The latest plan for the meditation and permaculture gardens.

Well, with Spring and warmer weather upon us, the Mother House has been bustling.  This year, we are dedicating ourselves to transforming the outside of the residence to allow space for hospitality, reading, meditation and prayer, and even mini-retreats.  While we do not have the land for our Abbey (and we will be starting focused stewardship for that soon out in the community), we can still fulfill our ministry as an Order of urban monasticism by using what we have for the benefit of our community and the Church around us.  It is our hope that we could have the grounds fully relandscaped by June, just in time for our Order’s annual Convocation and retreat so our out of town siblings can enjoy the space while they are here. 
 
Not only for our members in Atlanta, but for all members in the broader Diocese, this will be a readily available space for people to come and enjoy.  For those outside of Atlanta, this will be here for you when you come visit, and your support will help the Order’s ministry in the community.  The members of the Order here in the city and the residents of the Mother House will be putting in all the labor, but of course there is always the cost for materials.  Thus far, it looks like the project will run around $7,000.00 for what would be a $15,000 plus job if contracted professionally.  We have already pooled $1,800 from our own reserves right now.  But that still leaves over $5,000 left to cover.  Since we don’t have the Abbey yet, we want to show that hospitality through community is still possible in small settings which is our commitment in rediscovering urban monasticism.  Still, like all other communities, we need help from the greater community.  After all, that’s what helps to remind us why we are here and that it is ALL of us that make up the Body of Christ.   
 
You’ll find above a sketch of the backyard project which will be the most substantial transformation of the front and backyard. The features of this project are a microcosm of what we will have for the Abbey (consider this our trial run!).  The patios and porch provide space for community dining outside as well as spaces for reading, individual prayer and contemplation, and communal prayer services.  With a small fire pit fitted for one of the patios, the Order will finally be able to host its own all night Easter Vigils!  The down hill terracing will provide space for Br. Addison to design permaculture gardens that will not only feed the residents but also provide teaching space to instruct others (parishes, families, etc.) on how to grow their own sustainable, organic urban gardens.  The terracing will also be designed as meditation gardens with a water feature on the bottom tier to allow tranquil space to sit and rest in God’s creation.    When we offer mini-retreats, the solarium, porch and patios will provide space for instruction and for guests to wonder and sit between the guided lessons. 
 
I would ask that you sit with this request, look over the plan, and pray.  When you’ve shared that sacred space with God, please let us know if you’ll be able to help.  You can contact us directly at contact@ordersaintanthony.org.  God’s Peace.

Part of a Celtic triptych that came to mind which includes the two previous icons of Sts. Brendan and Aidan.  As with the other icons, I’ve named the icon in Irish Gaelic (Naomh Colm Cille meaning Holy or Saint Dove of the Church).  Columba (the Latinized form), was born in 521 in the very north east of Ireland.  He was a direct descendant of Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish High King, which placed Columba’s family amongst the royal class.  At an early age he went to study at Clonard Abbey under St. Finnian.  There he was contemporary of many of Ireland’s great celtic monastic saints.  While at Clonard, he was ordained a priest at age 25.  Later he was studying in the monastery of St. Finnian of Movilla Abbey.  While there he copied by hand the psalter of Finnian for his own use.  But accordingly to Irish law back then, a manuscript copy belonged to the owner of the original, not the transcriber.  This set a rift between the two which eventually went to the ruling king, Diarmaid (who was in opposition to the O’Niall family).  The king ruled on behalf of Finnian.  

Another story tells of Columba sheltering a man under the rules of sanctuary from a prince who eventually killed the man.  When Columba protested to the king, the king sided with the prince. 

 Whether it was from the former or the latter, in his outrage, Columba rallied his kinsmen of the O’Niall family to fight against the ruling family.  It should be noted that Columba was also noted as a bard, a very significant class in that time.  A king’s power could grow or disappear due to the accomplished tongue of just one bard.  So legend has it that Columba left King Diarmaid’s court singing a song of the atrocities of Diarmaid which fired up the O’Nialls.  Columba said he would take full responsibility for the war and in the end, 3,000 or Diarmaid’s men were slain.  This was the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne in 561. 

When his temper had cooled, Columba realized what he had done.  He was brought before an ecclesiastical court to be tried for the death of the 3,000, many of whom were Christian.  The court was ruling to excommunicate him when his friend St. Brendan (it is difficult to tell from various sources if this was Brendan of Clonfert or of Birr) spoke on his behalf and recommended exile instead.  The court agreed.

After visiting several confessors, Columba was told that in order to be forgiven and redeemed for his war, he must convert as many people as were slain.  So he left Ireland, his beloved home, and set sail to the east with twelve of his fellow monks.  They landed first on a rocky island that could support them, but Columba could still see the coast of Ireland from the top of the island.  They set sail again and eventually landed on another rocky and windswept island.  There they built small cells from the peat (there were no trees on the island), and made this their home.  This was the holy isle of Iona. 

