Beannachd Dia dhuit

I have a confession to make...

I am getting bored! No -- this doesn't mean that I am coming back to work early. It means that my poor little brain has been reading stuff about Celtic this and Celtic that for almost three months (ok -- there were three weeks of holidays in there) and it needs to read and think about something else. Maybe that is why we take 5 different courses at a time in school...so our brains have more than one thing to think about.

Bored. I have been practising my fiddle and that has been interesting...though I need some more inspiration there as well. Fortunately, one of the fiddle teachers that I have emailed responded last night and I will be taking a lesson from her after I get back from seeing dad.

Bored. But I am taking the "red-eye" tonight down to visit dad for 11 days. I think that I will be mostly reading some recreational books while I am there,,,though I am taking two work books with me. And one of them...

Bored...and intrigued. When I returned my last book on Celtic Churches to the library on Thursday, instead of moving ahead in time, I moved backwards. I picked up three books on Druidism...what the pagan pre-Christian religion followed by the early Celts is called. I will look through one of those books this coming week.

I was looking for a picture of a druid, but there is such a interest in things pagan/druid these days, all I found seemed to come from fantasy computer games. Pictures like this...

Likely not what Druids really looked like

Anyway...more about druids next week.

Last week I promised a bit about St. Patrick for this week. This next bit comes from "Catholic Online."

Patrick was born around 385 in Scotland (though other people say Umbria in England and others Wales), probably Kilpatrick. His parents were Calpurnius and Conchessa, who were Romans living in Britain in charge of the colonies.

As a boy of fourteen or so, he was captured during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. Ireland at this time was a land of Druids and pagans. He learned the language and practices of the people who held him.

During his captivity, he turned to God in prayer. He escaped and made his way back home at around the age of 20. He studied Christianity and was ordained by the bishop of Auxerre, on the continent.

In a dream, he saw the people of Ireland calling him to come back. He did. He took the gospel to Ireland and went around preaching, converting, and building churches for the next 40 years. He died on March 17, 461. St. Patrick's Day, March 17, celebrates the day of his death.

St. Patrick, from Catholic Online

Here is another Celtic prayer that I like:

God to enfold me,
God to surround me,
God in my speaking,
God in my thinking.

God in my sleeping,
God in my waking,
God in my watching,
God in my hoping.

God in my life,
God in my lips,
God in my soul,
God in my heart.

God in my sufficing,
God in my slumber,
God in mine ever-living soul,
God in mine eternity.

Ancient celtic oral traditions - carmina gadelica

Beannachd Dia dhuit                     blessings of God be with you - ScotsGaelic

Slainte mhor agus a h-uile beannachd duibh

I have been looking at a couple of things this week.

But first...A few people have suggested that I have been going great guns on the learning part of sabbatical but maybe not doing quite so well on the rest and rejuvenation part. I may have mentioned to a couple of members of my family that writing a blog on Friday or Saturday night is a lot like writing a sermon. Hmmm...maybe that was a mistake. So, I have been thinking about that...and likely they are correct. So...

This week I have been looking at a couple of things...slowly...and I will try to keep the next few blogs a bit shorter.

I am working through a book by John T. McNeill called The Celtic Churches. It is a history from 200 to 1200 C.E. The first chapter is a bit of history on where the Celtic people came from and where they traveled over the centuries. Likely coming from north of the Alps down into France and Italy. From France (Gaul) tribes of Celts traveled into Asia Minor and settled in a place they called Galatia. St. Paul had a few things to say to the Celts of Galatia. They were used as mercenaries.

Galatian spearmen

McNeill moves on to talk about the coming of Christianity into Britain where other tribes of Celts settled and how the Pagan Celt reacted to the coming of this new religion. Druids were the clergy of these Celts.

That may be enough academic stuff for this blog.

The other area I have started to look at this week is prayers and blessings from Celtic spirituality. I enjoy the blessings that have come out of Scotland and Ireland. We have some idea of the words when I say the title...The Irish Blessing...though there are many of them.

Here are two Scottish blessings that I found this week.

