18 Comments

It was such a pleasure to chat with you! Thanks for being such a gracious interviewer!

Expand full comment

Thank you for being such a fascinating subject, that makes interviewing easy. I'm just upset we couldn't talk about our dogs in-depth (they warrant their own section).

Expand full comment

Hey, don’t tell everyone about Celtic Christianity: they’ll all want in on it! ☘️

Expand full comment

Too late. Like all things Christian (and Irish), it can't be contained.

But I hadn't realized you were also a fan. When did that happen?

Expand full comment

😂 If you’ll pardon the Beckettian response: around the time of my conception.

Expand full comment

No need, now nor ever, to pardon a Beckettian response!

Expand full comment

Seriously, though, I read John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara in my early twenties and (apart from the Hegelian aspects which were a bit of a ball ache) it expressed a lot of what I was then unable to articulate about the profound Celtic expression of Christianity embedded in but also strangled by retrograde versions of Irish Catholicism that I’d experienced. Bit of moment on my journey of faith!

Expand full comment

Interesting that O'Donohue came up for you like he did for S.E. Most of my own experience of Irish Christianity is mostly that retrograde Catholicism and the people I know who've rejected it.

What does O'Donohue articulate about the Celtic expression of the faith?

Expand full comment

Well, it’s probably better expressed in Heaney, really, but a love of... soil and kin, light and endless colour, the sounds of fresh water and driving wind, healing and nourishing crops and wild flora, dog and horse; the spiritual presence of ancestors that haunt heart and memory, the many souls of nature itself, the sacredness of imagination; the darker brooding of the soul and the many superstitions that lead to blood sacrifice and grudge vengeance; the shape of the land that will never not be home, the call of mountain, river, dell and most of all the sea; good company, strong liquor, music, prayer and poetic song, kindness and courtesy, visceral loyalty, appropriate humility, an almost reckless courage, a ready wit, the power of word, a keen eye, and the soul’s crown - a good sense of humour.

Of course, I imagine lot of this is also due to Christianisation but, as said, it’s a crying shame that the crappy uncatholic Catholic thing did so much damage and was so prevalent. Who wouldn’t want to reject it!

I loved your reading of Neruda, by the way. If you’ve a Spanish background, I guess you’ll have a good handle on what I’m grasping at here...

Expand full comment

That is plenty to articulate, and Heaney fits the bill in certain lines.

Thanks for the Neruda catch. Your list certainly fits his poetry also, though in Spanish it sounds all the more immediate (to me, a linguistic tourist).

Expand full comment

Great interview. I love the reference to "resurrection eggs." We used those with our kids.

Expand full comment

Thanks! That's one of those details that's curious but widespread in American churches, it seems.

Expand full comment

I have so many thoughts on this interview--I will probably reread it many times! So much resonated with me, and then there were other things that were like a quiet dawning within. So great “getting to know” S.E. better (and I love her even more knowing that she loved The Last Unicorn, too)!

Expand full comment

Getting to know her was the whole point, glad to hear you felt that happening!

Expand full comment

How many journeys have started with Tolkien!

Expand full comment

Great interview. So much to think about.

Expand full comment

Thanks, Dale! That is all due to Sally—she gives more than enough to think about.

Expand full comment

I was amazed to see that she also had a Christian Substack.

Expand full comment
Error