With this island as his standing point, Columba spent the majority of the rest of this life venturing into Scotland and converting the Picts to Christianity.  After his death, the Abbey of Iona became the prism that would direct the Celtic Christian light of Ireland across all of Scotland and most of England.  Iona was the seat of Celtic Christianity for the British Isle and would send out many famous missionary monks who would become abbots, bishops and saints.  Among these was St. Aidan of Lindisfarne. 

Columba’s soul ascended into heaven in the year 597. 

In this icon, Columba is depicted standing on the rocky land, representing the inhospitable Iona.  His under cassock is red as a reminder of the blood that he caused to spill, the very reason for his exile.  His outer cassock is black signifying his contemplative spirituality and humility.  His right hand offers the sign of blessing as he was a priest, and his left hand carries either the Cathach of St. Columba (the psalter he copied) or the Book of Durrow (an illuminated Gospel attributed to him).  His name, in Irish Gaelic is written in a celtic knotwork dove as a reminder of his name and the grace he received from the Holy Spirit. The knotwork was based off of an illumination from the Book of Kells. 

St. Columba, pray for all of us who have caused others harm, and help us to find a way to spread God’s Word throughout the world.  Help us to remember that we are never beyond redemption as long as we are willing to confess our sins and seek absolution.  Amen. 

Acrylic and gold leaf over pine.  7.75” x 2.5”. 

Complete, the full miniature triptych of Celtic Christian saints looks like this:

The second icon for the miniature triptych of Celtic Christianity that I’m working on. Like the St. Brendan icon, this is only 2.5″ x 4″ in size. This is St. Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne (d. 651 AD). In 635, King Oswald of Northumbira sent for a missionary monk from Iona to serve as Bishop for his people. The first monk sent was Corman, who failed to endear himself to the people. He claimed that the Anglo-Saxons of the area would never take to the disciplines of Christianity. It was Aidan who spoke up in council and said that he was too hard on them. He suggested that they first offer the sweet milk of Chirst and then lead them gradually into the rigors of discipline. With that suggestion, Aidan was appointed the new missionary and was sent to be Bishop. He chose the rocky island of Lindisfarne, similar to Iona, as the location for his new monastery. Aidan’s approach to conversion was to talk one on one to pepople, whether poor or noble. He was often seen walking around on foot. At one point, King Oswin (Oswlad’s successor) gave Aidan one of the best horses from his stable so he could ride from town to town. While riding along the road, Aidan came across a poor beggar and promptly gave him the horse. When he later confronted the outraged Oswin, Aidan chastized him with a prayer: “Dear Lord, please forgive our king who shows more concern for his animals than he does for his own poor subjects.” Oswin then knelt before the Bishop and sought forgiveness.

In this icon, St. Aidan is show with the purple chausible and crosier symbolizing his office of bishop. The crosier is based on the crosier of Clonmacnoise (a typical Cletic design). The Gospel that he is holding is the actual cover of the Lindisfarne Gospel. Along with the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospel is one of the greatest example of Celtic calligraphy extant. Following the theme with the icon of St. Brendan, the name plate is a scroll with celtic knotwork. A horse is depicted symbolizing the gift he received and gave away to the poor begar. His name is written in Irish Gaelic as he was an Ionian monk which drew it’s tradition from Ireland.

St. Aidan, pray for us as we seek to spread the news of Christ, offering the sweet milk of Love rather condemnation and judgement, and pray that we recognize the image of Christ in every person we meet. Amen.

Medium: Acrylic and 23K gold leaf over white pine.

Regardless of what your vocation is, though, we all go through periods of discernment.  Regardless of the work you do in your church, it should be a prayerful process of discernment.  And the most important thing to remember is that while discernment, that is honest introspection and inspection, is not always comfortable, it is necessary and should be embraced not avoided. 

This is not my first round through discernment.  I participated in discernment towards the end of college, and while it did not lead to the priesthood at that time, it did lead to the founding of our Order.  I was disappointed at the time because I did not know the promise that God had planned for me afterwards.  But after five years, that yearning I feel inside to stand at the altar has yet to go away.  That’s what led me back to the discernment process this time round. 

