martyrs but holy men and women) almost always lived part of their lives within the monastic community, within the circle of the monastery, but also had a place away, a dysert a desert place to which they retreated for hours or days or weeks or months after the model of the Egyptian Desert Fathers. They lived both in community amongst their fellow monastics with all the interpersonal stresses that necessarily entails, and away, in isolation, in the extreme austerity of a crude hermitage embraced by and embracing the natural world where God can whisper quietly and be heard. I understood why they did that, and how rewarding that would be.
Early in my stay I became aware that at the vigil in the abbey there was usually one other sitting near me in the nave of the chapel where we non-monks resided during the hours. A woman! Almost always there before me, she left very quickly after the last “Amen.” She was there only for vigil, very rarely for mass, no other hours. It was dusky in the chapel at the vigil hour, barely light enough to softly sing the psalms, so I could not make her out well. But she headed quickly out the nave door into the dark night, while I always went the other direction through the cloister and on into the guest quarters and my room to toss off a few more knots of sleep in the before-morning-cold. I had been there more than three weeks when one morning as I came in and made my way past the choir toward my accustomed place, she moved toward me and extended a note into my hand, retreating to her accustomed place. The abbot rapped; we began the vigil. I surreptitiously read my note. She was inviting me to tea! I scratched out a note of acceptance and as we passed in leaving I gave it to her. Not a word spoken. I cornered Gildas and asked about her. He was delighted that she had invited me; she had asked him about me, and was curious about my work. He gave me directions to her place. Turned out that Sr. Dolores was a solitary, had been a nun, an educator, for many years head administrator of a large school, but during her sabbatical had discerned that she was being called to become a solitary who lives alone, in minimal contact with others. She had had to leave her order, requiring a papal release, to live out this calling, and had been accorded this small cottage to live in by the abbot. Her story is too involved to tell you now; I only want you to understand that within an hour’s conversation I knew she was a person with whom I could safely confide my soul. I told her of that experience in the chapel of the ruins; and she confided to me that she had experienced presences on this island as well, in a specific place, on the path behind her cottage near the pathway to the chapel door. Gildas told me that he too sometimes experienced presences, on the path to the top of the hill, above the old ruins and near the top; and also where Sr. Dolores experienced them, and occasionally in other places. My experience was not crazy. It was not even odd!
I spoke of that night in the chapel of the ruins when I felt the presence(s), and shortly was given one, then a second prayer for my book. That happened to me twice more. After I had completed my stay at Caldey Abbey I crossed over to Ireland to deliberately seek out holy places there. (Ireland reputedly has more ruins per square inch than anywhere else in the world; a few of them HAVE to be holy.). My first stop was at Glendalough, the site of an ancient monastic city south of Dublin in the Wicklow Mountains, a particularly lovely area in the particularly lovely island of Ireland. Glendalough was founded by St. Kevin (Coemgen) in the sixth century and quickly became one of the more important schools and monastic cities in Ireland. Today it is one of the best preserved of the old monastic cities. But today it is badly infested with annoying clouds of tourists by the busload. Glendalough (“Glen of the two lakes”) is renowned as a holy place, but, infested with tourists, holy it is not. You have to be out early in the morning in order to have enough time before the busses arrive, or else late in the afternoon, after the busses have left. It took me the first of my two days there to learn that. So on the second day, out early but with my soul anticipating the horde of tourists, I found no thin places in the monastic city ruins that morning. Late morning, with a little food in my backpack for lunch, I made my way a mile and a half or so up the hill where I hoped the bussed-in tourists would not have time to come. I came to a small circle of stones on the hillside, supposedly the foundation of a hermit’s cell, traditionally thought of as the hermitage cell of St. Kevin himself. An almost complete circle of stones sunken into the ground. Perhaps a monk’s hermitage cell. Possibly even Kevin’s. It was on a lovely wooded hillside fairly high above the upper of the two loughs. The view was exquisite, almost breathtaking. If I’d been Kevin, I’d have chosen just this site. I mused a while, admiring the views in several directions. And then I carefully selected a stone to perch upon where I could gaze at the lough and slip into my listening-prayer, the very thing Kevin might have done. I was not too long in silence when suddenly once again I was compelled to dig into my backpack for a pencil stub and paper scrap and scribble out the words that came, not from my head but through my fingers. There on the paper was another prayer I’d needed, though I hadn’t been particularly troubling over it. As I was scribbling a young man came climbing by. He paused and glanced at me, then climbed unspeaking on up the hill. As he came back down a little later he said hello but passed on. When I went down the hill I discovered him and his wife and baby picnicking at the bottom. I stopped and introduced myself; he was a just-published writer who had recognized what I was doing and did not want to interrupt. They shared their lunch with me, and I mine with them. A delightful time. Another gift of a prayer.
There was only one more time this happened to me, though I had offered myself to the opportunity many times. I was nearing the end of my sabbatical time. The moment when Nancy would join me for our reunion and vacation was looming, and my excitement with it. I was in the Burren, a unique area of limestone mountain-desert in County Clare, the west of Ireland. Nancy and I had been here on our honeymoon a decade before. Two places I was seeking, the small fishing village of Doolin, a hangout for local folk musicians, and Corcomroe Abbey. I cannot tell you much about that abbey. We had sought it out simply because it was in the Burren, and on the map. But it had turned out to have a particular draw for Nancy. It is an interesting ruin, particularly for the carvings of heads on every corbel and every other offered place (while the Celts had not been head-hunters, they did believe that the head was the seat of courage, and so usually a warrior kept the heads of brave enemies he’d taken, in hope that the courage would pass onto him), but Corcomroe had not spoken to me with any power. This day I sought it out anyhow, reason unknown. Maybe just filling time until . . . Maybe because it was Nancy’s place and I was drawing back toward her. Whatever! I was there. I walked about, trying to feel the place, but getting nothing in particular. The cemetery is still active. Eventually I sought out a cool place, sitting on the ground against the cemetery wall, just watching as the tombstones ruminated their cud. And suddenly, once again the pencil stub, the scrap of paper, the words tumbling out, and another prayer. Maybe it was just my unconscious mind. But by now I had grown leary of that too-easy rationalization. I felt that God had caught me once again, this time when I was not needing it, or seeking it. Just trying to show me She could do it at will, without my help.
I have tried many times in the years since then to open myself to that kind of experience again, but it has not happened. Maybe I just haven’t found the right thin places. But somehow I think that it was the spiritual discipline of a place and community like Caldey Abbey that put me in the right frame to be open to those experiences, and that without that discipline I cannot be so radically open to God. I’m just guessing. I only know that it doesn’t happen these days, or at least, hasn’t.
Loughcrew
I need to tell you about one more holy place. As I was making my way westward across Ireland near the end of my sabbatical time I stayed a couple of days at a B&B outside of Navan, northwest of Dublin. The operator was very friendly (as I found most Irish). She was curious what I was about, and after five weeks in a Cisterian monastery I’d talk to anybody about anything they’d listen to, so I told her, in some detail. (She had a curious practice of punctuating sentences with a sudden, sharp intake of air, almost a gasp. At first I thought she was surprised or shocked by something I’d said, or by something she’d seen over my shoulder. Eventually I realized it was just her habit of punctuation.) She was quite interested and said she might be able to help. It just happened (gasp) that she had been entrusted with the key to one of the locked chamber tombs at Loughcrew and I really should visit there. I looked it up on the map and it was doable, so I added it to the agenda. I drove out there next day, arriving at late morning, entrusted key in
