled some lines from the Katha Upanishad:
The Self is the sun shining in the sky,
The wind blowing in space; he is the fire
At the altar and in the home the guest;
He dwells in human beings, in gods, in truth,
And in the vast firmament; he is the fish
Born in water, the plant growing in the earth,
The river flowing down from the mountain.
Maybe I’m a Yogic Christian? I think not but that ancient faith will inform my yogic path from now on.
As I'm sure you know, the word YOGA simply means 'discipline'. The monks of Skellig could certainly be thought of as Yogic Christians in one way. On the other hand, the discipline of the Indian/ Tibetan etc yogi/ yogini is concerned less with the outward discipline of following a monastic rule than it is with disciplining the mind. The idea is that once the mind is brought under control, the practitioner gets to apprehend the nature of ultimate reality which, at least on the Buddhist view, is emptiness (SUNYATA). This is fundamentally opposed to the Judaeo-Christian view which holds that God created heaven and earth, that these things really exist and are not, as Buddhism holds, merely the magical play of illusion. If this is right, then Yogic Christianity in the second sense turns out to be impossible. It seems that one has to choose!
Btw, you probably know already the SONG OF AMERGIN translated by Lady Gregory (who was a major influence on Yeats)...
The yogic path I follow is about devotion (bhakti) and service (karma) to God. For me the ultimate reality is God and my sadhana is about experiencing that. I know what you mean about Buddhism, though. I've been there and tried that and had pretty much the same experience as Paul, i.e. something was missing and it was God. I am familiar with the Song of Aimhirghin, which the lines from the Katha Upanishad called to your mind. I was tempted to quote from both; they go well together.
Re bhakti and karma, my understanding of the word karma is that it means simply act, or action. So is the idea that every act ought to be an act of service or that every action already is an act of service?
Good question! It can be interpreted in a number of ways. You can perform every act - work, play, etc. - in service of God and in so doing spiritualise your daily life. I work on that as I clean up after the dog - not quite there! Or you can perform conscious acts of selfless service, like volunteering or supporting a friend in need, for example. The key is the action should be selfless; you put yourself aside and you're not concerned with the results of the action, in the sense of feeling satisfied, good or getting a pat on the head. I'm still working on that, too. As you can probably tell, the two aren't necessarily separate; I've separated them here for convenience. I hope I've answered your question.
Yes, I think you are onto something here: the relationship between wildness and the Christian (especially Roman) tradition. Given that nothing could be more wild, more elemental than the nailing of an innocent man to a tree on a barren hillside, the domestication of the crucifixion is a puzzle. Yet the eucharist itself is the re-enactment, the instauration, of that very event. Rome, with its slavish legalism, often seems to smother the life out of what is the momentous of all events. Setting your altar up at Skellig seems like a way of reintroducing wildness.
Probably what this tells us is that we need both. If you shun what is canonical, you end up back with the Satyricon. If you shun wildness, you end up with the banality of soft-shoed tambourine masses!
As Dorothy Sayers said, “the dogma is the drama.” Christianity is a very dogmatic religion. All the religions are. There is no religion that cannot become ossified and legalistic. Certainly plenty of that in the history of Eastern Christianity, or in Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, etc. it’s par for the course in the great civilization-building world religions. You will not see any Christian saints deny dogma and the kinds of authority and institutions that establish it. What they all also have is what Paul is pointing to here, the wild, ascetic impulse. The two are part of one whole, they go together like yin and yang. It’s not always a seamless marriage. Quite the contrary. But it does make life interesting for those of us who try to walk the line.
I say all this as a Catholic who worships at a small church dedicated to Saint Patrick, founded almost two hundred years ago (a long time in America!) by Irish settlers. Does any of that Patrician spirit survive? I don’t know, not much I suppose. Here in America we need more local saints. Yesterday was the feast of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. We need more attention to her and her kind to get a feeling for the wild scope of Western Christianity. It may slowly happen. I hold out hope Nicholas Black Elk will be fully canonized.
Thanks both. We're getting to the heart of something.
I suppose that Christianity, like any ancient faith and indeed like any large or old institution, religious or secular, has to maintain that uneasy balance between centre and margin. It is usually a pendulum, swinging too far to one way and then overcompensating. So the dogma and corruption of the late medieval church leads to the reformation. Or the middle class, rigid and staid 20th century church leads to New Age 'Celtic Christianity' and the notion that we need to do away with all the bad hierarchies, patriarchies, etc.
I increasingly think that in the Athonite Fathers, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the hermits and anchorites and monks of the Skellig, I find a balance which speaks strongly to me. It's quite true that none of these people would deny the dogma of the church, or the vitality of its rituals, without which it all collapses into modern individualism, as everything does without borders. But they also, through their wild asceticism - and so often their contact with nature, beyond civilisation - see God in the world and are animated by the spirit. Centre and margin work in harmony, as they should.
I came across a quote a while back that I loved. Maybe one of you can enlighten me more about its source, which I've never heard of. It's from a Native American writer called Charles Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa). Apparently he wrote in his autobiography 'The Soul of the Indian' (1910) that “Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is essentially the same.”
There's something in this. The wild, uncivilised spirit of the faith, and how it can be carried forward. Christianity beyond civilisation! That's the stuff.
Kenneth Clark's series Civilisation starts on Skellig Michael (Ep. 1. By the Skin of Our Teeth). Which is where I first heard of it. I thought at the time...we're going to need a place like that. And we do. The wild spirit of God is stirring, perhaps, in a new way. Did we think this spirit could be contained! Bah!
Christianity beyond civilisation? Is it not Christianity that does the civilising? Maybe it's a new/ renewed form of civilisation we are talking about here... maybe what we are living through is the break down of the baroque. The Counter-Reformation church has run its course. I've often thought that the ludicrous superfluity of the Baroque needed to give way to a revitalised gothic (in the Ruskinian sense of the word). I think they had an inkling of this at the second Vatican Council. Unfortunately, the chose the wrong target - the Mass itself - thereby throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
What I might mean here by renewed civilisation is one that through its practices keeps us closer to the earth. Maybe that's going to be forced upon us anyway. Personally I think the financial system (entirely Baroque both in form and function) will fall apart long before the sun will fry us...
Amusingly/ scarily enough, a few years ago (five to be exact). I had the opportunity to spend some time with a Singapore-based but American hedge fund billionaire. When I asked him what he thought were the chances of a complete meltdown of the global financial system within the next five to ten years (from that date), his answer was to say that they were reasonably high. Oddly this didn't seem to bother him very much - I guess he thought he'd find a way to make money just the same!
This is a rich, fascinating conversation, and feels deeply important.