On the one hand, it has been a tremendously affirming process that has convinced me of my place in the Church whatever that form may be.  On the other, it’s been purposefully ambiguous through the group discussions as to where my calling to the priesthood stands with the Church’s vision.  Over that portion, I have no control, and that in itself is nerve-wracking.  But the most surprising gift of grace that has come from this is the healing I’ve found from the last process five years ago.  The process then was not entirely healthy, just as there are issues with the process this time, but while the process isn’t perfect it is necessary.  In the beginning, I had blamed the process for not being pastoral or pychologically healthy.  I blamed the process and the Church for a lot of the discomfort I was feeling.  But like all nitty gritty discernment, discomfort is part of the process.  In the end I found relief when I stoped expecting the process to be all inclusive and meet every need I had.  I found support in my parish priest, my spiritual directors, a good therapist, and my friends and siblings in the Order.  This is an important lesson for any discernment: we do not discern alone and even in groups it is not in isolation.  That is what makes the Church whole.  I was blaming the Church for creating such an unhealthy process because I wasn’t recognizing the tools and gifts that the Church already had in place outside of the process.  Christ called us into communion, community, and that is where we must look during the struggles in our life. 

Our final group meeting ended with the celebration of Eucharist.  And it was during that communion that I found the best image for this whole process.  The travel kit that Mother had brought had old red wine stored in the glass vile.  God only knows how long that wine had been there, but when Mother took it out and sniffed it, she looked like she had just gotten a shot of lemon juice in the face.  After the prayers and blessings of the elements, communion was passed around from hand to hand as we reached out to receive the precious body and blood of our Lord.  As the cup was handed to me, I sipped the wine and tasted the bitter sting of vinegar.  Our Holy Communion was sour wine.  Our Blessed Sacrament was bitter to the taste.  What a fitting end to our discenmnet process!  Throughout the nine months we were encourged to be present, see ourselves and be in touch with our brokenness.  What better reminder of Jesus’ promise to be with us in suffering than the taste of vinegar just as Jesus was given when he hung upon the cross.  It was a reminder to me that not all blessings are sweet, but they are all necessary and are ALL gifts from God.  Even the bitter parts of our lives, the bitter struggles, the bitter losses can be blessed even though the blessing doesn’t make it any less bitter in our hearts. 

I write this now, before knowing what my final recommendation will be.  I do that intentionally so that I can look back at the process while still in that place of Unknowing.  In less than two hours, at 3:00 PM, I’ll find out.  What a portentous hour to remind me that I share, even if in a small way, with Christ’s own passion for us.  So it will be.  And I hear our Bless Mother whispering words of Wisdom, “Let it be.”  God’s Peace to you all, and may you all be blessed with discernment throughout your lives.  The moment we stop discerning, stop searching, we loose sight of the God that is ever beckoning us to grow.  And please, keep me in your prayers, for I too am a lost sinner trying to find God.

The headlines have seen a rash of suicides lately.  Suicides of young gay men that have felt death was a better option than the humiliation, rejection, and utter virulence that they receive from those around them.  When the news of Tyler Clementi first started circulating, I was surprised by the focus of most of the articles and the direction that anger was being vented.  The majority of the articles held up Tyler’s death as a wakeup call to bullying in our schools.  I remember what bullying was like when I was younger, throughout elementary school, middle and high schools.  I know how powerless it can feel like to be targeted in school and become the punchline of every joke.  I remember how utterly demoralizing and emotionally crushing it was when jocks or more privileged students would humiliate me in order to make themselves feel more elevated, hiding from themselves their own insecurities.  Add onto that puberty and sexual self discovery, and you have living hell.  My heart breaks when I see other kids getting picked on.  And to see children pick on each other, beating up the defenseless, or sending them off crying, we as adults can look at this and proclaim how wrong it is.  It’s obvious when children do it, and most adults will teach that it’s inexcusable.  Then why is it excusable when adults do it?  Bullying isn’t a childhood phenomenon.  The world is full of adults that never left childhood behind.  These are adults that bullied on the playground and now bully others from seats of power, in congress, the senate, our churches…  What kind of message do we hope to send to children when we tell them that bullying is bad when they can see that the adults in their world are far more insidious bullies than any child could imagine being.  It’s the adults that are setting the example for these children, and the children are dutifully following that example to the T.  

And this is what has surprised me about most of the coverage up until only recently.  The outrage is about bullying.  The articles and advocates are all decrying bullying in our schools.  And granted, bullying is a serious issue, but for these specific suicides, it’s only part of the problem. With the addition of Raymond Chase, we now have five suicides of gay youth in only three weeks.  These five young men died because they could not feel safe being gay in our society.  Where on earth would they have gotten that idea?  Is it from outrageous pastors like Bishop Eddie Long, Rev. Phelps, or any number of other conservative Christian pastors?  Is it from Christian lobbyists that spend obscene amounts of money convincing politicians that gays, lesbians and transgenders should be treated like second class citizens?  Is it from entire denominations that spend millions of dollars on campaigns, commercials and billboards telling the world why gays, lesbians and transgenders are evil and a threat to our very society?  Is it from a Senate that just declared being out and gay in the military is still wrong and a danger to our country in their eyes.  I wonder…

