For Spring, some Celtic wisdom on stewardship from a medieval Irish tale:
“A very old man went out one day on the land beside his house, and began planting fruit trees.
A young man walked by. “What are you doing?” the young man asked.
“Planting fruit trees,” the old man replied.
“But you will not see fruit in your lifetime,” the youth said.
“The fruit that I have enjoyed in my lifetime,” the old man answered, “has been from trees that people before me have planted. So to express my gratitude of them, I am planting trees to give fruit to those who come after me.”
Today the Church remembers an obscure, but important, contemporary saint: Toyohiko Kagawa.
Toyohiko was the biological son of a member of the Japanese Cabinet and a geisha girl, and was raised by his father’s wife. He was eventually sent to live with an uncle, and learned English through a Bible course. At 15 he became a Christian, and was rejected by his family of origin.
He dedicated his life to serving in the slums of Japan. He lived in the most impoverished slum, Shinkawa, for most of his young adulthood, abiding in a 6ft by 6ft hut with his wife Haru.
From there he began organizing.
In 1912 he organized the first labor union in Japan for shipyard workers. in 1918 he founded the Labor Federation and in 1921 the Farmer’s Union. He was arrested numerous times in worker strikes and street riots, and in 1925 he worked successfully for universal male suffrage in Japan.
His work in both unionizing and social welfare was born from what he saw as the Christian ideal for social order, lifting up the poor and the marginalized. His writings helped the powerful see the plight of the poor in Japan.
As nationalist fervor started to bubble, he founded the Anti-War League in 1928. In 1940 he was arrested in Japan for apologizing to China for Japanese aggression, and in 1941 he was part of a group who came to the United states to try to avert the war.
Despite all of this, the climate in Japan during the war influenced him greatly, as did the fear of political retribution. He was known, during the war, as being a nationalistic hardliner.
After the war, Kagawa led efforts to establish democratic institutions in Japan. He died in Tokyo on this day in 1960.
Kagawa is a wonderful example of how the complexity of a heart for the poor and geo-political realities affect humanity. Hindsight leads us to see where we have succeeded, and where we have stumbled, and despite our best efforts to keep our feet under us, no one leads an unblemished existence.
His commemoration is a good reminder, for all of us, that our missteps should not, in the end, erase the times we were in alignment with justice. No saint is perfect, after all.
-historical information gathered from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations: A Proposed Common Calendar of Saints
Today the church remembers not a particular saint, but rather the Mother to us all: Earth Day.
The first Earth Day was held in 1970 with the rise of the environmental movement. As the Industrial Revolution quickly began taking its toll on the planet, humans began noticing some tangible changes in the way things looked, tasted, and smelled in the world…and it was not good. Though these changes smelled like prosperity to some, others knew it was a warning sign that the Earth was…is…dying, and that death was being accelerated by humans.
In those early days, pollution was the main focus of most Earth Day activities. And while that is still true today to some extent, we’ve now recognized global warming as the true danger to life on, and the life of, this planet.
In the opening lines of Genesis we find the Divine carefully crafting the earth, separating this from that, throwing birds in the air and playing ultimate “catch and release” with the fishes of the sea. The plants are coaxed from their ground, and humans are shaped out of the black soil. This poetic vision of the creation was not meant to be science…it was art. The art of the Divine being infused in every good thing that inhabits this planet.
And then, as the Creator rested, they charged humanity with tending all that had been made.
Earth Day is a reminder for me, and for the church, that this planet was not given to humans, but rather entrusted to them. In our efforts to thrive we’ve stumbled and sacrificed the lives of so many of our fellow creatures…remember: we’re all creation. And while we may not be able to stop global warming, we can slow it and shape it a bit.
Today the church remembers the embattled Bishop: St. Anselm, Scholar, Erstwhile Bishop of Canterbury, and Preeminent Theologian.
Born in northwestern Italy, Anselm’s childhood was privileged in many ways. His parents were wealthy nobles and, after the death of his mother and an argument with his father, St. Anselm left home at the age of twenty-three to explore the world and further his education.
He found the Benedictine monastery of Bec in Normandy and, though he had been left all the family land by his father (who died while Anselm was abroad), he entered the brotherhood as a novice in 1060. Bec was the intellectual seat of the church at the time, and under St. Anselm’s influence grew ever more so. St. Anselm soon became the prior of Bec and then abbot of the monastery. He encouraged the church to move beyond the recitation of the faith and into an exploration of it. He prized Mary as the mother of God, but argued against her immaculate conception (he didn’t think it was a necessary doctrine). He formalized a process of theology known as “substitutionary atonement,” though it would be his students who would turn it into the (largely heretical) doctrine most know today.
He prized the life of the mind.
Soon he was summoned to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, replacing one of his teachers in the seat. There he entered into a power struggle with the King of England (Rufus…that name didn’t stick) over ultimate authority in the land. Rufus refused to recognize the Pope and, smelling an intense struggle, St. Anselm went to Rome and made his home there for a bit…just until things quieted down in England.
In Rome he worked hard on the Council of Bari (Pope Urban I had appointed him to it) that sought to reunify the Eastern and Western church. It didn’t happen, but St. Anselm’s contributions to the council remain distinguished.