Green Martyrdom- that's the first time I've ever heard that term. Not just in a Christian context, but any context. The question perhaps, for Christianity, easily the "biggest baddest wolf" of all the religions with 2.3 billion alleged followers, how many of them are willing to be a Green Martyr? How many are willing to go back to being Ashes and Dust, for the Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein? The Kernel falls on the ground, we "Die" and thus Live forever. Look at a stump from a fallen tree in the forest, the way the mosses and lichens and slugs begin to build new life on it.
How to feed the Eternal in a time of collapse, when it feels all is entering into the tomb and may never come out of it.
I think an awareness of Ecology/Creation and a worship of it in its full glory- which is nothing less than the Glory of the Creator- is one of the essential seeds that gives Christianity a reason for being in the future. And, speaking as a millennial American, raised in an increasingly secular environment, for younger people I think a "Green" consciousness is utterly essential for proving the worth of the Christian message. 95% of the time what people when they see Christianity there's nothing Green about it- most Christians seem to hate the Earth, hate nature, hate natural living, hate humility. They have tasted the throne of many false Pharaohs and lived amongst them so long they know little else. Of course that's not all Christianity all over the world, or certainly what it's been throughout history- but now? It is a hard, uncomfortable reality. The Sacred Temples have no connection to Creation, should we then be surprised that our species is sucking the lifeforce out of this planet, running a civilization that is essentially one big desecration of God? And then should we be surprised by a movement like Extinction Rebellion, made up of zealous crusaders barely out of childhood, with a puritanical zeal that would put the Pilgrims to shame. Your sins will catch up to you, they say. And here now is the whirlwind, the furious answer of God- floods, fires, refugees, drowned cities and your houses turned to ashes. What is the answer of the Church?
I was lucky enough when I was only 19 to get to spend a lot of time at The Farm, a place in Tennessee that in the 1970s was the largest commune in North America, with 1,500 people living on less than a dollar a day. They grew organic vegan food, raised a mess of children, worked and made decisions in classic Communist style, ran an ambulance service in the Bronx for poor people when the city of New York didn't want to, did serious aid work in Guatemala after earthquakes there. And, in a fundamental way, they were religious: the founder Stephen Gaskin was a lecturer in San Francisco and he started doing these big sessions with the flocks of hippies out there, almost like revival meetings, everybody wanting to change culture and change the direction of our species. So, the legend goes they decided to get a fleet of schoolbuses and go across America in search of a new Promised Land, to build a better world. They ended up in rural Tennessee- Gaskin had these "Sunday services" every week where he would give a kind of pluralistic sermon to the hippies, incorporating stuff from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and his own philosophy.
Hippie Amish, closer to the Earth, closer to humble living, and closer to what could be called God than 99% of good churchgoing Americans. I've seen the same thing at Earthhaven Ecovillage in North Carolina, amongst some deep hippie acquaintances around Asheville and other places, throughout the country and in other countries.
Jesus says in Matthew "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted". If this is true, then I'm not necessarily going to be looking towards devout churchgoing Christians, or mosque going Muslims or temple going Jews or anybody other sectarian group to find the Pure and the True- I'm going to search out it out where I see it and when I see it, even if it is amongst supposed reprobates or non-hetorosexual people, witches and warlocks and wild, unkempt and uncivilized folks, sometimes on the edges and fringes, in the "Skelligs" of the world, and sometimes surprisingly close to the center. Righteousness becomes apparent in other people soon enough, and the lack of it in the same way.
The basic question is, for Christianity and for everybody else- how to becomes comfortable and ultimately in love with becoming Ashes? And Ashes that feed the breath of God? In Japanese and somewhat Buddhist philosophy they have a term "Mono No Aware", which means a sentimental and melancholy awareness of the impernance and loss of all material things. That consciousness is necessary to a true Christian, a true Buddhist, certainly any of the universalist and transcendentalist religions with a Creator Deity somewhere- even Daoism has "Shang Di" and a Heaven and Earth balance, and teaches people to accept loss and change, that's why the I Ching is called the Book of Changes.
All for now, this thread is like a constantly shifting spiral or maelstrom of ideas, really good stuff.
I've referred in another comment to the early 2nd century Didache, which describes the church as the soul in the body of the city: a minority but a creative one, with the self-determined task of changing the direction of travel of society. There are obvious dangers in that mindset, not limited to sell-out, arrogance and gilding the disgusting: yet in practice it's possible to make surprisingly creative changes, in small /medium organisations at least, by setting out in a clear direction without knowing how far you'll get. Introducing wildness into the heart of civilisation!
The Spirit always seems most potent amid risk and uncertainty, and most stagnant and hard to find in safety and predictability. A choice to live in closer relationship with nature, and with a less dominant stance toward it, leaves nature free to be itself, which means not only more beautiful, but more dangerous and therefore more likely to bring us closer to the Spirit and to each other. I lived for several years on another puffin-populated Atlantic rock, the island of Newfoundland, where the winter regularly poured yards-deep snow onto the island, entombing cars in their driveways, and where even on the finest of days the fog could sweep in, obliterating sun and warmth in a vast gaseous chill. But something about that dismal weather brought people together, pulling them away from their individual goals and distractions and bringing them into something more fundamental; a reminder of our fragility amid the enormity of nature, a reminder of our need for each other, and how solidly real that is. And it seems to me all of life ought to be close to those “edgelands” (such a wonderful word!). In that sense, it is not the faith of those “lands”, but the faith of “edges”—of walking narrow paths, walking in fog, and with trust in the deeper Reality.
Yeah, I've been reading a fair bit on Skellig Michael and the entire crag seems to consist of little else than narrow paths and edges. Add to that some gale-force Atlantic winds and I can understand how it would put one in touch with the wilder side of God.
Starting with Skellig Michael as the norm rather than the outlier is wonderful: but were there not also other ways of Christianity being alternative to the Roman/imperial power-based structures? My old friend Ray Simpson, in the early chapters of CHURCH OF THE ISLES: Amazon.co.uk: Simpson, Ray: 9781844171071: Books (which I’m afraid might appear very unacademic and over-practical alongside those already quoted), asserts that the early model of Irish Christianity was not militant as in say Saxon England or in Germany, but exemplary and companionable, living alongside the population, and absorbing much of its life and ritual, until the local kings recognised that they could only hold their peoples’ allegiance if they too took up the new ways. Famously, the pagan festivals were taken over and Christianised by this route.
The attempt was not to secede from the empire of the Machine (Skellig Michael), and not to capture the head of the Machine and oppress more efficiently in a better cause (missions to Germany and the Augustinian mission to Canterbury), but to produce a less hierarchical and less Machine-like society. Simpson states that, in this model of organisation, power was divided: a bishop had pastoral responsibilities for which he answered to nobody except God, but on matters of organisation came under the abbot of the local monastery, whoever he or she was. It was the abbot who negotiated with the king, as personification of the Machine. He agrees with you that, between the 10th and 12th centuries CE, the Roman Imperial model took over – perhaps inevitably, since it offers advantages to the wielders of power.
