Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Here is our second letter from afar.
After the excitement of our first four weeks of sabbatical which encompassed New Wine, a short retreat at West Watch, putting our house in Berkshire up for sale and looking after grandchildren, you might expect life to slow down a little!
But no, in the last two weeks Corrinne and I have been on back-to-back led retreats at Nether Springs and Iona Abbey. We didn’t want to do back-to-back retreats, but the dates just wouldn’t fit with what we wanted. So, first a 450m drive to Nether Springs just north of Newcastle. Nether Springs is the centre of the Northumbrian Community where we would be for 5 days.
If you have never heard of it; The Northumbria Community is a dispersed network of people from different backgrounds, streams and edges of the Christian faith and are united in a desire to embrace and express an ongoing exploration into a new way for living, through a new monasticism, as Christians that offers hope in our changed and changing culture. A Way to express The Way and acknowledge there are many other valid expressions of the desire to follow Jesus Christ in today’s world. Their identity is rooted in the history and spiritual heritage of Celtic Northumbria. They are united by a Rule of Life, which they call the ‘Way for Living’ and which can be summed up in two words: Availability and Vulnerability. (This from their website northumbriacommunity.org/who-we-are/introducing-the-community/)
For inspiration in this way of life they look to Jesus, but also those pioneering Celtic saints that rowed across the sea in tiny coracles from Ireland to evangelise Cornwall, Wales, west coast of Scotland (notably with a base on Iona) and the kingdom of Northumbria, based in Melrose and Holy Island (Lindisfarne). Aiden, Cuthbert, and in the next generation Wilfrid who when exiled from Northumbria travelled south in 680AD and very successfully brought the gospel for the first time to Sussex.
At Nether Springs we used a labyrinth, garden rooms, a ‘prayer shed’ (proper name a ‘poustinia’), used the Celtic Prayer morning and evening offices. We did a ‘walk across the sands’ from the mainland to Lindisfarne Island, because the sands are quite treacherous (with quicksands and soft mud) there is only one safe way across marked by posts for pilgrims to follow (see photo).
The raised platform is for those caught by the incoming tide and they have to climb up to avoid drowning! Indeed, due to an accident on the level crossing on the approach to the road causeway we missed the tide to get back and had to wait 7hrs for the tide to turn to enable our return home.
As there is only one route across there was a real sense of ‘walking where the saints have trod’ as we reflected and prayed.
Nether Springs was a place of vibrant and deep spirituality which we both soaked in for the retreat there.
The big thing that I received from this week was how these first Celtic saints were so totally fixed upon God, all their effort and vision was focussed upon God. They were both ‘Available’ and ‘Vulnerable’. Available to God in the ‘cell’ of their own heart when they turned towards Him to seek His face; then to be available to others in a call to exercise hospitality, recognising that in welcoming others they honour and welcome the Christ Himself.
Being ‘Vulnerable’, embracing the vulnerability of being teachable expressed in a discipline of prayer; in exposure to Scripture; a willingness to be accountable to others in ordering our ways and our heart in order to effect change in ourselves and others.
They had this sense of ‘Cell and Coracle’. Cell being the (internal) place where they met with God, i.e. looking inward in prayer, reflection, contemplation. Coracle (the small boats they travelled across the sea and along the coastline in) the means by going out to evangelise the nations.
They didn’t just travel by boat, but mostly on foot just chatting with people they met on the way, the simplest way to evangelise! Cuthbert had the reputation of not just chatting with folk but praying with them, prophesying over them, healing them, I had to smile as I came to see Cuthbert as a modern (635-687AD) charismatic preaching the gospel with signs and wonders!
Then onto Iona, 250m north and west.
Iona was very different even though it was founded by the same Celtic saints and today is also a dispersed community. The Iona Community too has a ‘Rule of Life’ of four parts inspired by the Benedictine communities and the Columban (Celtic) tradition. The Abbey Church was just amazingly beautiful and the cloisters a delight to walk around, even have a picnic lunch in – avoiding the rain!
Personally, I was challenged by the outlook of the community, the way they expressed their strategic aims.
I was a little uncomfortable with the way they enacted their vision with the ‘community’ present at the abbey. But as I have always preached you cannot dismiss something new or different by blithely saying ‘I just don’t believe that’. You must match it up against scripture and see if it aligns and supports God’s word, and change your own perspective accordingly. That’s the phase I am in now, reflecting, considering, comparing and contrasting the new I have heard with the scripture.
I’ll leave you with two short phrases we heard over these two retreats that have given us both much thought. An answer to the question “How has the Celtic Way changed your perspective of spirituality?” was given by a Dutch lady, “…it has given me ‘New words for old beliefs’”. And the second from an American Third Order Franciscan who observed during a discussion that, “transformed lives, transform lives.”
We now have two weeks of thought, prayer, reflection as well as some walking and visiting new places here in Northumberland, photos are the view out of our window – just near Hadrian’s Wall and Sycamore Gap.
More about that next time.
Love and blessings,
Derreck & Corrinne
