Currach Celtic Community of Batesville, Arkansas

INVOCATION FOR JUSTICE-Carmina Gadelica

2011-12-14T08:23:00.000-08:00

I WILL wash my face
In the nine rays of the sun,
As Mary washed her Son
In the rich fermented milk.

Love be in my countenance,
Benevolence in my mind,
Dew of honey in my tongue,
My breath as the incense.

Black is yonder town,
Black are those therein,
I am the white swan,
Queen above them.

I will travel in the name of God,
In likeness of deer, in likeness of horse,
In likeness of serpent, in likeness of king:
Stronger will it be with me than with all persons.

2011-12-14T07:41:00.001-08:00

The restoration of the church will surely come from a new kind of monasticism, which will have nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising adherence to the Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ. I believe the time has come to rally people together for this.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2011-10-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

2011-02-21T23:54:00.000-08:00

"Every one of us is a mystic. We may or may not realize it, we may not even like it. But whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery. We have been given the gift of life in this perplexing world to become who we ultimately are: creatures of boundless love, caring compassion, and wisdom. Existence is a summons to the eternal journey of the sage - the sage we all are, if only we could see."

Last Summer Wedding

2011-01-22T23:44:00.000-08:00

2011-01-05T20:37:00.001-08:00

2010-08-16T14:23:00.001-07:00

Mirror Lake-My fishing hole!

2010-04-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

My Episcopal Shield

2010-03-03T20:29:00.000-08:00

2010-02-27T22:37:00.000-08:00

2010-01-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

Me and Pendar

2010-01-24T20:34:00.001-08:00

Currach Plans

2010-01-20T14:18:00.000-08:00

The Five Mindfulness Trainings

2010-01-19T22:02:00.000-08:00

(according to Thich Nath Hanh, www.plumvillage.org)
-First Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.
-Second Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to cultivate loving kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am committed to practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.
-Third Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I am committed to cultivate responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment. To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments and the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct.
-Fourth Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticise or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.
-Fifth Training-
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practising mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I am committed to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practising a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.

THE ROOT OF WAR IS FEAR

2010-01-19T21:56:00.000-08:00

By Thomas Merton
Published in October 1961, this article marked the initial and definitive entry of Thomas Merton into the struggle against war.
The present war crisis is something we have made entirely for and by ourselves. There is in reality not the slightest logical reason for war, and yet the whole world is plunging headlong into frightful destruction, and doing so with the purpose of avoiding war and preserving peace! This is a true war-madness, an illness of the mind and the spirit that is spreading with a furious and subtle contagion all over the world. Of all the countries that are sick, America is perhaps the most grievously afflicted. ….This is a nation that claims to be fighting for religious truth along with freedom and other values of the spirit. Truly we have entered the "post-Christian era" with a vengeance. Whether we are destroyed or whether we survive, the future is awful to contemplate.
What is the place of the Christian in all this? Is he simply to fold his hands and resign himself to the worst, accepting it as the inescapable will of God and preparing himself to enter heaven with a sigh of relief? Should he open up the Apocalypse and run out into the street to give everyone his idea of what is happening? Or worse still, join in the madness of the warmakers, calculating how by a "first strike," the glorious Christian West can eliminate atheistic communism for all time and usher in the millennium?
What are we to do? The duty of the Christian in this crisis is to strive with all his power and intelligence, with his faith, hope in Christ, and love for God and man, to do the one task which God has imposed upon us in the world today. That task is to work for the total abolition of war. There can be no question that unless war is abolished the world will remain constantly in a state of madness and desperation in which, because of the immense destructive power of modern weapons, the danger of catastrophe will be imminent and probably at every moment everywhere. Unless we set ourselves immediately to this task, both as individuals and in our political and
religious groups, we tend by our passivity and fatalism to cooperate with the destructive forces that are leading inexorably to war. It is a problem of terrifying complexity and magnitude for which the Church herself is not fully able to see clear and decisive solutions. Yet she must lead the way on the road towards nonviolent settlement of difficulties and towards the gradual abolition of war as the way of settling international or civil disputes. Christians must become active in every possible way, mobilizing all their resources for the fight against war. First of all there is much to be studied, much to be learned. Peace is to be preached, nonviolence is to be
explained as a practical method, and not left to be mocked as an outlet for crackpots who want to make a show of themselves. Prayer and sacrifice must be used as the most effective spiritual weapons in the war against war, and like any weapons they must be used with deliberate aim: not just with a vague aspiration for peace and security, but against violence and against war. This implies that we are also willing to sacrifice and restrain our own instinct for violence and aggressiveness in our relations with other people. We may never succeed in this campaign but whether we succeed or not the duty is evident. It is the great Christian task of our time. Everything else is secondary, for the survival of the human race itself depends on it. We must at least face this responsibility and do something about it. And the first job of all is to understand the psychological forces at work in ourselves and in society.