It is also my understanding that, perhaps not at Skellig Michael but at places like Glendalough, some moved back and forth between withdrawal from the world to do battle, and engaging with the world to do healing.
The possibilities here are what interest me about your whole project. I accept entirely Jonathan Geltner’s comment that “There is no religion that cannot become ossified and legalistic”. Yet the flight to some modern Skellig Michael has always seemed to me both impractical (how could we get away from planetary degradation?) and irresponsible (can anyone, let alone the majority of modern populations, be held responsible for the Machinations of the Machine?). After 40+ years building corners of organisations that were un-Machine-like within the very belly of the Machine – with very mixed success, but some success all the same – I find myself in touch with small, weak groups of people who want ways to undermine the Machine where they live, for the good of the people where they live. That they wouldn’t use that language, except when reading RS Thomas, doesn’t make it less true, or less worth doing.
To quote you back at yourself, “Sometimes, when the world is broken - and the world is always broken - it is right to take to the water. It is right to leave the shore and set out beyond the horizon, to see where you are sent and what work you will be given when you arrive.”
“Yet the flight to some modern Skellig Michael has always seemed to me both impractical…” I am inclined to agree. What is more likely to develop are little Skellig Michael’s within the Machine, or on the fringes of the Machine, consisting of groups, networks, locations etc., that to varying degrees will provide alternatives to the Machine. Perhaps Paul’s substack can, itself, be considered a tiny Skellig Michael within the Machine. Whether the Machine will tolerate little Skellig Michael’s popping up here and there in the long run is another matter.
Can we perhaps wild-in-place? Going back to Agnes Varda in the scriptorium: she invokes a vague notion of wilding-in-place in The Gleaners and Vagabond. I wonder how many ascetics are among the pitched tents under the freeway? What is lacking is the cohesion of faith. In Russian Ark there is pre/post revolution dichotomy of dancing together versus dancing alone. Can we dance together, wilding in place?
I think the cohesion and fruitfulness of any new way of living is going to depend on the people and their relationships far more than anything, even the land or nature. But for most of us living hybrid lives, half entangled in the workings of the Machine (as consumers, tech-users, etc.) and half separated from it (being “not of” this world and striving for a life through the Spirit), we might require discipline even more than dancing.
Seems like a good idea to me. If we seek to move to some beautiful, remote, natural place it is likely we are going where the wealthiest of the wealthy also want to own a second or third home. Not exactly a sacrifice or a martyrdom. And above all, if one moves to such a place, grow your own veggies there! When the rich move to my town to escape the city they want most of the same luxuries here that they enjoyed there. Way to ruin the place quickly.
I imagine my project in life is to constantly lower my standard of living right where I am. Born into an extractive lifestyle without realizing it, as more and more is revealed I am called to work toward simplicity and integrity. Thus becoming a hermit or ascetic in the midst of the lavish 'normal' that surrounds me. My local paper did a story recently about an elderly man who lived in a garden shed on his brother's property and ate primarily roadkill. He was not unhinged, just refused to call our wasteful lifestyle normal and did what he thought was reasonable. He walked everywhere and was a gentle, kind, soul.
Well, I always resist the notion that it is either 'impractical' or 'irresponsible' to attempt to flee the Machine. I tend to think that it is more irresponsible to keep propping it up. But these are either/ors. Of course, 'flight' entire is not possible anyway. I think we all keep moving back and forth, in and out. One of my favourite Irish Saints is Colman Mac Duagh. He lives in a cave for seven years before being called back to become a bishop (reluctantly). The same happened to Aidan of Lindisfarne.
So we are always on the edges and occasionally vernturing back in, Christian or not. I think the ideal is to be in the world but not of it - at which I fail daily! But I will also continue to champion the virtue of wild retreat. Lord knows there fewer possibilities to pursue it each day.
It seems going back and forth or (as I suggested in another comment) living hybrid lives will be the fate of many who are seeking to live differently. And this, in turn, will require a certain tolerance for the inner discordancy that will arise from living in two worlds. I believe many of us here can already feel that discordancy, that partial alienation.
"This was a faith of the edgelands; there was nothing comfortable about it." Makes me think: the period of 'rapid and extreme' change is also very deeply uncomfortable to me. What's the difference between the green martyrs discomfort and our/my current cultural discomfort? Is this difference purely fysical? Thanks for the story, looks like a great place to visit and to be visited by.
Yes, I think it's uncomfortable for everyone. It's a hard time. The martyrs chose personal discomfort in pursuit of God, which was also a conscious withdrawal from the world. In some ways, that seems like choosing a meaningful sacrifice over a powerless one. Perhaps.
Looks wonderful. Do you have any recommendations for ancient Chinese poetry by any chance? Thank you.
The collected works of Li Po are a good place to start. Han Shan is also rather glorious. He wrote all his poems on rocks or trees for the rain to wash away.
Thank you. Greatly appreciated.
I am no expert at all. But I have found anything translated by Red Pine is great. Also, I just bought "Studies in Early Celtic Nature Poetry" by Kenneth Jackson. There are truly times the Chinese and the Celtic poets really do seem to be following the same spirit.
Also, Ezra Pound translated, brilliantly, a collection from ancient China called 'Cathay.'
Helen Waddell, the great Irish Latinist, published LYRICS FROM THE CHINESE which you might like. The extraordinary John CH Wu, sometime minister in the government of Chiang Kai Shek and, later, convert to Catholicism published FOUR SEASONS OF T'ANG POETRY: both well worth a look
Paul, what a great piece. There is of course a school of thought that the ancient Irish and British Christianity is the same faith as practiced in the East that eventually became Orthodoxy, and the arrival of the mission of Augustine represented the capture of the ole faith by Rome. (There is a book called The History of Early Christianity in Britain, written around the turn of the 20th century, that makes this case from original documents and the Fathers). The Orthodox of course recognize all early British saints pre-schism; my church has icons of Cuthbert and Aidan of Lindisfarne and David of Wales, among others. I think it’s a valid argument; early British Christianity was more contemplative, monastic and rural vs the more urban tendencies of Rome. Dmitri Lapa writes good pieces on the British saints at OrthoChristian, and I should also recommend Sabine Baring-Gould’s lives of the British Saints, available from Llanerch Press in eight volumes. He does a great job of working through the existing documents, much of which were lost during the Saxon invasions. And there are all the Northumbrian saints, including Oswald, on whom Tolkien based Aragorn. It is indeed “good” for the Orthodox in the west to have this tradition, another that needs wholesacale rediscovery.
There are, however, plenty of scholars who will tell you that there is/ was no such thing as a specifically Celtic Christianity - that the ancient Irish church was as Roman as anywhere else in Europe. Nonetheless, the lyric poetry that survives from this period does suggest a very different atmosphere to that prevailing further east. Has anyone done any work on the Anglo-Saxon church to show in what ways and how much its tradition differed from the Irish, I wonder? I bet someone has!
