Fossils . . .

This morning, (Tuesday, June 4th, 2013) I attended Morning Prayer and Holy Communion at St. Mary's Anglican Church.  There were only about ten people present, plus the priest.  The church is ancient, sandstone, and unheated.  I can't remember a time when I was that cold in church.  Also, it is a bit of a different perspective you gain when you are not the one in charge of worship and are not pre-occupied with thoughts about the comfort of others.

After breakfast, we began the day in earnest. 

One of our retreat leaders is a retired geologist.  This morning we did about four miles to different parts of the island to understand how it was formed, how long it has been here, where it is located in relation to the mainland and the continent, and the changes that have taken place on the island over time.  We also got to see the local wildlife, including Eider Ducks, Bitterns, Sea Gulls, Wigeons, Jackdaws, Common Swifts, House Swallows, Thrushes, Kestrels, and numerous other birds.  The geologist pointed out the magma that had pushed up through the earth's surface forming the promontory on which Lindisfarne Castle is built.  He told us how the hot magma crystallized the limestone layer underneath, forming marble.  He pointed out how at one time, during the Carboniferous Period, forest floor became sea bed.  Fossils of scallops, snails, and Aaron ancestor of the octopus and squid.

After lunch, we took another hiking trip to look at features of the island that we had not seen in the morning.  This time, we concentrated more on the history of the island, its settlement by St. Aidan his twelve disciples from Iona.  Actually, Aidan's attempt at establishing a monastery was the second effort.  The first effort under Bishop Corman had failed.  

Corman returned to Iona telling of how the natives in the area were wild, unruly, and could not be converted.  Aidan commented that perhaps if Corman had treated the natives better, he would have gotten different results.  As proof positive that if you criticize the efforts of others, someone will say, "If you think you could do it better, have at it!" Aidan was consecrated as Bishop and set out for Lindisfarne.

Aidan and his monks got out into the villages and pathways, getting to know the people.  They showed concern for everyone they met, shared the Gospel when they could, encouraged the faithful when they met a believer, and got entirely different results.  Pilgrims have been coming to Lindisfarne for almost fourteen hundred years!

Tonight we closed with Evening Prayer in the chapel.  The day has been full.  The lessons have been good.

It is good to remember how profligate God is within the Creation God has made.  There is so much variety and splendor.  Why so many species of birds?  Why so many types of flowers?  Fossils are constant reminders that God's creative activity is so great that even those creatures we see semi-immortalized in stone and mineral, that had a place in the created order at one time, are no longer necessary and have passed from existence to be replaced by something else.

In the midst of all the variety and splendor, we are given eyes to see, ears to hears, hands to touch, noses to smell, and tongues to taste, appreciating the bounty God has made.  There is a partnership between Creator and the Created, between Father and child, between heaven and earth...

"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein..."

"Let everything that has breath, praise The Lord!"

I Am Not Carrying Coals to Newcastle

I find it somewhat ironic that my exploration of Celtic Christianity begins in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  New Castle, Pennsylvania, my hometown, was named after Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  

The phrase "carrying coals to Newcastle" has always fascinated me.  I have heard it used ever since I was a little boy, perhaps because of where I grew up.  It means doing something unnecessary or superfluous.  After all, why would you carry coal to an area known for its coal mining?  That may be why my town of origin got its name.  Anthracite coal (hard coal) was deep-mined in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Bituminous coal (soft coal) was surface and strip mined in Western Pennsylvania.  The coal was used for the making of coke that was then used in the production of iron and steel.

Tomorrow the adventure begins...or rather, continues.

My plane leaves from Richmond International Airport at 12:15.  It flies to New York, then to Amsterdam, then to Newcastle, arriving at 8:00 AM on Saturday, June 1st.  

Monday I will take British Rail to Berwick-upon-Tweed so that I can (hopefully) catch the shuttle bus to Lindisfarne Island before the tide comes in and covers the causeway. 

The next post will come from the other side of the pond.

GRACE NOTES. . .

I had every intention of making a church service at St. Cuthbert's Anglican Church yesterday morning in Blaydon.  Unfortunately, the bus schedule for the Sunday is different than the rest of the week.  Instead of running every 20 minutes, the buses run once an hour.  

The first grace note of the day has to do with strangers.  I am one.

It is difficult cutting through the Georgie dialect here.  The natives must think I am hard of hearing because I have to ask that everything be repeated!  Anyway, the admonition of Leviticus 19:34 was taken seriously yesterday..."The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you."

I asked one of the workers at the B&B how I might catch the bus to the City Centre.  He explained the process.  As I approached the bus stop, I noticed a white van with its four-way flashers illuminated.  The driver got out and said that he could not help but overhear my question about the bus.  He provided laundry service for the B&B and was going downtown.  He offered me a ride and we had a very pleasant conversation on the journey.