Ultimately King Rufus died and King Henry I (that name did stick!) summoned St. Anselm back to Canterbury. Unfortunately the power struggle continued for the little island to the north, catching St. Anselm in the hot seat there. Now at the end of his days and in poor health, St. Anselm died on Wednesday in Holy Week on this day in 1109.
One of my favorite quotes of St. Anselm is this little ditty about the Christ, a totally feminist viewpoint:
“Are you (Jesus) not a mother too? Indeed you are, and the mother of all mothers, who tasted death in your longing to bring forth children to life.”
St. Anselm is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that the life of the mind is far superior to the recitation of stale doctrine.
-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
The Christian Celts (and the pre-Christians Celts, even, celebrating the newly thawed ground and the emergence of Spring) would celebrate Easter week with signs of new life and abundance.
Children would go about looking for nests in trees and underbrush, collecting any eggs they could find. They’d hide them in cubbies in their rooms, or under their houses, and on Easter they’d haul their findings out into the woods and have a pre-dawn breakfast of roasted eggs with the other children of the town.
On Easter Sunday the town would come together, having reserved some of those eggs for cake baking, and they’d present a village cake called a “prioncam cake,” which loosely means “capering cake” or “dancing cake.” It was decorated with woodland animals and a garland of wildflowers.
They’d put the cake in the middle of the gathering, and around it they’d dance and prance to fiddle and pipe. The best dance won the prize, the cake, hence that old saying, “That takes the cake!”
Now, on this Easter, there may still be some eggs, some treasures still hidden to surprise you…
Today the Celtic arm of the church remembers the Eve of St. Expedite: Carrier of Messages.
St. Expedite, despite the humorous name, is an actual saint that the Roman church canonized, yet took from the rolls due to lack of ”lived evidence.” Like Sts. Christopher and Valentine, this saint doesn’t have much historical backing to legitimize their existence.
And yet, they remain an important part of lore. Why?
Glad you asked…
Expedient soldiers were Roman officers who carried no packs and could move with ease. They were often employed to deliver special messages or deliver pertinent materials to other divisions in quick step.
St. Expedite was thought to be an Armenian Christian who, rather than give worship to the Emperor, died a martyr as a faithful member of the faith, running their errands as necessary.
Calling the phrase “Hodie,” this fast runner yelled “today!” before him, delivering messages far and wide.
Yes, this saint is largely lore. But why are they important?
Because “today” is really the only day we’re promised, Beloved.
And this saint, like so many of the Celtic tradition, draws our attention to what is needful in the world.
So, as St. Mary Oliver rightly asked, what will you do with your, “One wild and precious life?”
As we enter Holy Week, a thought on the events to come:
The Triduum, or Great Three Days, is the antidote to an overly saccharine Easter.
Maundy Thursday gathers the disciples, including you, around a shared table where we all get our feet washed and we all share in dipping our bread in the same bowl as Jesus.
Then the sanctuary is stripped, like our souls now feel stripped, as we realize not only what is about to happen, but also that we must stay to bear witness.
On Good Friday we come not to church, but, with everything bare and the lights low, to a darkened tomb. There we encounter the story of that fateful night, a story we know well not only because we’ve heard it every year, but also because we’ve lived it. It’s familiar.
We’ve all been betrayed by our friends, and have all betrayed a friend. We’ve all been falsely accused and accused others without evidence, let alone our unspoken shame knowing our justice system does this, and profits from it all the time.
We’ve all seen power prey on the powerless. This is that story, but instead of the local courtroom it’s the courtroom of the cosmos.
The reproaches are sung where we’re challenged to answer unanswerable questions of eternal proportions, and the service ends with the cross alone left in the room.
We are, in the end, left only with the cross: this twisted tool of torture to which we now cling, hoping that something good can yet come from it.
Sound familiar?
And then we spend the whole next day in the quiet of non-answers. And at dusk we stream back to that tomb, create a new fire to keep our souls warm, and tell campfire stories of salvation to console ourselves.
“Remember that time that God created the world?” we ask around the fire. “And remember when God saved those folks from the fiery furnace?” We retell these stories as a way to spark hope that, as in those impossible moments, God might be able to do something new with this impossible moment. We teach these stories to our babies, even as we reteach it to ourselves.
And then before we know it, the tomb has turned into a lush garden, and that tomb that was full of death is suddenly full of life: flowers, water, and yes, living bodies.
Our bodies.
Our bodies who now gather around the body of the risen Christ now seen in bread, wine, water, and the faces around us. And we baptize people who have newly heard all of this. And we sing and dance and party because, yup, resurrection has happened again, by God!
The whole arc has import. Every scene plays a part.
For the Christian Celts, the Monday (and sometimes Tuesday and Wednesday) of Holy Week was dedicated to cleaning the house and the home (with Holy Thursday dedicated for cleaning the chapel).
After months of inside smoke from the hearth dusting everything with soot, and with the spots above and around the well-used candles getting dingy and oily, Spring cleaning served both practical and spiritual purposes. Spring was a time of renewal, and so it made sense to renew the home from the dinge of winter.
But, as importantly, Spring cleaning mirrored the inward housecleaning of the Lenten days. With Easter almost upon them. the last few corners of the soul were tended, swept, and exposed to the light for purification.
Reluctant Xtian 