Yes, there's a lot of debate about 'Celtic Christianity', and the phrase has been so hijacked by a kind of New Age fluff that I try to avoid it. But while the division between 'Celtic' and 'Roman' might be overblown, it seems undeniable that, before the Synod of Whitby in Britain (which was called precisely to end the divide) the British and Roman models differed. It's true that British/Irish and indeed Anglo-Saxon Christianity, in the early years, was 'wilder', more rural and less centralised. One reason the monks left the Skellig in the 12th century was that they were called to the mainland - where they could be more easily monitored by the Bishop - and called order to the order of St Benedict, which was also designed to rationalise the faith.
I need/want to do a lot more research myself, and I think I will. The monastery I worship in - the first Orthodox monastery in Ireland since the schism - celebrates by St Ciaran and St Brendan, both founding Irish saints. Some re-emergence - small shoots - is perhaps already beginning ...
This might be an interesting place to start. It’s by an Anglican minister who has an obvious dislike for Rome, but it is a great discussions of the legends (Joseph of Arimithea, etc) and his references to the Fathers are all valid. He also references some other historical works.
Also, perhaps this is just a “prejudice” of mine but I think people were in general less dishonest and more honorable back then.
https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Early-History-Christianity-Britain/dp/0934666431
On this note, the timeline at my local Greek Church marks the end of orthodoxy in the British isles concurrently with the Norman invasion. I have kept this in mind while reading The Wake. ingengas indeed ;)
Indeed. I don’t think the Roman Church was anything like what we think of today until the “papal revolution” of the late 11th century. And really the Roman Catholic Church that we know today is to a great extent the product of the Counter-Reformation.
The Greeks and the church that rose from their culture were certainly not short on cities. When Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, there were wolves prowling the streets of depopulated Rome. But very early Christianity was urban, which is why pagans are called pagan — that is, rural. But every Christian culture sank roots into the earth and developed strong rural, semi-pagan traditions, regardless of what the elites in Constantinople or Rome were up to. What mattered more than anything, I think, was language, the stuff one had access to thanks to the lingua franca—Latin or Greek.
I don’t know of a well researched work devoted entirely to comparing English and Irish early Christianity, but I just saw this review the other day which might be of interest. https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/07/the-making-of-christian-england
I would also recommend Max Adams’ book “The King on the North,” which is about St Oswald and with a good deal of background on pre-Augustine British Christianity. It’s much more complimentary to Oswald than the Morris book. The introduction to Baring-Gould’s Lives of the British Saints has a great deal on the more idiosyncratic aspects of the early faith in the British isles.
Thanks for all these recommendations. I haven't read Morris' book, just saw the review -- by a scholar who is, I believe, an English Catholic. I was somewhat surprised by how hostile to Oswald it sounds like Morris is in the new book, though I probably shouldn't be, as this sort of thing comes and goes according as the trend is in or out. The book nonetheless seems important.
Urban was probably not the best choice of words. My point was that the early Christians in Ireland, Cornwall, Wales and England tended toward asceticism and monasticism, similar to the Greeks (Mt Athos, for example) and the Russians (Solovki and any number of hermitages and monasteries in the Russian North). This indicates a somewhat different spirit than the Roman model, which in the 600s sought to bring the churches of the west under Roman aegis. That’s why Gregory sent Augustine to Britain — it wasn’t to convert the British, who already had a living tradition of its their own — but to bring them in line with Roman doctrine and practice. As seen in the debates over setting the dates for Easter and monastic tonsures.
However our host is right, the whole Celtic Christianity idea has been captured by New Agers (much like Glastonbury itself).
It has been captured, yes. Even its preeminent philosopher, Scotus Eriugena. But there is also good work on him now. And that’s good, because he’s crucial, as there’s a direct line from Pseudo-Dionysus (Greek!) through him to Eckhart and Cusanus (and via Cusanus to Semyon L Frank) and Boehme, among others. Dermot Moran links Eriugena to Hegel… all of which is to say that the Celtic fringe of Europe is not so cut off, in some ways at least, from a fairly central stream of European thought, though it is a stream that has maybe become too polluted or convoluted and perhaps marginalized by now.
Eriugena is tough going, and his magnum opus, the Periphyseon (On Nature) has not been completely translated into English. But I hope he gets his due someday. I have never read a more brilliant explication of creation as theophany. The New Agers and “creation spirituality” folks of the 60s and 70s were not totally out of line in hitting upon various Irish and British figures as foundational for a “greener” Christianity.
Thanks - I will look at those authors. In the same way, the (non political) hippies of the sixties and seventies had a sound insight that something had gone badly wrong with consumerist, war economy culture. A lot appeared in the Deep South who just wanted to plant organic gardens and learn old folkways and crafts. I used to sell them raw milk from my cow Betsey along with eggs and the like. Those were good folks and a lot made a good transition to a rural lifestyle.
Beautiful. You have succeeded in making a pilgrimage that I have tried and failed to make several times, once due to bad weather that almost drowned us. That wasn’t even the only time I’ve almost drowned off the coast of Ireland. The number of times that has happened is surprisingly high, given the limited amount of time I’ve spent in the place, and yet I love it still.
The story of the Christianization of the British Isles, and the way that the Christian religion evolved in and with and through the cultures of the British Isles, has long fascinated me. It is a rather green story, so to speak, at least in my reading of it, and it is not a story that is finished yet. But it is good to look back towards origins. I’ll be interested to see what you turn up in your researches into early British and Irish Christianity. If asceticism is a way forward, then the fierce and daring asceticism (and cenobitism) of early Christian Ireland and Britain is still important.
In another comment here I see Alexander Norman has mentioned Helen Waddell. I can't resist jumping in to say that she was a rare gem. All her books deserve to be back in print, but none more than the one that might appeal most to folks reading here, her little collection Beasts and Saints. These are are quite short stories from Latin sources in the Christian tradition. Three sections: the Desert Fathers (so translated from Greek into Latin); medieval Europe (including Britain); and Irish saints. I especially recommend the book to anyone with children. I don't believe Waddell ever learned medieval Irish and Welsh. I wish she had, because she would have worked wonders with the literary traditions of those languages, as she did with her knowledge of medieval Latin. She was the daughter of Presbyterian (I think) missionaries in Japan, influenced by her childhood in early 20th century Japan, a rather free-spirited Christian scholar, and a damn fine writer.
Yes indeed! Her STORIES FROM HOLY WRIT is also charming, a wonderful book for children. The introduction, about a stray dog, is unforgettable. One of the many books I am planning not to write is THREE STOUT LADIES, a joint biography of Helen Waddell, Dorothy Sayers and Elizabeth Anscombe, three scandalously overlooked ragers against the machine.