His name was Ken and he had spent a few years working for Nissan Motors in Nashville.  He praised the hospitality he had received from Americans and said he had made it his mission to return the favor whenever possible.

I was his mission assignment for the day!

Ken dropped me behind the Life Sciences Museum in Newcastle, near the Central Metro Station. I took my backpack and camera and headed out to explore.  There were a lot of people out and about.  It seemed like every street cafe was full of people eating and drinking.  Large groups of young men were walking about carrying athletic bags.  I figured that they were either soccer or rugby club teams in Newcastle for a match this weekend.

I walked down to the River Tyne and there is a beautiful walkway all along the Tyne where people walk, bike, and eat.  Vendors had set up food, craft and souvenir stands and there were a couple of thousand people out to enjoy the day.  The area is called Quayside and it was hub of activity for the afternoon.

The architecture is amazing, much of it built during Newcastle's heyday as a coalmining and shipping region.  I passed the an historical marker on an old Elizabethan era building.  It read, "From the above window on November 18th, 1772 Bessy Surteees descended and eloped with John Scott later created 1st Earl of Eldon and Lord Chancellor of England."  Another plaque on building, there was a plaque that read, "In the year 1786, the interest of 100 pounds sterling at five percent forever to be annually distributed on the twenty-third of December among the ten oldest keelmen resident in this hospital: Was left by John Simoson, Esq. of Bradley, Alderman of this town, and forty years Governor of the Hoastmens Company:  The grateful objects of his rememberance have caused this stone to be erected that posterity may know the donor's worth and be stimulated to follow an example so benevolent."

How generous would we be to others if we knew that others might be looking to our example and commending (or not commending) it to others?

Today take the Metro to Berwick-upon-Tweed.  The tide will have gone out at about 2:15 PM.  At that time, I will begin walking the Pilgrim Way to Lindisfarne.  It's about a five mile walk, but the day is expected to be sunny and beautiful, so I look forward to the experience.

It is wonderful to be able to slow down, to not be on the clock, to explore and wander with opportunity to see and experience where God will lead next.

First Post from the Other Side (of the Pond)

 It has been a long time since I pulled an all-nighter. 

I need my beauty sleep!  However, my seat assignment on the Delta 767 assured that I would get not sleep.  I was in the middle seat, middle section, immediately behind the restrooms.  I am still trying to get my ankles out of my ears.  I frankly do not know how Ghandi did all that yoga stuff at his age.  I guess you have to start out young and skinny.

The plane arrived in Amsterdam at 6:10 this morning.  The weather was not at all what I was expecting.  It was rainy, cloudy and cold...see your breath upon exhale kind of cold!  My sweatshirt was conveniently located in my suitcase, which was conveniently located in the belly of the plane.  

Live and learn!

Today was a down day, a recovery day.  After arriving at the Newcastle Airport, I took a taxi to the Hedgefield House Bed and Breakfast.  Fortunately, they were able to accommodate me at 10:00 instead of the agreed-upon 3:00 PM.  I believe the English have something against Americans sleeping in the lobbies of their finer establishments.

This afternoon, I set out on foot to explore the city.  EVERYTHING is in bloom.  They have lilacs!!! I miss lilacs, especially the heavenly scent they exude!  The homes are mostly made of brick and sandstone with the Dickensian tile chimney pipes.  Shades of Bert the Chimneysweep!  I expected to see Mary Poppins, but did not see her.

Every little home seems to have a beautiful, carefully tended postage stamp garden full of flowers and vegetables.  I saw many reminders of home, and numerous little things to make me think of Gloucester, Virginia.

I swear I saw a Pileated Woodpecker, but had I done so I would be the first person ever to see one in England.  They are native to North America.  However, I am almost positive that I saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker.  I heard several Mourning Doves calling to one another, and took some verbal abuse from numerous squirrels who refused to reveal their hiding places.

As I walked the sidewalk along Stella Road, following the railroad and the course of the River Tyne, I saw several crew teams out rowing on the Tyne.  The little town of Blaydon where I am staying (a neighborhood within Greater Newcastle/Gateshead) is famous for its historic horse race, the Blaydon Races, which were immortalised in a song in1862.  The song, Blaydon Races, became the preferred marching tune for British Infantry soldiers of the Fifth of Foot and has become the official anthem oft he Newcastle United Football Club.

 The scenery and historic buildings (Hadrian's Wall runs just north of town) also make me feel very young and naive as an American.We celebrated the United States Bicentennial the year I graduated from college.  In 2007, Virginians celebrated 400 years since the colony's founding.  Lindisfarne Island, where I head on Monday, was founded in the seventh century (635 AD).

Sort of puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

Tomorrow I am going to concentrate on learning to speak the English language so that I can communicate with the natives.  George Bernard Shaw once wrote that England and America are two nations divided by a common language.