At the root of all war is fear, not so much the fear men have of one another as the fear they have of everything. It is not merely that they do not trust one another: they do not even trust themselves. …. They cannot trust anything because they have ceased to believe in God.
It is not only our hatred of others that is dangerous but also and above all our hatred of ourselves: particularly that hatred of ourselves which is too deep and too powerful to be consciously faced. For it is this which makes us see our own evil in others and unable to see it in ourselves. …
As if this were not enough, we make the situation much worse by artificially intensifying our sense of evil, and by increasing our propensity to feel guilt even for things which are not in themselves wrong. In all these ways, we build up such an obsession with evil, both in ourselves and in others, that we waste all our mental energy trying to account for this evil, to punish it, to exorcise it, or to get rid of it in any way we can.
We drive ourselves mad with our preoccupation and in the end there is no outlet left but violence. We have to destroy something or someone. By that time, we have created for ourselves a suitable enemy, a scapegoat in whom we have invested all the evil in the world. He is the cause o£ every wrong. He is the fomenter of all conflict. If he can only be destroyed, conflict will cease, evil will be done with, there will be no more war.
This kind of fictional thinking is especially dangerous when it is supported by a whole elaborate pseudo-scientific structure of myths…But it is certainly no less dangerous when it operates in the vague, fluid, if confused and unprincipled opportunism which substitutes in the West for religion, for philosophy and even for mature thought.
When the whole world is in moral confusion: when no one knows any longer what to think, and when, in fact, everybody is running away from the responsibility of thinking, when man makes rational thought about moral issues absurd by exiling himself entirely from realities into the realm of fictions, and when he expends all his efforts in constructing more fictions with which to account for his ethical failures, then it becomes clear that the world cannot be saved from global war and global destruction by the mere efforts and good intentions of peacemakers. In actual fact, everyone is becoming more and more aware of the widening gulf between efforts to make peace and the growing likelihood of war. It seems that no matter how elaborate and careful the planning, all attempts at international dialogue end in more and more ludicrous failures. In the end, no one has any more faith in those who even attempt the dialogue. On the contrary, the
negotiators, with all their pathetic good will, become the objects of contempt and of hatred. It is the "men of good will," the men who have made their poor efforts to do something about peace, who will in the end be the most mercilessly reviled, crushed, and destroyed as victims of the universal self-hate of man which they have unfortunately only increased by the failure of their good intentions. …
In our refusal to accept the partially good intentions of others and work with them (of course prudently and with resignation to the inevitable imperfection of the result) we are unconsciously proclaiming our own malice, our own intolerance, our own lack of realism, our own
ethical and political quackery.