Great trip, good thoughts, and the pictures are very effective.
Some many years ago I caught a BBC radio 'newsy' interview with a man returning from a longer stay, perhaps a project, on Skellig Michael. It got my attention when he said that he had the very strange feeling that if he had been told he would not leave, then that would have been fine by him. I probably have had the same feeling about a place a few times. I remember an old heather thatched croft house on the Isle of Lewis, and the first trip we made to the inner Farne when our two oldest were very small.
A few years ago I returned to thinking about Skellig Michael and turned up this account online. I hope this might be a useful further source for contemplation.
I do not consider myself a climber but I have done enough technical rock climbing in airy places to appreciate this study of some of the dry stone structures on the South Peak. I like page 51: “On the way up to this traverse one views with amazement a fragment of dry-stone wall built by someone who must have been kneeling on clouds when he placed these stones on a narrow ledge that plummets into what appears to be eternity. (Fig.44)” https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1d5nb0gb;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print
best wishes for the continuing journey
Phil H
Wonderful essay. I truly miss that feeling of everything being holy. When I was a child it felt like superstition, but it grew into something more. It's gone now sadly.
I read this idea from Watchman Nee as a young woman: that if we desire the cross to work in our lives, to 'cleave flesh from spirit', we need not seek out trials. If we merely tell the Lord in prayer that we yearn for His work in us we will see Him bring the testing in due time. When it comes we must not refuse the cross. The difficulties He leads us through may be very different from those we would choose for ourselves in a monastic attempt. It seems true to me with my limited experience and understanding of theology.
I had just happened upon this book of his, The Spiritual Man, off a used book rack. Much of it is strange yet it influenced me at that time in the holiest way. Watchman Nee, or Nee To Sheng, was a Chinese christian at the dawn of Mao's regime. He died in prison but left behind a converted guard. A good biography of Nee is called Against the Tide, by Angus Kinnear.
One cinematographical aside: Skellig Islands are the setting of the final sequence of Heart of Glass - 1976 film by Werner Herzog, director who is also very "wild" and in some personal way also extatically mystical. The movie itself is unique and really really weird, probably the only film which was made while most of the cast was hypnotised and therefore also excruciatingly slow sometimes. It takes place in 18th century Bavaria is based on a story of some local folk prophet. It can be hard to endure but the opening sequence is monumental and I always found the finale very touching, especially the sentence which closes the film. You can se the finale here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arAdbEGVWOk
It’s also in a Star Wars film. One of the new ones. I try not to think about it. But it tells you something about how the numinous quality of the place breaks through even into contemporary pop culture.
for another pop culture/literary aside - in the witcher series of books by Andrzej Sapkowski, there is a region off to the west of the main continent called the Skellige Isles, which is a home of both brutal viking-style pirates and a strong pagan druidic tradition clearly inspired by celtic druidism - it's definitely the most alluring place to live to me in that whole dark and depressing world - beautifully visually realised in one of the video games based on the series.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-01-11-the-irishness-of-the-witcher-3s-skellige - interesting article about the game depiction
I very deliberately did not refer to Star Wars throughout this piece!
Actually I was very relieved on my trip to see virtually no references to it in the area. I expected Skywalker-themes cafes and kids on the boat with lightsabres, but nothing of the kind, thank goodness.
Much as I hate the Disney Corporation, I wonder now if it performed an accidental service by subsconsciouly sewing the Skellig back into the underbelly of our culture. Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi is effectively living as a monk on the rock, complete with robes and holy book. Star Wars is certainly a candidate for the West's only remaining modern mythology. Interesting that it led back there.
Yeah, I shouldn’t be so hard on that film. It’s the best of the new films, by far, and Luke’s role the best part of it. Nevertheless, much of what depresses me about Star Wars and Star Trek (the latter is where I first encountered the Christian Story retold, in such a way as to include the wonder of the natural world), is how much the writing for the films has deteriorated since the 80s. But the original trilogy of Star Wars films was incredibly important to me and so many millions of others, as part of the kindling of a mythical consciousness. Fantasy is one of the last hideouts of traditional religious consciousness in Western culture. You can drive it out with a pitchfork but it always comes running back.
Well, the new Disney films are written in a way that deliberately inverts and takes apart the old mythology; because that's what the West does now. But of course like all products of post-modern culture they can't find a new mythology to put in its place, so the result is a mess.
I will say, my favorite part of watching The Last Jedi was probably the 32 oz. of high gravity beer I drank while it played. But at the end Luke sacrifices himself, right? He sort of does this astral body type of projection thing from whatever Skellig Michael is called in the film and it works to save the day but it tasks him to the last of his life force to do it. And that's in keeping with Obi-Wan's death in A New Hope, he also sacrifices himself so the heroes can escape. That whole film was trying hard to recapitulate the first trilogy. Other of the new films have not done that, which I think is significant, for a reason that's I think clear enough...
Taking apart myths--yes, I would say that's pretty much all that's left to do for mainstream entertainment. It makes me wonder, can a myth actually be inverted, like the way a Black Mass is supposedly an inversion of the Catholic Mass? I think it can be, sort of, and actually I think that's what René Girard (a Catholic who converted himself through his own academic work, like Alasdair MacIntyre) argued Christianity is, or does, it inverts or undermines the old scapegoat mythical structure, exposing the innocence of the victim and thus obviating subsequent ritual sacrifice (or the Temple sacrifice)--unless it's the sacrifice of the Mass/divine liturgy, which is understood (I believe in Orthodoxy as well as Catholicism) as in fact not distinct from the one original sacrifice on Calvary. We can now participate in that sacrifice instead of make new ones. So subverting myths isn't always a bad thing, from a certain point of view (as Obi-Wan would say).
But then you do get this extension of the sacrifice of Calvary beyond the eucharist, in the form of asceticism. I am not the one to make the theological or doctrinal case for that aspect of the imitatio Christi. But that's the justification for specifically Christian asceticism. Yes, it's for the sake of theosis/deification, but it is understood symbolically as an extension of Christ's asceticism to the point of mortification and even actual death, i.e. martyrdom. Now, we don't green-martyr ourselves anymore, but can we still receive that kind of story, as for example in The Last Jedi? I'm actually not sure we can. I think service, self-sacrifice as a value is vanishing, and that film was a kind of farewell to it, a respectful nod to the elders whom we don't really care about any more but we like to be polite occasionally. I wouldn't expect to see it invoked again any time soon. The whole thrust of the new value system or Successor Ideology, whatever we want to call it, is tribal and identitarian, which is to say self-centered, and precisely the sort of tribal world that the pre-Christian system of scapegoat sacrifice operated in.
Thank you for this reference to Herzog; the connection was emerging in the murk of my mind as I was reading this piece and I thank you for identifying it. My siblings and I just cared for my aging mother at home rather than leaving her in a facility, and I described the whole beautiful struggle as being very Fitzcarraldo, so the wildness is definitely a common thread.