I believe it!

I Am Not Carrying Coals to Newcastle

I find it somewhat ironic that my exploration of Celtic Christianity begins in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  New Castle, Pennsylvania, my hometown, was named after Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  

The phrase "carrying coals to Newcastle" has always fascinated me.  I have heard it used ever since I was a little boy, perhaps because of where I grew up.  It means doing something unnecessary or superfluous.  After all, why would you carry coal to an area known for its coal mining?  That may be why my town of origin got its name.  Anthracite coal (hard coal) was deep-mined in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Bituminous coal (soft coal) was surface and strip mined in Western Pennsylvania.  The coal was used for the making of coke that was then used in the production of iron and steel.

Tomorrow the adventure begins...or rather, continues.

My plane leaves from Richmond International Airport at 12:15.  It flies to New York, then to Amsterdam, then to Newcastle, arriving at 8:00 AM on Saturday, June 1st.  

Monday I will take British Rail to Berwick-upon-Tweed so that I can (hopefully) catch the shuttle bus to Lindisfarne Island before the tide comes in and covers the causeway. 

The next post will come from the other side of the pond.

  An Evening at the Beach with St. Columba


Perhaps I need to go through withdrawal before I can actually sleep in.  It's a humorous thought...I need to work harder at resting!

The Celtic Daily Prayer for today, May 28th, 2013.  The meditation for the day really spoke to me.  It is from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's A Gift from the Sea:

It is not the desert island, nor the stony wilderness, that cuts you off from the people you love: it is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost---a stranger to oneself and estranged from others too.  If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.  How often in a large city, shaking hands with my friends, I have felt the wilderness stretching between us.  Both of us were wandering in arid wastes, having lost the springs that nourished us, or having found them dry.  Only when one is connected to one's core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover.  And for me the core, the inner spring, can be be refound through solitude.



I spent the afternoon with Adomnan's The Life of St. Columba.  St. Columba was the founder of the Iona Abbey and numerous other monasteries in Ireland and Pictland.  The Book of Kells was likely produced on Iona.  It was also the springboard that launched the Lindisfarne Abbey on the island off the coast of England, the place where I will spend next week in retreat at The Open Gate Community
( http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/theopengate/)

Sabbatical Journey Begins

I begin my sabbatical journey on May 26th, the feast day of Saint Bede.  Presbyterians do not observe feast days of the saints.  We do not venerate individual saints.  However, I understand that Louisiana Presbyterians were quite excited when the Saints beat the Colts in Superbowl LXIV.  

Seriously, aside from an occasional Saint Andrew's Day service, saints hardly ever get a mention in the Reformed Church.  What are we missing?

I really like what Kate Tristram writes in the Celtic Daily Prayer book I am using for personal devotional time.  

We are not to imitate the departed saints---they are unlikely to be of our own personality or temperament so it would not be appropriate.  We should not ask: 'What can I learn and imitate?'  No, instead we should ask: 'What can I learn about God?'  The life of a saint is not the life of a great man or woman, but of God's life in an ordinary man or woman.  Saints' days are not all about that saint: but about a celebration of Christ.

Since so many saints are depicted in stained glass windows, perhaps the best definition of a saint is the one offered by a little boy who said, "A saint is someone through whom the light shines."  That would certainly be the case for Saint Bede.  The Venerable Bede is best known for his History of the English Church and People.  He is known as "The Father of English History."  Because of Bede, we have a better understanding of life in England, in the monastery, and in the church of the eighth century.

On a more personal note, tonight is somewhat bittersweet.  

The congregation I serve held a Service of Parting and Blessing for the Sabbatical Journey this afternoon. I deeply appreciate the guidance, counsel, and participation of my Sabbatical Advisory Committee:  Clerk of Session, Wynne Beale, Elder Jim Coling, Elder Ken James, Dr. Dennis Koziol, and Elder Steve Raptis.  Together they helped guide my grant proposal to the Lilly Endowment and provided encouragement, critique, and constant affirmation.

Following the Service of Parting and Blessing for the Sabbatical Journey, there was a wonderful heavy appetizer reception. It was a time to reconnect with the congregation one last time before we part for three months of sabbatical.

After thirty-four years of full-time ministry, I embark upon my first sabbatical.  Frankly, I am not sure what to do.  Perhaps it would be better said, "I'm not sure how to be."  I temporarily leave people I love, a vocation that continues to challenge and humble me, and the daily routines and habits of leading a congregation in ministry and service.

Today I step aside.  Today sabbatical begins.  I leave for the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in Northumberland, England on Friday.  

Tonight, I leave you with some of my favorite words from J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings.

All that is gold does not glitter.
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

I am off to awaken the fire and renew the blade.

Doug