May the blessing of light be on you - light without and light within. 
May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, 
so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it. 
And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, 
like a candle set in the window of a house, 
bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the rain be on you, 
may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, 
and sometimes a star. 
And may the blessing of the earth be on you, 
soft under your feet as you pass along the roads, 
soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day; 
and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it. 
May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under it quickly; up and off and on its way to God. 
And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly. Amen.

I am not sure why the font changed on that.

The second blessing is the Gaelic one that is the title of this blog. 

Slainte mhor agus a h-uile beannachd duibh

Good health and every good blessing to you.

That is my wish for you this coming week.

Lorg!

Which movie does that come from? Well -- from many -- but which is most familiar to you?
Lorg! Gaelic for..."I'm back!" Is it from one of the Terminator movies? With Ahhhnold? Or is it Randy Quaid in Independence Day? Or...I think there are many.

Lorg! I'm back! Well, back to blog!

Diana and I were away on holidays for three weeks. We spent most of that time in B.C. Much on Vancouver Island at Parksville and Ucluelet. And several days coming back in Penticton to warm up and dry out...though really, the weather on the Island was quite good too.

We stayed at two places in Parksville. Before and after going to the west side of the Island. Both of these were on Rathtrevor Beach. It is one of our favourite places. When the tide goes out, you can walk for kilometres on the sand looking for shells and other little sea critters.

A friend of ours from our time on Rathtrevor

We also saw some bigger sea creatures. Many sea lions would poke their heads up to say hello and on two different days we saw whales come up to the surface. It seems to have only been video that I took of those wonderful mammals, so no picture here.

While the east side of the Island was calm through most of our time there, on the other side, the waves were quite wild.

Florencia Bay at Pacific Rim National Park

We returned last Sunday. I was registered this week for a seminar from the Achieve Training Centre. "Assertive Communication." It was an interesting workshop. There were 13 of us plus the instructor. I was the ONLY male. And we won't discuss the age differential between me and most of the other students, thank you very much!

Coursebook

According to the course, people can be divided into three categories by the way that we communicate. There are aggressive communicators. Often we can tell these by the loudness of their voice...how close they stand when talking to you...and sustained eye contact. They are self-focused and need to maintain control.

Passive communicators often keep quiet and apologize when they express themselves. They usually avoid eye contact, speak softly, and use retreating, small body language. They find it difficult to express their needs, wants, feelings, and ideas.

We want to be assertive communicators. Assertive communicators believe in their ability to express ideas and opinions openly and honestly without denying the rights of others. They express their needs, ideas and feelings clearly and respectfully. They do not assume that their perspective is the only correct one. Their body language is relaxed and casual, their eye contact is natural and inviting, and their voice is appropriate to the situation.

We practised being assertive communicators. Practice...small group...one on one. We introverts LOVE small group and one on one. (For those of you who are extroverts, that last sentence was dripping with sarcasm. I realize that may be difficult to comprehend!)

It was an enjoyable seminar. Much I knew already, but it was good to hear it in different language and expressed in different ways.

Celtic Christianty...yes...I did some more work on that this week too. Before leaving on holidays I requested two books on inter-library loan. I was told that they could take three weeks to come in. Great! Perfect timing. They came in a week and a half and Caryn picked them up for me so that they would not send them back before I got home. Book number one...due on October 23 and I can renew it if I want. Book number two...due on October 9th. This past Thursday...4 days after I got it into my hands...can't renew it...it came from the University of Calgary and I assume someone else requested it...and late fines...$1.00 per DAY! Sigh...I read fast. Fortunately, it is the other book that I think will be more interesting. I spent Friday reading and paid one day's fine.

In one day, you can tell if you want to request it again or not.

I think I will pass.

Ian Bradley starts off in a similar way to a couple of other books I have read so far on this sabbatical. He speaks of the original Celtic Christianity from the 6th and 7th century. Other writers then jump to the late 1800s to start speaking about scholars and others becoming interested in the Celtic way of doing church. Bradley sees things differently. He sees six different times in history when interest in Celtic Christianity was piqued and scholarship researched the topic. Many of the early works centred on the lives of the men who became saints...Patrick, Columba, David, and Cuthbert.

Bradley talked more about the scholarly pursuit of Celtic Christianity than the Celts themselves. I think the book that I have for this week will tell me more about those saints and the growth of the church that they built.

Until next weekend...slan leat an-drasta.