The Storm in the Soul

Lives of the Wild Saints #2

St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne
England. Seventh Century

Looking up, Cuthbert can see the light fading.

It is almost time.

He stirs himself from the stone pit in which he has been sitting for three hours. Cuthbert dug the pit himself, over many months, hacking away at the bedrock so that the floor of his thatch and turf cabin would be below the ground. For hours each day he sits in the pit in prayer, the rough walls enclosing him, shutting him off from the island. All he can see of the fallen world is a circle of sky through the hole he left in the roof. It serves as a timepiece.

Now the sky tells him that night is coming.

He rises, and goes down to the strand.

The ducks are calling beyond the shore. Every night they are there, settling in with the darkness, dim on the darkening waters. Cuddy, cuddy, they call. Sisters, replies Cuthbert.

Then he walks into the sea.

It has to be done directly, without thinking, he has found, and routine never makes it easier. Cuthbert prays as he walks, but he still shudders. Further out, further into the grey and the wind, until the water is up to his shoulders. He raises his hands.

Glory to God! he begins.

It was at Coludi priory that Cuthbert first entered the sea to pray. In remote Egypt, St Antony could temper himself in the furnace of the desert sun, but north Britain offers no Christian the same opportunity. Here, the desert is the stone-grey sea. And so, Cuthbert does his true work in the water. Every night he enters the dark tempest of it. He raises his arms. He will not emerge again until the sun’s first light rises, as the True Light one day shall, in the east.

Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth …

Those who call him a saint do not know his mind. A saint’s mind, surely, does not wander and leap about like this. One day, he will enter the waters and his mind will be pared thin, like a steel blade carved by some dark pagan smith. He will be light alone, and within it. One day he will see only God! Today though - as usual - Cuthbert the monk, Cuthbert the hermit must drag his thoughts back again and again from worldly and devilish things. Plans for the morrow. Grievances. Romances. And - always - memories.