“I arise facing East,
I am asking toward the light;
I am asking that my day
Shall be beautiful with light.
I am asking that the place
Where my feet are shall be light,
That as far as I can see
I shall follow it aright.
I am asking for the courage
to go forward through the shadow,
I am asking toward the light.”
~Mary Austin

After two planes, a couple of delays, and a long bus ride, our group of pilgrims to sacred places in Scotland awoke this morning refreshed and ready to begin a journey we had anticipated for some time. Mist shrouded the streets and voices carried an unfamiliar, yet pleasant, lilt. As we gathered for morning worship, we shared the words of poet Mary Austin. “I am asking toward the light.”

We took our worship-filled selves toward the village of Lindisfarne, situated in the Midlands of England, just shy of the Scottish countryside, and known as Holy Island. Pilgrims have traveled there for centuries, waiting for the tide to recede so they can make their way to the Lindisfarne Priory to offer their deepest prayers. This village that becomes an island daily was home to two named saints…Aidan and Cuthbert… and undoubtedly more unnamed ones. These holy men held space for rich and poor and welcomed those who searched with their very lives to be closer to God. Depending on the weather, this landscape can be breathtakingly beautiful or horribly harsh. I imagine that has always been so and yet people still stream there every day filled with curiosity or hope and a deep longing. I would venture to say our group of pilgrims fit this description. I have yet to hear their stories of their experience today so I don’t yet know.

All I do know is my own experience. I marveled at the devotion and commitment of those early men and women of faith who made this place their home. The work of welcoming those with a hunger for faith can be difficult and frustrating and confusing. It is easy to believe the work is about something you must do. But all that can really be done is to hold the space, to create a container in which those seekers can do their own work, breathe their own prayers, open their own hearts to the Spirit which is always present but often elusive or seemingly invisible. I like to imagine this is what Cuthbert and Aidan did amongst the lush green grasses and intricately carved stone walls of the priory. They put out the welcome mat and let God do the rest. There is probably an important lesson there.

Those they gathered around them, artists and lovers of the scriptures, did their part. They took the words of the gospels and used syllable and image to tell the stories of Jesus so all could ‘hear’. Using paints gleaned from the minerals of earth, they formed pictures and designs…swirls and circles and spirals…to illuminate the words they held dear. Known as the Lindisfarne Gospels these manuscripts are beautiful and inspiring works of art. They represent a welcome mat for those who could not read but were doing their own ‘asking toward the light.’

Each of our pilgrims today took their own brand of asking to this place, a place that has known the feet of seekers for over 1500 years. The very stones under our shoes had stories to tell and today we added our own. We walked through whatever shadows may be holding us and left a footprint that mingles now with the on-going story of faith begun so many years ago. The tide goes out and comes in again. The village is accessible and then it isn’t. But the asking toward the light…and the Light…continues endlessly.
And so it goes.