Perhaps in the end the first real step toward peace would be a realistic acceptance of the fact that our political deals are perhaps to a great extent illusions and fictions to which we cling, out of motives that are not always perfectly honest: that because of this we prevent ourselves from seeing any good or any practicability in the political ideas of our enemies-which may of course be in many ways even more illusory and dishonest than our own. We will never get anywhere unless we can accept the fact that politics is an inextricable tangle of good and evil motives in which, perhaps, the evil predominate but where one must continue to hope doggedly in what little good can still be found.
…I believe the basis for valid political action can only be the recognition that the true solution to our problems is not accessible to any one isolated party or nation but that all must arrive at it by working together.
…We must try to accept ourselves whether individually or collectively, not only as perfectly good or perfectly bad, but in our mysterious, unaccountable mixture of good and evil. We have to stand by the modicum of good that is in us without exaggerating it. We have to defend our real rights, because unless we respect our own rights we will certainly not respect the rights of others. But at the same time we have to recognize that we have willfully or otherwise trespassed on the rights of others. We must be able to admit this not only as the result of self-examination, but when it is pointed out unexpectedly, and perhaps not too gently, by somebody else.
These principles which govern personal moral conduct, which make harmony possible in small social units like the family, also apply in the wider area of the state and in the whole community of nations. It is however quite absurd, in our present situation or in any other, to expect these principles to be universally accepted as the result of moral exhortations. There is very little hope that the world will be run according to them all of a sudden, as a result of some hypothetical change of heart on the part of politicians. It is useless and even laughable to base political thought on the faint hope of a purely contingent and subjective moral illumination in the hearts of the world's leaders. But outside of political thought and action, in the religious sphere, it is not
only permissible to hope for such a mysterious consummation, but it is necessary to pray for it. We can and must believe not so much that the mysterious light of God can "convert" the ones who are mostly responsible for the world's peace, but at least that they may, in spite of their obstinacy and their prejudices, be guarded against fatal error. …
For only love-which means humility-can exorcise the fear which is at the root of all war…
It does not even seem to enter our minds that there might be some incongruity in praying to the God of peace, the God Who told us to love one another as He has loved us, who warned us that they who took the sword would perish by it, and at the same time planning to annihilate not thousands but millions of civilians and soldiers, men, women and children with discrimination, even with the almost infallible certainty of inviting the same annihilation for ourselves. …
I am fully aware that this sounds utterly sentimental, archaic and out of tune with an age of science. But I would like to submit that pseudo-scientific thinking in politics and sociology have so far less than this to offer. One thing I would like to add in all fairness is that the atomic scientists themselves are quite often the ones most concerned about the ethics of the situation, and that they are among the few who dare to open their mouths from time to time and say something about it. But who on earth listens?

If men really wanted peace they would sincerely ask God for it and He would give it to them. But why should He give the world a peace which it does not really desire? The peace the world pretends to desire is really no peace at all.
To some men peace merely means the liberty to exploit other people without fear of retaliation or interference. To others peace means the freedom to rob brothers without interruption. To still others it means the leisure to devour the goods of the earth without being compelled to interrupt their pleasures to feed those whom their greed is starving. And to practically everybody peace simply means the absence of any physical violence that might cast a shadow over lives devoted to the satisfaction of their animal appetites for comfort and pleasure.
Many men like these have asked God for what they thought was "peace" and wondered why their prayer was not answered. They could not understand that it actually was answered. God left them with what they desired, for their idea of peace was only another form of war.
…So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed-but hate these things in yourself not in another.

By Thomas Merton. From Passion for Peace, edited by William H. Shannon. 1995.
Permission to reprint is granted from Crossroad Publishing Company.

Weddings Two

2010-01-19T20:59:00.000-08:00

Weddings One

2010-01-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

Finding your Bliss+That is my Religion

2010-01-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

+Tanaiste John

CELTIC CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY

2009-12-30T23:19:00.000-08:00

1. A deep respect of nature, regarding creation as the fifth Gospel.
2. Quiet care for all living things.
3. The love of learning.
4. A wonder-lust, or migratory nature.
5. Love of silence and solitude.
6. Understanding of time, as a sacred reality.
7. An appreciation of ordinary life, worshipping God through everyday life, and with great joy.
8. The value of family and clan affiliation,and especially spiritual ties of soul friends(anamchara).

C.C.C. Mission Statement

2009-12-30T22:49:00.000-08:00

The mission of Currach Celtic Community is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and administer His Sacraments from the understanding of the Celtic theologians St. Morgan of Wales and St. John Scotus Eriugena. We seek to foster the understanding that within everyone is a directly accessible spiritual light that can lead people to equality, simplicity, justice, compassion and peace. We do this through parishes, chapels, prayer groups, and other ministries using Celtic Christian liturgies and spirituality.

RCC COMMONLY HELD PRINCIPLES

2009-12-30T17:16:00.000-08:00

There is that of God in every person. All human beings, regardless of religious beliefs, have the ability of unmediated spiritual communion and relationship with the transcendent Divine that is immanent within.

The central theme of RCC universalism is that spiritual awareness may be achieved by everyone everywhere. It may be experienced through the teachings of all the great religious systems or in the personal and private experiences of an individual seeker who may have no religion at all.

Spiritual awareness is accessible to everyone of any religion or none . . . no faith can claim to have a final revelation or monopoly of truth. We acknowledge that such awareness may be expressed in many different ways. We delight in this diversity.

While being convinced of the validity of our own religious path, we not only accept but also rejoice that others find validity in their own spiritual tradition, whatever it may be. Each of us must find our own path, and each of us can benefit from the search of others.

There are many paths toward a truth that lies beyond the confines of any single religious doctrine. No one faith has a monopoly of the way to truth. Seekers must find their own paths, assisted by the search of others.

