On a warm June afternoon in the summer of 2024, I sat beneath the cross on St. Cuthbert’s Island with Psalm 27 open on my lap. I had come to meditate upon the fourth verse. “One thing I asked of the Lord, this I seek, to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in His temple.” As I read and re-read the passage the world seemed to pause for just a brief moment in time and I understood that the Psalmist’s prayer had become my prayer: I was sitting in the house of the Lord at that very moment. The prayer was not about some distant eschatological hope, rather, it was an invitation from the Immanent God who journeys with each of us throughout our lives. My eyes moved from sea to sky to birds to seals. The beauty of our Lord’s creation shimmered as the light reflected brightly from the waves that crashed upon the shore just below me. In that briefest of moments, reality shifted somehow, and I had become present to the mystery of life and its Creator. All the distractions and noise, both auditory and visual, faded into the background as I sat in God’s presence. There was an “at-homeness” about it.
Holy Island is a tidal island off the coast of Northumberland, UK and is only available to drive to via the causeway at low tide. St. Cuthbert’s Island, less than 200 meters from Holy Island, is accessible by foot at low tide. I had come for four weeks to study, pray, and meditate in silence, solitude, and stillness. In four short weeks I engaged with the Divine mystery in mind, body, and soul in ways that I believe all of humanity is invited to experience.
My days were filled with walking the beaches and stopping to gaze upon God’s creatures. Holy Island is the summer grounds of adolescent grey seals. I would often take along Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by John O’Donohue, an Irish mystic who died a few years ago. For me, that simple title captures the essence of mysticism. The work gets to the heart of what mystics are seeking and suggests that perhaps we are all mystics. O’Donohue writes, “The beauty of the earth is the first beauty. Millions of years before us the earth lived in wild elegance. Landscape is the first-born of creation. Sculpted with huge patience over millennia, landscape has enormous diversity of shape, presence and memory. There is poignancy in beholding the beauty of landscape: often it feels as though it has been waiting for centuries for the recognition of the human eye… How can we ever know the difference we make to the soul of the earth? Where the infinite stillness of the earth meets the passion of the human eye, invisible depths strain towards the mirror of the name.”¹ It was impossible for me to rest in these words even for a short time without coming to the full realization that humanity is not separate and distinct from creation, but is very much woven into its fabric. There is a certain peace to be found in realizing our lack of specialness.
YHWH said, “Be Still, and know that I am Lord.”² Stillness: the absence of frantic hurrying about, busyness, and the delusion of multi-tasking. Jesus went away from the crowds to pray — He did so in solitude and silence. One of the gifts of Holy Island was the time and space to sit with God and just listen. Taking that gift back home has proven to be difficult at times, but not impossible. For it is possible to find, as I have, in small, empty, and quiet corners that beckon us to enter. The call to be in relationship with the Divine is a call to all, not only a few. We need not, and most do not, experience the paranormal and miraculous such as visions and stigmata to live contemplative lives focused on always being in God’s presence. The practices I took with me to Holy Island, such as contemplative prayer and Lectio Divina, provided me with a foundation upon which to gently inquire and, perhaps most of all, listen to the still quiet voice. And I brought those practices home again, somehow transformed…new, yet not new.
I believe that Jesus welcomes an inquiring mind. He wants us to engage with the world, to wrestle with the tough questions, and encounter Him in all people. A friend of mine with whom I regularly share coffee often reminds me that at the heart of the Divine mystery is love. To love God and know that you are loved by God is a good place to begin and an even better place to end. In between, we are invited to behold the beauty of the world as the 19th century mystic St. Therese of Lisieux did. She is quoted as having said, “Far away on the horizon we could see the great mountains… The sight of these beauties made a deep impression on my thoughts; I felt as if I were already beginning to understand the greatness of God and the wonders of heaven far away on the horizon.” It is an invitation to participate in something bigger than ourselves and not to assume Lordship over it.
There are some who believe that Holy Island is a ‘thin’ place. That is, a place where the curtain between heaven and the world we inhabit is particularly translucent. It was one of many reasons why I came to that particular island for my retreat. I wondered if I, too, would experience its ‘thinness’. When I left four weeks later, I had come to understand that the ‘thinnest’ place of all is within each of us. The Divine mystery lives within every human being and the veil that separates that glory, from our smallness can be parted — if only briefly and seldomly. God invites us inward as much as he invites us out into the world. It is within our relationship with the Mystery, which we refer to as God, that we find the love to share with the world — the love that every mystic seeks.
One day I hope to return to Holy Island. For now, I will cherish the presence of God as I am able to… often stumbling along the way, but occasionally catching glimpses of a reality far beyond my own. And that is what my trying to lead a contemplative life has gifted me with: a relationship with the Mystery.
- O’Donohue, John. Beauty: The Invisible Grace, New York: Harper Collins, 2004, pp. 32-33
- Psalm 46:10
- https://laudatosimovement.org/news/10-saints-whose-care-for-creation-still-inspires-us-today/