Only recently have I seen comments on the possibility of a hate crime being filed in court on behalf of Tyler.  Why this was in question before, I’m not really sure.  Do people really think that Tyler would have been targeted the way he was if he were straight?  Or would the humiliation have been as severe had he been recorded kissing a woman?  When society teaches that being gay is wrong and shameful, it is no wonder that youth feel so ashamed that they think death is the only way out.  Focusing on bullying allows those who are actually perpetuating these crimes off the hook.  A conservative politician can stand up and say how horrible bullying is to have led to this, and come across as compassionate.  But that ignores the fact that the same politician who condemned homosexuality as an abomination according to his religion and proved by his votes that homosexuals are not deserving of equal civil or humane treatment as heterosexuals, the fact that his stance condoned the heterosexism of the bullies and condoned actions that led to an exceptionally gifted young man’s death. 

Every conservative pastor that has ever preached against gays gets to take credit for these bullies and the suicides that follow.  Every conservative politicians gets to take credit for encouraging a society that leaves the suicide of innocent young men and woman as its final goal.  Every organization that has excluded people because of their sexuality (like the Mormon led Boy Scouts of America) can be blamed for these young deaths.  Every parent that has kicked their child out of the house or refuses to support and acknowledge their child’s sexuality while still claiming to love them gets to take credit for these deaths.  And every Christian that has ever spoken against homosexuals as sinful or unacceptable before God gets to take responsibility for these death.  You didn’t hold the knife the slit the wrist?  But you did.  You didn’t open the bottle of pills that causes the death, but you did.  You didn’t physically push Tyler off that bridge, but you did.  You created a world of such hostility and hatred that these young men and women were afraid to live and be the children of God that God had made them to be.

When tragedies like this happen, I feel it’s important to focus on the big picture and to not let off the hook ALL the people who caused these deaths to occur. Sticks and stones can break our bones, but it’s words (your sermons, your bills, Prop8, you lobbying, your commercials, your anti-gay rhetoric, your endless pamphlets) that actually kill people.  Jesus taught us to love one another.  To all my conservative christian brothers and sisters, please, for the love of God, please see what your angry, fearful, and hateful words lead to.   Please, let us start talking together rather than shouting over picket lines.  Let us sit together at one table in prayer instead of condemning the other to hell.  Dear God, may we find a space for love in the midst of all this pain. 

Fr. McNichol’s wrote an icon called ”The Passion of Matthew Shepard” some time ago and he dedicated it to the 1,470 young men and women that commit suicide every year because of their sexuality.  Accompanying that icon he provided a rereading of Psalm 31.  For all the gay, lesbian and transgender youth out there, know that you are loved, you are cherished, and while times may seem hard there is help for you and there is always hope.  Below is Fr. McNichol’s rereading of the Psalm which I think covers all of that.  God’s Peace.

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my eye is wasted with grief, my soul and body also.
Strong, as I am, I stumble because of my inequality,
and my bones waste away.
I am the scorn of my adversaries, a horror to my
neighbors, an object of dread to my
acquaintances; when they see me in the street
they turn quickly away.
I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have
come to be like something lost.
Yea, I hear many whispering -terror on every side! -as
they scheme together against me, to take my life.
But I trust in thee, O Lord, I say, “Thou art my God.”
Rescue me from those who persecute me!
I will rejoice and be glad for thy unfailing love,
because thou hast cared for me in my distress
and thou hast not abandoned me
but hast set me free.

Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.  Amen!

St. Brendan the Navigator of Clonfert. Naomh Breandan in Irish Gaelic, lit. Holy Brendan (Breannain in Old Irish). Lived c. 480′s – 570′s. One of the twelve Apostles of Ireland. He is most famous for his seven years sea voyages that may have taken him to the coast of N. America. Back in Ireland, he helped argue on behalf of his friend St. Columba when he was being excommunicated for starting a civil war.
In this icon, he is portrayed with the correct Celtic tonsure (from ear to ear), and carries a boat, signifying his sea voyages; along with an abbey church, recognizing the monastic houses that he founded. His name is on parchment as a reminder of the Holy Scriptures that Ireland maintained for the Church during the dark ages, and is illuminated after the Celtic fashion. The knot work fish is symbolic of the Easter Mass that he celebrated on the back of a gigantic fish during his voyages. The name is written in Irish Gaelic in honor of his homeland.

St. Brendan, pray for all of us who venture in our lives, in search of that Holy Paradise where Jesus dewells and God reigns forever. Amen.

This icon is a mere 2.5″ x 4″ and will be one of three icons I am writing for a miniature Celtic triptych. The other two will be St. Aiden (same size as St. Brendan) and St. Columba in the center (slightly larger and standing).