You know what this actually reminds me of—and I can’t believe i didn’t mention this first—is your novel Beast.
For those who don’t know but might be interested: the narrator of that book, a contemporary man, is on a mad quest to discover some asceticism in his life. He’s absolutely desperate for it, and he does achieve it in a way, living off little more than water on some desolate moor. (Reminds me of great ascetic saints like Catherine of Siena, living off of the communion host.) What really strikes me now, even more than when I read that book, is that that Buckmaster (the narrator, and literary descendant of the Buccmaster of The Wake) had to leave behind his wife and child for his insane but visionary, sort of redemptive exile. But here you are writing about visiting the site of one of the triumphs of Christian asceticism with your family.
My very earliest living memory was of being a child in western Ireland on a day my parents took me to the beach. I remember the sun shining on the water and the darkness of the sand.
Places such as the Skellig are often referred to as 'thin places', places where the veil between the transcendent and the earthly are wafer thin and the light of some vast 'otherness' comes flooding through.
Each day now I am online looking for remote rural land in the alpine country of Australia near the city where we live. The desire for escape and simplicity and most of all...silence, is becoming so very strong.
Also, today is the feast of St. Bonaventure who wrote:
"Christ has something in common with all creatures. With the stone he shares existence, with the plants he shares life, with the animals he shares sensation, and with the angels he shares intelligence. Thus all things are transformed in Christ since in the fullness of his nature he embraces some part of every creature."
The divine permeates all creation.
Since St. Brendan has been mentioned let me pop in here with a book recommendation. It’s for “The Brendan Voyage” by Tim Severin. A fascinating recounting of his attempt to build a leather curragh and follow Brendan’s legendary route to the New World. Very much like the voyage of the Kon-Tiki.
Am I allowed to mention Christie Moore's delightful ST BRENDAN'S VOYAGE (on the album WHERE I COME FROM)?
Actually, I remember the better version is on ORDINARY MAN
This is beautiful. The wild, green, panentheistic spirit of early Christianity it evokes, is beautiful. Until recently I was averse to Christianity. My spiritual path took a similar direction to yours – for Zen Witch read Yogic Celtic Faery. I never thought of Christianity as wild but I’m beginning to see that it can be. It’s drawn me in.
The prayer and poem you quoted recalled some lines from the Katha Upanishad:
The Self is the sun shining in the sky,
The wind blowing in space; he is the fire
At the altar and in the home the guest;
He dwells in human beings, in gods, in truth,
And in the vast firmament; he is the fish
Born in water, the plant growing in the earth,
The river flowing down from the mountain.
Maybe I’m a Yogic Christian? I think not but that ancient faith will inform my yogic path from now on.
As I'm sure you know, the word YOGA simply means 'discipline'. The monks of Skellig could certainly be thought of as Yogic Christians in one way. On the other hand, the discipline of the Indian/ Tibetan etc yogi/ yogini is concerned less with the outward discipline of following a monastic rule than it is with disciplining the mind. The idea is that once the mind is brought under control, the practitioner gets to apprehend the nature of ultimate reality which, at least on the Buddhist view, is emptiness (SUNYATA). This is fundamentally opposed to the Judaeo-Christian view which holds that God created heaven and earth, that these things really exist and are not, as Buddhism holds, merely the magical play of illusion. If this is right, then Yogic Christianity in the second sense turns out to be impossible. It seems that one has to choose!
Btw, you probably know already the SONG OF AMERGIN translated by Lady Gregory (who was a major influence on Yeats)...
Hi Alexander,
The yogic path I follow is about devotion (bhakti) and service (karma) to God. For me the ultimate reality is God and my sadhana is about experiencing that. I know what you mean about Buddhism, though. I've been there and tried that and had pretty much the same experience as Paul, i.e. something was missing and it was God. I am familiar with the Song of Aimhirghin, which the lines from the Katha Upanishad called to your mind. I was tempted to quote from both; they go well together.
Thank you for your comment.
Hello Lynn,
Yes, I agree they do both go well together...
Re bhakti and karma, my understanding of the word karma is that it means simply act, or action. So is the idea that every act ought to be an act of service or that every action already is an act of service?
Good question! It can be interpreted in a number of ways. You can perform every act - work, play, etc. - in service of God and in so doing spiritualise your daily life. I work on that as I clean up after the dog - not quite there! Or you can perform conscious acts of selfless service, like volunteering or supporting a friend in need, for example. The key is the action should be selfless; you put yourself aside and you're not concerned with the results of the action, in the sense of feeling satisfied, good or getting a pat on the head. I'm still working on that, too. As you can probably tell, the two aren't necessarily separate; I've separated them here for convenience. I hope I've answered your question.
Interesting, thank you. Puts me in mind of that wonderful little book, RGE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD, by Brother Lawrence. I'm sure you know it.
Yes, I think you are onto something here: the relationship between wildness and the Christian (especially Roman) tradition. Given that nothing could be more wild, more elemental than the nailing of an innocent man to a tree on a barren hillside, the domestication of the crucifixion is a puzzle. Yet the eucharist itself is the re-enactment, the instauration, of that very event. Rome, with its slavish legalism, often seems to smother the life out of what is the momentous of all events. Setting your altar up at Skellig seems like a way of reintroducing wildness.
Probably what this tells us is that we need both. If you shun what is canonical, you end up back with the Satyricon. If you shun wildness, you end up with the banality of soft-shoed tambourine masses!
As Dorothy Sayers said, “the dogma is the drama.” Christianity is a very dogmatic religion. All the religions are. There is no religion that cannot become ossified and legalistic. Certainly plenty of that in the history of Eastern Christianity, or in Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, etc. it’s par for the course in the great civilization-building world religions. You will not see any Christian saints deny dogma and the kinds of authority and institutions that establish it. What they all also have is what Paul is pointing to here, the wild, ascetic impulse. The two are part of one whole, they go together like yin and yang. It’s not always a seamless marriage. Quite the contrary. But it does make life interesting for those of us who try to walk the line.
I say all this as a Catholic who worships at a small church dedicated to Saint Patrick, founded almost two hundred years ago (a long time in America!) by Irish settlers. Does any of that Patrician spirit survive? I don’t know, not much I suppose. Here in America we need more local saints. Yesterday was the feast of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. We need more attention to her and her kind to get a feeling for the wild scope of Western Christianity. It may slowly happen. I hold out hope Nicholas Black Elk will be fully canonized.
Thanks both. We're getting to the heart of something.
I suppose that Christianity, like any ancient faith and indeed like any large or old institution, religious or secular, has to maintain that uneasy balance between centre and margin. It is usually a pendulum, swinging too far to one way and then overcompensating. So the dogma and corruption of the late medieval church leads to the reformation. Or the middle class, rigid and staid 20th century church leads to New Age 'Celtic Christianity' and the notion that we need to do away with all the bad hierarchies, patriarchies, etc.
