“If there were people who ever needed re-educating, it’s Americans. We all know that.” Andy Raine’s provocative statement hung in the digital space of a Zoom call, but his smile suggested he meant it with affection. The member of the Northumbria Community, a Celtic Christian center in northeast England, recently joined 35 Presbyterian leaders for the second day of a Celtic Spirituality Retreat hosted by 1001 New Worshiping Communities.
What followed was a conversation that ranged from ancient saints to contemporary American political divisions, from theological authenticity to the practice of blessing one's enemies — all grounded in Celtic Christianity's distinctive approach to faith and community.
Raine's own journey to Holy Island — also known as Lindisfarne — began with an unexpected conversation. “I was a student in London, and I was busy having an argument with God,” he recalled. “I was saying, ‘So, where are you sending me?’ And I wasn’t expecting an answer. I was just being rhetorically irritated. And there was a reply. It wasn’t an audible voice, but it was enough to make me turn around, and I knew what had been said, and it was Holy Island.”
Years later, a photograph taken during a childhood day trip with his father was found. In it was a young Raine in “long, short trousers” gazing up at the statue of St. Aidan, the founder of the monastery on Lindisfarne. “I don’t think he had any idea who Aidan was,” Raine said of his father. “It just was a good photo opportunity.”
When Raine eventually moved to the island, he discovered it was “a prayed-in place” where “the prayers of the people who had been here and prayed centuries before had somehow changed this place forever.”
The island holds special significance in Celtic Christian history as the missionary base of St. Aidan, who came from Scotland in 635 to evangelize the Anglo-Saxon people of Northumbria. Later, St. Cuthbert served as bishop there. The Northumbria Community, which Raine helped found, draws on this heritage while maintaining its retreat center about 45 minutes south of the island.
When asked for an “elevator pitch” on Celtic spirituality, Raine pointed to several defining characteristics. “One of the things would be a flexibility, an openness to welcome,” he explained. “One of the pictures of Brigid is living with arms wide open, and that’s also a picture of the cross — that we’re to have a heart that’s exposed.”
He emphasized how Celtic Christians found God revealed through Creation. “The created world speaks to us everything that the Scriptures would speak and does it more immediately for people. ... They had an experience of the created world that was part of that same whole thing that made perfect sense to them.”
Raine also highlighted the Celtic approach to encounter through stories of St. Aidan. “Aidan used to go and connect with individual people and listen to their story. He had a recognition that whoever he met had something to teach him, and he would meet them one-to-one.”
Significantly, Aidan “would travel not on horseback, because he didn’t want to be associated with being the ‘us and them,’ the haves rather than the have nots. He was identified with people with their feet on the ground.”
Hannah, a participant who has incorporated Celtic daily prayers into her family’s practice, raised a concern many felt: How do white Americans engage Celtic traditions without appropriating them?
Raine responded thoughtfully. “Some of you will have some Celtic blood in you anyway, but that almost becomes a distraction. ... The key thing is that some of the most important places of Celtic spirituality are not from people who were Celtic by blood anyway.”
He continued: “What we’re looking to is something that predates it being called ‘Celtic.’ We’re looking to the spirituality of John, the beloved disciple who leaned on the breast of Jesus, and the continuity beginning to come through.”
The crucial posture, Raine suggested, involves treating those we don’t understand with respect. “You treat somebody who you don’t understand with respect and say, ‘What can I learn from you?’”
Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Life & Witness (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Stephanie M. Patterson, Communications Manager, Presbyterian Women
Jim Phares, Web Systems Developer, Digital Strategy & Information Systems, Administrative Systems Group
Let us pray:
Generous God, as you have given so freely to us, we give you thanks that, as possible, we are able to freely give to others. May your Spirit sustain the many helping hands, and may your blessings abound for those being served. Through Christ we pray. Amen.
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