anam cara spirituality

At the beginning of last year, inspired by the thought I was writing a book for publication, I decided to spend the year with the Celtic saints. The book thing didn't work out but I did end up spending a lot of 2011 thinking about the Celtic saints.

The original plan was to go through the saints by location, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England and teach the children something about the history of Britain in the sixth century as well as the Christian stories and themes.

When this fell through, I ended up going back to the chronological order, covering each saint by their saint's day, (usually their date of death).

So I wrote a story about each saint's life, and thought more about their importance in later folklore and Christian memorials. I was inspired by image of the Celtic Christian faith spreading from Martin in France to Patrick and Brigid in Ireland, to Ninian and Columba in Scotland, to David in Wales, and to Aidan in Northumbria.

I began knowing I loved Martin (the patron saint of my old church), Patrick and Brigid and Aidan, but I discovered others who inspired me too. Hilda of Whitby and her inspired cowherd, Caedmon, who became the first poet in the English language; Gildas the bellmaker; and Comgall whose monstery at Benchorr (Bangor, Northern Ireland, where my mum went to school) was the Celtic equivalent of Oxford and Cambridge, higher education for monks.

But the figure who stands out for me after all this time, in fact, is Brendan the Navigator.

Brendan story as a monk is almost so different to what I am like as a Christian (I am not brave enough to sail off into the blue trusting God for everything even the direction) and I don't think that's what I think we ought to be like in real life, but it is a kind of foundational myth which reveals truth even when it is not true.

And so the appearance of an amazingly strange and beautiful version of his story at Greenbelt last year done by The Filid, was a reminder of our fascination with Brendan.

God is the very wind in our sails and the air in our lungs, his love surrounds and enfolds us, wherever we are and whatever we do.