Everyday Spirituality

"The Celtic approach to God opens up a world in which nothing is too common to be exalted and nothing is so exalted that it cannot be made common. As an old woman in Kerry, in the southwest of Ireland, says, 'Heaven lies a foot and a half above the height of a man.' "
Every Earthly Blessing

The Rhythm of the Heart

"Work-songs and blessings engage with something which is basic, fundamental; they go back to something which the earlier bards and minstrels knew: the close connection between music and religion. Both have at their heart rhythm. To move with this is to be in tune, literally, with one's self and the world; to lose it is to get cross-grained, to find alienation and disharmony."
Every Earthly Blessing

The Whole Web of Being

"In Celtic understanding . . . everyone sees themselves in relation to one another, and that extends beyond human beings to the wild creatures, the birds and the animals, the earth itself. This has brought a sense of being a part of the whole web of being. There is something here of "the breathing together of all things" as Teilhard de Chardin put it, something of the mystery of coinherence of which Charles Williams writes in his novels."
The Celtic Way of Prayer

Kindling the Heart

"The theme of interiority . . . is to do with the kindling within the heart of a fire that mirrors and transcends the fire on the hearth. Just as the fire is kindled on the hearth each day, so also there must be the kindling of an inner fire that mirrors this external fire."
The Celtic Way of Prayer

Encompassing Prayers

"Encompassing prayers belong to another slightly different genre of praying, and were to be found both in Ireland and in Scotland. They often open by speaking of the arm or the hand of God: "The compassing of God and His right hand," for the idea of encircling or encompassing was very popular. The "caim" [or drawing an invisible circle with a finger in the air around oneself and whomever else was participating in the prayer] was a common form of safeguarding in which the persons of the Trinity or any of the saints, or Mary, would be invoked for protection of the person in need."
The Celtic Way of Prayer

A Way of Looking at the World

"I have made a commitment to incorporate into my own life the riches of Celtic oral tradition that has come down to us from generation to generation and shows us so vividly their way of looking at the world. . . . Everyday each of us experiences that alternation between night and day as we move between dawn and dusk, between being asleep and awake. After all, life is shaped by this regular border movement written into daily life in an inescapable pattern of crossing over between the two."
To Pause at the Threshold

Twilight

"Even the word itself, twilight, carries a gentle and lyrical sound, the time between lights, the greater light of the sun and the lesser light of the moon. Here is the moment of the changing of the guard between these two great luminaries. It is a fragile time of transition, half-light and half-dark — it is mysterious, ambiguous. It is the time of uncertainty, given to us daily as a reminder of the reality of the between-time"
To Pause at the Threshold

Waiting for the Image

"We have to wait for the image to find us. Sometimes it may come unbidden, but often we must expect to stay with it, and to be ready to go deeper, layer upon layer, always waiting expectantly. Images are best described in images — as footholds into a truth that cannot be expressed fully in words. Some of the images may be familiar, others strange. Sometimes time seems frozen, at other times fluid."
Lost in Wonder

The Lightness of Delight

"The urgency of seeing anew, seeing with eyes washed clear by contemplative prayer, seeing with eyes cleansed by tears, but above all seeing with delight and wonder. . . . Delight [is] a glorious word which carries a lightness about it and seems to be saying this thing is good and I am good, and I am happy with my relationship to this world around me, but above all I am happy with my relationship to myself, to my own inwardness, and also to my own outwardness."
Lost in Wonder

Silence

"Listen to the silence,
let it enfold you,
like a piece of music,
like bird-watching."
Lost in Wonder