I increasingly think that in the Athonite Fathers, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the hermits and anchorites and monks of the Skellig, I find a balance which speaks strongly to me. It's quite true that none of these people would deny the dogma of the church, or the vitality of its rituals, without which it all collapses into modern individualism, as everything does without borders. But they also, through their wild asceticism - and so often their contact with nature, beyond civilisation - see God in the world and are animated by the spirit. Centre and margin work in harmony, as they should.
I came across a quote a while back that I loved. Maybe one of you can enlighten me more about its source, which I've never heard of. It's from a Native American writer called Charles Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa). Apparently he wrote in his autobiography 'The Soul of the Indian' (1910) that “Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is essentially the same.”
There's something in this. The wild, uncivilised spirit of the faith, and how it can be carried forward. Christianity beyond civilisation! That's the stuff.
Kenneth Clark's series Civilisation starts on Skellig Michael (Ep. 1. By the Skin of Our Teeth). Which is where I first heard of it. I thought at the time...we're going to need a place like that. And we do. The wild spirit of God is stirring, perhaps, in a new way. Did we think this spirit could be contained! Bah!
Christianity beyond civilisation? Is it not Christianity that does the civilising? Maybe it's a new/ renewed form of civilisation we are talking about here... maybe what we are living through is the break down of the baroque. The Counter-Reformation church has run its course. I've often thought that the ludicrous superfluity of the Baroque needed to give way to a revitalised gothic (in the Ruskinian sense of the word). I think they had an inkling of this at the second Vatican Council. Unfortunately, the chose the wrong target - the Mass itself - thereby throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
What I might mean here by renewed civilisation is one that through its practices keeps us closer to the earth. Maybe that's going to be forced upon us anyway. Personally I think the financial system (entirely Baroque both in form and function) will fall apart long before the sun will fry us...
I am with you on this. As much damage as we are doing to nature, if I were to bet, I would bet that the political-economic system will collapse first.
Amusingly/ scarily enough, a few years ago (five to be exact). I had the opportunity to spend some time with a Singapore-based but American hedge fund billionaire. When I asked him what he thought were the chances of a complete meltdown of the global financial system within the next five to ten years (from that date), his answer was to say that they were reasonably high. Oddly this didn't seem to bother him very much - I guess he thought he'd find a way to make money just the same!
This is a rich, fascinating conversation, and feels deeply important.
Green Martyrdom- that's the first time I've ever heard that term. Not just in a Christian context, but any context. The question perhaps, for Christianity, easily the "biggest baddest wolf" of all the religions with 2.3 billion alleged followers, how many of them are willing to be a Green Martyr? How many are willing to go back to being Ashes and Dust, for the Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein? The Kernel falls on the ground, we "Die" and thus Live forever. Look at a stump from a fallen tree in the forest, the way the mosses and lichens and slugs begin to build new life on it.
How to feed the Eternal in a time of collapse, when it feels all is entering into the tomb and may never come out of it.
I think an awareness of Ecology/Creation and a worship of it in its full glory- which is nothing less than the Glory of the Creator- is one of the essential seeds that gives Christianity a reason for being in the future. And, speaking as a millennial American, raised in an increasingly secular environment, for younger people I think a "Green" consciousness is utterly essential for proving the worth of the Christian message. 95% of the time what people when they see Christianity there's nothing Green about it- most Christians seem to hate the Earth, hate nature, hate natural living, hate humility. They have tasted the throne of many false Pharaohs and lived amongst them so long they know little else. Of course that's not all Christianity all over the world, or certainly what it's been throughout history- but now? It is a hard, uncomfortable reality. The Sacred Temples have no connection to Creation, should we then be surprised that our species is sucking the lifeforce out of this planet, running a civilization that is essentially one big desecration of God? And then should we be surprised by a movement like Extinction Rebellion, made up of zealous crusaders barely out of childhood, with a puritanical zeal that would put the Pilgrims to shame. Your sins will catch up to you, they say. And here now is the whirlwind, the furious answer of God- floods, fires, refugees, drowned cities and your houses turned to ashes. What is the answer of the Church?
I was lucky enough when I was only 19 to get to spend a lot of time at The Farm, a place in Tennessee that in the 1970s was the largest commune in North America, with 1,500 people living on less than a dollar a day. They grew organic vegan food, raised a mess of children, worked and made decisions in classic Communist style, ran an ambulance service in the Bronx for poor people when the city of New York didn't want to, did serious aid work in Guatemala after earthquakes there. And, in a fundamental way, they were religious: the founder Stephen Gaskin was a lecturer in San Francisco and he started doing these big sessions with the flocks of hippies out there, almost like revival meetings, everybody wanting to change culture and change the direction of our species. So, the legend goes they decided to get a fleet of schoolbuses and go across America in search of a new Promised Land, to build a better world. They ended up in rural Tennessee- Gaskin had these "Sunday services" every week where he would give a kind of pluralistic sermon to the hippies, incorporating stuff from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and his own philosophy.
Hippie Amish, closer to the Earth, closer to humble living, and closer to what could be called God than 99% of good churchgoing Americans. I've seen the same thing at Earthhaven Ecovillage in North Carolina, amongst some deep hippie acquaintances around Asheville and other places, throughout the country and in other countries.
Jesus says in Matthew "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted". If this is true, then I'm not necessarily going to be looking towards devout churchgoing Christians, or mosque going Muslims or temple going Jews or anybody other sectarian group to find the Pure and the True- I'm going to search out it out where I see it and when I see it, even if it is amongst supposed reprobates or non-hetorosexual people, witches and warlocks and wild, unkempt and uncivilized folks, sometimes on the edges and fringes, in the "Skelligs" of the world, and sometimes surprisingly close to the center. Righteousness becomes apparent in other people soon enough, and the lack of it in the same way.
The basic question is, for Christianity and for everybody else- how to becomes comfortable and ultimately in love with becoming Ashes? And Ashes that feed the breath of God? In Japanese and somewhat Buddhist philosophy they have a term "Mono No Aware", which means a sentimental and melancholy awareness of the impernance and loss of all material things. That consciousness is necessary to a true Christian, a true Buddhist, certainly any of the universalist and transcendentalist religions with a Creator Deity somewhere- even Daoism has "Shang Di" and a Heaven and Earth balance, and teaches people to accept loss and change, that's why the I Ching is called the Book of Changes.
All for now, this thread is like a constantly shifting spiral or maelstrom of ideas, really good stuff.