Underlying the infinite diversity of life is the unity of one all-pervasive Spirit. We seek unity with all creation, joining with the increased awareness that a peace testimony includes reverence toward all life.

We nurture a spiritual path open to all, providing a spiritual community in which all sincere seekers of Truth can join, whatever their religious beliefs or doubts. Through the sharing of different religious insights and experiences, anamchara (soul friends) can give support to each other's spiritual search. that can be both refreshing and unifying.

The attribute of holding a position confronted by an opposite position which must be respected has great importance in the formation of spiritual character.

While affirming God's witness in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, we also acknowledge that the Light, the Principle, the Spirit of Love has been made manifest in the teachings of other religions and that there is still much more Light and Love to be revealed in the world.

The Light, the Life, the Truth, the Love of God is revealed directly to every human being, of every race and religion, without the requirement of any intermediary such as church, priest, or sacred book. Each of us has the choice of relying on ourselves or discerning and following the Divine Light within.

Currach Celtic Community Seeks...

2009-12-30T15:21:00.000-08:00

Currach Celtic Community seeks to embrace the richness of the Church through integrating the various spiritualities of Franciscan and Benedictine, the solitude of the desert eremites and koinonia fellowship of the cenobites. Worship embraces the structured and spontaneous, liturgical and charismatic spiritualities, the sacramental and non-sacramental. We also embrace the richness found within non-christian traditions. All with that lightness of touch which is Celtic Spirituality.

2007-12-27T18:10:00.000-08:00

THE ALOHA SPIRIT

by Serge Kahili King

The Aloha Spirit is a well known reference to the attitude of friendly acceptance for which the Hawaiian Islands are so famous. However, it also refers to a powerful way to resolve any problem, accomplish any goal, and also to achieve any state of mind or body that you desire.

In the Hawaiian language, aloha stands for much more than hello or goodbye or love. Its deeper meaning is the joyful (oha) sharing (alo) of life energy (ha) in the present (alo).

As you share this energy you become attuned to the Divine Power that the Hawaiians call mana. And the loving use of this incredible Power is the secret for attaining true health, happiness, prosperity and success.

The way to tune into this Power and have it work for you is so simple that you might be tempted to pass it off as being too easy to be true. Please don't let yourself be fooled by appearances.

This is the most powerful technique in the world, and although it is extremely simple it may not prove easy, because you must remember to do it and you have to do it a lot. It is a secret which has been given to humanity over and over again, and here it is once more in another form.

The secret is this:

Bless everyone and everything that represents what you want!
That's all there is to it. Anything that simple, however, does need some explanation.

To bless something means to give recognition or emphasis to a positive quality, characteristic or condition, with the intent that what is recognized or emphasized will increase, endure or come into being.

Blessing is effective in changing your life or getting what you want for three reasons: First of all, the positive focus of your mind stirs up the positive, creative force of the Power of the Universe. Secondly, it moves your own energy outward, allowing more of the Power to come through you. Thirdly, when you bless for the benefit of others instead of directly for yourself, you tend to bypass any subconscious fears about what you want for yourself, and also the very focus on the blessing acts to increase the same good in your life. What is so beautiful about this process is that the blessing you do for others helps them as well as you.

Blessing may be done with imagery or touch but the most usual and easy way to do it is with words. The main kinds of verbal blessing are:

Admiration - This is the giving of compliments or praise to something good that you notice. E.g., What a nice sunset; I like that dress; you're so much fun.

Affirmation - This is a specific statement of blessing for increase or endurance. E.g., I bless the beauty of this tree; blessed be the health of your body.

Appreciation - This is an expression of gratitude that something good exists or has happened. E.g., Thank you, God, for helping me; I give thanks to the rain for nourishing the land.

Anticipation - This is blessing for the future. E.g., We're going to have a great picnic; I bless your increased income; Thank you for my perfect mate; I wish you a happy journey; May the wind be always at your back.
In order to gain the most benefit from blessing, you will have to give up on the one thing that negates it: cursing. This doesn't mean swearing or saying bad words. It refers to the opposite of blessing, namely criticizing instead of admiring; doubting instead of affirming; blaming instead of appreciating; and worrying instead of anticipating with trust. Whenever any of these are done they tend to cancel out some of the effects of blessing. So the more you curse the harder it will be and the longer it will take to get the good from a blessing. On the other hand, the more you bless the less harm any cursing will do.

