Carmel Retreat, August 2011
A Celtic Journey
Sunday evening: A Personal Journey
In order to introduce the 4th – 7th Century Christianity of the Celts. I thought it best to share with you where and how my interest came about.
I was born and spent all my growing up years on a Church of Scotland mission station in Transkei, South Africa. My parents were not there out of Christian conviction, but as a result of the depression in the 1930’s and out of necessity. My father, a carpenter, taught carpentry and my mother taught needlework to trainee teachers.
Growing up on a mission station among Xhosa people I inherited something of the Xhosa culture and worldview. I somehow knew, like the Xhosa, that God was ‘out there’:
It was he, uMdali, who was the Creator.
It was he who sent the rain and the sunshine.
It was he who was said to ‘be playing’ when the lightening flashed and the thunder rolled.
It was he who caused the crops to grow.
The birds and the insects were his;
as were the Nguni cattle with their distinctive markings each one known by name.
It was he who was revered as being above all yet who was somehow present in his world.
It was he whom I held in awe as I recalled the words painted on a huge boulder in the ‘Kei Cuttings’:
‘Be prepared to meet thy God’
(A quote from Amos 4:12 as I later discovered)
Then, as a teenager, I came to know the Father through a conversion experience into Christ Jesus. Much later, as a priest in the Anglican church, I returned to work in Eastern Cape. Then, for a number of years, I served as an evangelist among the Xhosa people of the Eastern Cape.
I tramped for years, on foot, with my little team, across the hills and valleys around East London, knocking on countless doors and being welcomed into the homes of hospitable people. This was at the height of the Apartheid government’s policy of racial segregation and resettlement. Sometimes the homes we visited were tiny shacks in ‘squatter’/ resettlement camps, sometimes thatched rondawels, sometimes the matchbox ‘four corner’ government built houses.
We found that there was always a willingness to hear about Jesus, who had come to make known the God, uMdali/uThixo, whom they had always somehow known to be ‘out there’. The Xhosa people welcomed us into their homes, and with my little team of Xhosa evangelists, we learned to trust in and to be expectant of God the Father who, in Jesus name, intervenes; who heals and who drives out demons. It was God who answered our prayers when we prayed for family members (migrant labourers) on the mines or wherever.
We learned about God who was present in the lighting of the fires for cooking or for warming the huts on winter nights; who was present in the community which cared for those without work; who taught them to share their crops with the needy; who was present when they celebrated their community events with generous abandon and who honoured their ancestors.
This was the Christianity which, as it were, rubbed off on to me. It was somewhat different from that reflected in the traditional Anglicanism into which I had been ordained. Some of my colleagues among the Xhosa speaking clergy said that my expression of Anglicanism had become too much like the amaZion, The African Independent Churches.
Then, to my delight, I discovered through my reading that what I was experiencing in my Christian walk was akin to the Christianity of the Celtic Church on the borderlands of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Northumberland and the Hebrides between the 4th – 7th Centuries.
I discovered such writers as Michael Mitton ( a priest in the UK) who wrote:
‘As I explored the Celtic faith of this ancient mission centre/church I discovered something that I had been searching for during the past twenty years. I had been searching for an expression of faith in which I could own the various strands that have become so important for me. I discovered a burning and evangelical love for the Bible; I discovered a depth of spiritual life and stillness that I had encountered in Catholic and Anglo-Catholic spirituality; I discovered a radical commitment to the poor and to God’s creation; and I discovered the most attractive expression of charismatic life I had yet encountered.’
(Restoring the Woven Cord by Michael Mitton, Page 1)
Michael Mitton has since become a good friend whose writing and wisdom I value greatly.
And Ian Bradley, another author whose writing on both Celtic Christianity and Pilgrimage I have come to appreciate, wrote:
‘Celtic Christianity does seem to speak with almost uncanny relevance to many of the concerns of the present age. It was environment- friendly, embracing positive attitudes to nature and constantly celebrating the goodness of God’s creation. It was non-hierarchical and non-sexist, eschewing the rule of Diocesan Bishops and a rigid parish structure in favour of a loose federation of monastic communities which included married as well as celibate clergy and were often presided over by women.’
(The Celtic Way by Ian Bradley, Page viii)
And another author whom I have come to know and whose writing I have come to value and appreciate, Ray Simpson, writes:
‘Long before conflicts so tragically divided Christianity, the Celtic Church came to flower. It existed from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. The Celtic churches were orthodox in faith, but diverse in practice, evangelised and maintained unity through friendship, respected women’s gifts, felt spiritually linked to creation, celebrated God through all the senses, inspired multitudes to holy lives of prayer, were bathed in the supernatural, and kept learning alive through the Dark Ages.’
(Exploring Celtic Spirituality by Ray Simpson, Page xi)
It was a great sense of affirmation to me to learn that the Christianity I was experiencing among the Xhosa people was not something foreign or new, but that it bore many resemblances to the Christianity of those Borderland Celts of centuries ago. My realisation was confirmed when I read Prof Peter Mtuze’s book in which he devotes a whole chapter on ‘Aspects of African and Celtic Spirituality; Some Parallels and Commonalities’. (Prof. Peter Mtuze is a professor at Rhodes University, a Xhosa and a Priest in the Anglican Church.)
Having discovered the link between my own African/Xhosa spirituality and that of the Borderland Celts of the 4th – 9th Centuries, I have continued to read, explore, lead Celtic Pilgrimages, seek to live out and to lead retreats (with Rob and Joyce) from Carmel to the Karoo and to Prestwick in Scotland.
I am an Explorer with the worldwide Celtic Community of Aidan and Hilda. With that background as to how my interest in the Christianity of the Celts arose I want to invite you to come with me, together with Rob, Joyce and Beverley on a Celtic Journey over the next few days.
Eric Pike