I've referred in another comment to the early 2nd century Didache, which describes the church as the soul in the body of the city: a minority but a creative one, with the self-determined task of changing the direction of travel of society. There are obvious dangers in that mindset, not limited to sell-out, arrogance and gilding the disgusting: yet in practice it's possible to make surprisingly creative changes, in small /medium organisations at least, by setting out in a clear direction without knowing how far you'll get. Introducing wildness into the heart of civilisation!
The Spirit always seems most potent amid risk and uncertainty, and most stagnant and hard to find in safety and predictability. A choice to live in closer relationship with nature, and with a less dominant stance toward it, leaves nature free to be itself, which means not only more beautiful, but more dangerous and therefore more likely to bring us closer to the Spirit and to each other. I lived for several years on another puffin-populated Atlantic rock, the island of Newfoundland, where the winter regularly poured yards-deep snow onto the island, entombing cars in their driveways, and where even on the finest of days the fog could sweep in, obliterating sun and warmth in a vast gaseous chill. But something about that dismal weather brought people together, pulling them away from their individual goals and distractions and bringing them into something more fundamental; a reminder of our fragility amid the enormity of nature, a reminder of our need for each other, and how solidly real that is. And it seems to me all of life ought to be close to those “edgelands” (such a wonderful word!). In that sense, it is not the faith of those “lands”, but the faith of “edges”—of walking narrow paths, walking in fog, and with trust in the deeper Reality.
Yeah, I've been reading a fair bit on Skellig Michael and the entire crag seems to consist of little else than narrow paths and edges. Add to that some gale-force Atlantic winds and I can understand how it would put one in touch with the wilder side of God.
Thank you.
Starting with Skellig Michael as the norm rather than the outlier is wonderful: but were there not also other ways of Christianity being alternative to the Roman/imperial power-based structures? My old friend Ray Simpson, in the early chapters of CHURCH OF THE ISLES: Amazon.co.uk: Simpson, Ray: 9781844171071: Books (which I’m afraid might appear very unacademic and over-practical alongside those already quoted), asserts that the early model of Irish Christianity was not militant as in say Saxon England or in Germany, but exemplary and companionable, living alongside the population, and absorbing much of its life and ritual, until the local kings recognised that they could only hold their peoples’ allegiance if they too took up the new ways. Famously, the pagan festivals were taken over and Christianised by this route.
The attempt was not to secede from the empire of the Machine (Skellig Michael), and not to capture the head of the Machine and oppress more efficiently in a better cause (missions to Germany and the Augustinian mission to Canterbury), but to produce a less hierarchical and less Machine-like society. Simpson states that, in this model of organisation, power was divided: a bishop had pastoral responsibilities for which he answered to nobody except God, but on matters of organisation came under the abbot of the local monastery, whoever he or she was. It was the abbot who negotiated with the king, as personification of the Machine. He agrees with you that, between the 10th and 12th centuries CE, the Roman Imperial model took over – perhaps inevitably, since it offers advantages to the wielders of power.
It is also my understanding that, perhaps not at Skellig Michael but at places like Glendalough, some moved back and forth between withdrawal from the world to do battle, and engaging with the world to do healing.
The possibilities here are what interest me about your whole project. I accept entirely Jonathan Geltner’s comment that “There is no religion that cannot become ossified and legalistic”. Yet the flight to some modern Skellig Michael has always seemed to me both impractical (how could we get away from planetary degradation?) and irresponsible (can anyone, let alone the majority of modern populations, be held responsible for the Machinations of the Machine?). After 40+ years building corners of organisations that were un-Machine-like within the very belly of the Machine – with very mixed success, but some success all the same – I find myself in touch with small, weak groups of people who want ways to undermine the Machine where they live, for the good of the people where they live. That they wouldn’t use that language, except when reading RS Thomas, doesn’t make it less true, or less worth doing.
To quote you back at yourself, “Sometimes, when the world is broken - and the world is always broken - it is right to take to the water. It is right to leave the shore and set out beyond the horizon, to see where you are sent and what work you will be given when you arrive.”
“Yet the flight to some modern Skellig Michael has always seemed to me both impractical…” I am inclined to agree. What is more likely to develop are little Skellig Michael’s within the Machine, or on the fringes of the Machine, consisting of groups, networks, locations etc., that to varying degrees will provide alternatives to the Machine. Perhaps Paul’s substack can, itself, be considered a tiny Skellig Michael within the Machine. Whether the Machine will tolerate little Skellig Michael’s popping up here and there in the long run is another matter.
Can we perhaps wild-in-place? Going back to Agnes Varda in the scriptorium: she invokes a vague notion of wilding-in-place in The Gleaners and Vagabond. I wonder how many ascetics are among the pitched tents under the freeway? What is lacking is the cohesion of faith. In Russian Ark there is pre/post revolution dichotomy of dancing together versus dancing alone. Can we dance together, wilding in place?
I think the cohesion and fruitfulness of any new way of living is going to depend on the people and their relationships far more than anything, even the land or nature. But for most of us living hybrid lives, half entangled in the workings of the Machine (as consumers, tech-users, etc.) and half separated from it (being “not of” this world and striving for a life through the Spirit), we might require discipline even more than dancing.
Seems like a good idea to me. If we seek to move to some beautiful, remote, natural place it is likely we are going where the wealthiest of the wealthy also want to own a second or third home. Not exactly a sacrifice or a martyrdom. And above all, if one moves to such a place, grow your own veggies there! When the rich move to my town to escape the city they want most of the same luxuries here that they enjoyed there. Way to ruin the place quickly.
I imagine my project in life is to constantly lower my standard of living right where I am. Born into an extractive lifestyle without realizing it, as more and more is revealed I am called to work toward simplicity and integrity. Thus becoming a hermit or ascetic in the midst of the lavish 'normal' that surrounds me. My local paper did a story recently about an elderly man who lived in a garden shed on his brother's property and ate primarily roadkill. He was not unhinged, just refused to call our wasteful lifestyle normal and did what he thought was reasonable. He walked everywhere and was a gentle, kind, soul.
Having more by having less. The power of subtraction!
Well, I always resist the notion that it is either 'impractical' or 'irresponsible' to attempt to flee the Machine. I tend to think that it is more irresponsible to keep propping it up. But these are either/ors. Of course, 'flight' entire is not possible anyway. I think we all keep moving back and forth, in and out. One of my favourite Irish Saints is Colman Mac Duagh. He lives in a cave for seven years before being called back to become a bishop (reluctantly). The same happened to Aidan of Lindisfarne.
So we are always on the edges and occasionally vernturing back in, Christian or not. I think the ideal is to be in the world but not of it - at which I fail daily! But I will also continue to champion the virtue of wild retreat. Lord knows there fewer possibilities to pursue it each day.
It seems going back and forth or (as I suggested in another comment) living hybrid lives will be the fate of many who are seeking to live differently. And this, in turn, will require a certain tolerance for the inner discordancy that will arise from living in two worlds. I believe many of us here can already feel that discordancy, that partial alienation.