Here, then, are some ideas for blessing various needs and desires:

Health - Bless healthy people, animals, and even plants; everything which is well made or well constructed; and everything that expresses abundant energy.

Happiness - Bless all that is good, or the good that is in all people and all things; all the signs of happiness that you see, hear or feel in people or animals; and all potentials for happiness that you notice around you.

Prosperity - Bless all the signs of prosperity in your environment, including everything that money helped to make or do; all the money that you have in any form; and all the money that circulates in the world.

Success - Bless all signs of achievement and completion (such as buildings, bridges, and sports events); all arrivals at destinations (of ships, planes, trains, cars and people); all signs of forward movement or persistence; and all signs of enjoyment or fun.

Confidence - Bless all signs of confidence in people and animals; all signs of strength in people, animals and objects (including steel and concrete); all signs of stability (like mountains and tall trees); and all signs of purposeful power (including big machines, power lines).

Love and Friendship - Bless all signs of caring and nurturing, compassion and support; all harmonious relationships in nature and architecture; everything that is connected to or gently touching something else; all signs of cooperation, as in games or work; and all signs of laughter and fun.

Inner Peace - Bless all signs of quietness, calmness, tranquility, and serenity (such as quiet water or still air); all distant views (horizons, stars, the moon); all signs of beauty of sight, sound or touch; clear colors and shapes; the details of natural or made objects.

Spiritual Growth - Bless all signs of growth, development and change in Nature; the transitions of dawn and twilight; the movement of sun,moon, planets and stars; the flight of birds in the sky; and the movement of wind and sea.
The previous ideas are for guidance if you are not used to blessing, but don't be limited by them. Remember that any quality, characteristic or condition can be blessed (e.g., you can bless slender poles and slim animals to encourage weight loss), whether it has existed, presently exists, or exists so far in your imagine alone.
Personally I have used the power of blessing to heal my body, increase my income, develop many skills, create a deeply loving relationship with my wife and children, and to establish a worldwide network of peacemakers working with the aloha spirit. It's because it has worked so well for me that I want to share it with you.

How to Enhance Your Power to Bless
There is a technique practiced by Hawaiian shamans which enhances your power to bless by increasing your personal energy. It is a simple way of breathing that is also used for grounding, centering, meditation and healing. It requires no special place or posture, and may be done while moving or still, busy or resting, with eyes open or closed. In Hawaiian the technique is called pikopiko because piko means both the crown of the head and the navel.

The Technique

1. Become aware of your natural breathing (it might change on its own just because of your awareness, but that's okay).
2. Locate the crown of your head and your navel by awareness and/or touch.
3. Now, as you inhale put your attention on the crown of your head; and as you exhale put your attention on your navel. Keep breathing this way for as long as you like.
4. When you feel relaxed, centered, and/or energized, begin imagining that you are surrounded with an invisible cloud of light or an electro-magnetic field, and that your breathing increases the energy of this cloud or field.
5. As you bless, imagine that the object of your blessing is surrounded with some of the same energy that surrounds you.

Variations

a. Instead of crown and navel, shift attention from shoulder to shoulder or sky to earth.
b. To help focus the energy field, imagine it in color, as a tone or chord, or as a tingle.

For a free copy of this text in booklet form send a self-addressed stamped envelope to the address below. Donations are appreciated and tax-deductible. Aloha International, P.O. Box 665, Kilauea, HI 96754 tel-fax 808-828-0302

(Feel free to distribute this page in any manner,under the condition that it is not to be sold.)

THE ALOHA SPIRIT LAW

THE INTERSPIRITUAL AGE

2007-12-23T11:07:00.000-08:00

"We are at the dawn of a new consciousness, a radically fresh approach to our life as the human family in a fragile world. This birth into a new awareness, into a new set of historical circumstances, appears in a number of shift in our understanding.

1. The emergence of ecological awareness and sensitivity to the natural organic world, with an acknowledgement of the basic fragility of the earth.

2. A growing sense of the rights of other species.
3. A recognition of the interdependence of all domains of life and reality.
4. The ideal of abandoning a militant nationalism as a result of this tangible sense of our essential interdependence.
5. A deep, evolving experience of community between and among the religions through their individual members.
6. The growing receptivity to the inner treasures of the world's religions.
7. An openness to the cosmos, with the realization that the relationship between humans and the earth is part of the larger community of the universe"

The Mystic Heart, Wayne Teasdale