Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

excerpt

Sancti Spiritus landed with an extra splash on the bowed head of the mumbling
boy-monk, Brother Rordan.
The Brothers intoned the “Amen” and Father Abbán, after waiting for Finten to
be safely seated and secured, pushed the currach out into the oncoming swell, and
raised his hands in a final blessing.
A fresh breeze billowed out the sail. After several silent minutes, the craft picked
up speed. Finten turned to Rordan and whispered, loud and intense enough to be
heard by all the Brothers above the slapping of sail and waves, “My dear boy, you
have been with me a full summer. Have we suffered more than our share of discomforts?
This good hermit priest has lived the year in solitary prayer and fasting here
on this tiny island. Surely you, with your supposed gift of healing, can look after him
with the same love he has given all of us. Was he not your Director of Novices just
last year? I am ashamed that a Brother in my care could be so thoughtless. Perhaps
you would do well, my dear Brother, to spend more time in prayer and less in writing
your infernal poems.” Finten’s anger mounted to the point that he shouted the
last eight words.
Rordan squirmed in his embarrassment. He looked grudgingly toward the old
hermit.
Father Finten managed a slight smile toward the young Brother’s turned head.
Then he looked around at each of his charges. There was Brother Lorcan who
made up for his lack of size with incredible boldness. Although only fifteen, he
once broke the nose of a fellow novice for calling him “midget”. Nobody dared ask
him why he was totally without hair. Brother Keallach, on the other hand, sported
an abundance of curly, red hair and a few scraggly whiskers. At sixteen years and
four-foot eight-inches, Keallach was taller than his peers and ever ready to take
another Brother’s load.
Brother Laoghaire was a powerful lad with a shaved head, which gave him the air
of a wrestler when seen bare chested. Yet it was his nose that had been dislocated by
four-foot-two Brother Lorcan. Now the two of them were the closest of friends even
though personal friendships were frowned on in religious life.
Brother Ailan, almost eighteen, was short, chubby and jovial. Ailan had the ability
to prepare good food even under the most trying circumstances. Then there was
Rordan, youngest of all the Brothers, just turned fourteen. He had been mercilessly
teased in the novitiate for his thinness. When he told his Director of Novices that the
name Rordan came from Rioghbhardán, meaning “Little Poet-King”, Father Gofraidh
forbade him to write any further poetry and ordered the young novice to burn
what he had already written. The gift of writing was to be used solely for copying
sacred texts and Rordan would have been assigned to that task in the monastery, had
it not been for his clumsiness with the ink pots.
Father Finten turned his attention back to the trip ahead and announced “With
God’s good wind, we should be within sight of land all the way south to Rathlin. We
will be home by nightfall.” He ignored the giant storm clouds gathering to the west.
Between storm and Vikings, he preferred to put his trust in God and His Blessed
Mother, Mary. “Dear Lord, guide us safely home, that our dear Brother, Father Gofraidh,
might go to you in peace.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763106

The Unquiet Land

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short, towy hair was the village gourmand, Ignatius Sweeney. The second had black hair sleeked down with brilliantine. He was young, a couple of years past twenty, and the priest had to think for a moment before recognising him as Clifford Hamilton, son of the late landowner, Arthur Hamilton.
So you’ve joined Finn MacLir’s carousers, you stupid young fool, the priest thought with shaking head. Is this where your ambitious nature has led you?
Over in a corner, half hidden by an armchair, another young man lay with his thin, pale face in a pool of vomit.
Oh no, not you as well, Liam Dooley. The priest looked at Liam with such sad disappointment that he seemed about to weep. Why, Liam? Why? This is no place for a quiet lad like you. Is this the kind of behaviour you learned in London?
The priest placed the lamp and his half-eaten bap on a table, knelt down and moved the young man away from the smelly mess. Liam groaned in his drunken sleep but did not waken. The priest pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sickly face.
I expected so much more from you than this, Liam Dooley. Are you still competing with Clifford Hamilton when there’s no need for you to do anything of the sort?
The priest stood up stiffly and lifted the lamp. He left the remains of the bap on the table and retreated to the hall. Then he climbed the stairs. His ankle throbbed. His knees and back ached. He was a young man, but his long journey and the last five miles that he walked through sleety rain had wearied him. He felt closer to fifty than to thirty. And he looked older. The hollow, ascetic cheeks; the sallow skin; the sunken, wild, distracted eyes: these belonged to a man whom time had ravaged.
“Time stole two years from me,” the priest used to say, “for every one it stole from others.”
At the top of the stairs an old, grey sea-trunk stood on the landing. On the wall above it hung an oil-painting of a trim, three-masted clipper running under a panoply of topgallant, royal sails, skysails and moonrakers. The priest held the lamp high to see again the picture he had loved to study as a boy. How many times had his imagination raced him to Australia on that swift craft?
“That’s the Gypsy Lady,” Finn had told him once. “She was built in Boston the year I was born. And I saw her to her grave in the year I became a man.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Arrows

excerpt

“So long as the wounded are not killed and no unnecessary
cruelties are committed.”
“I will say what is necessary!” he bellowed.
“Of course, but killing the wounded is not necessary.”
“Not as unnecessary as you might think,” he said in a more
conciliatory tone. “Our wounded will meet a horrible death at the
hands of the enemy, who may take them back and eat them alive or
torture them until they die. Would you like that? And we need all
the gold we can find. Cities cost money, and we will only succeed if
we can generate enough interest from the Crown. If we achieve that,
I am sure we will have a church and a Franciscan monastery in a
short time. I will personally see to that. You take care of the souls,
Friar Salvador, let me take care of the war.”
I nodded and stood up. I felt as if I had just yielded to the killing of
the helpless in order to preserve my own security. Any church I
might ever have in San Francisco, or anywhere else in this new land,
would be built on theft from the dead bodies.
I felt even more unclean.

The river Guaire curved softly to the east, between hills of green.
Palms and bamboo grew in the rich soil. I stood awhile, drawing
peace from the sight and the purling of the river. I prayed, searching
for solace. I filled my chest with fresh air and held it, stretching my
arms wide, then releasing it through pursed lips. I liked Psalm 63
and sang it under my breath:
“O God thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee,
my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is . . .”
Looking about to make sure there was no one near, I undressed
completely and waded into the water, minding the rocks and
pebbles in the riverbed and wincing as the water stung the many
scratches and cuts on my feet and ankles. I sat down, feeling rather
gloomy. Cold water rushed over me, washing the taxing events out
of my mind.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Arrows

Excerpt

“Come on, you can go now,” I told the child, wiggling my fingers
and managing a smile. I tried to go on with the cleaning, but Pánfilo
pushed the child away with his boot. The boy fell on his hands and
knees but recovered swiftly and disappeared.
I looked up at Pánfilo as he looked down his nose at me. Many
Indians were watching.
“You have a problem, Father?” he asked.
“Other than the hundred-odd savages readying to attack us? No,
my friend, do you?”
“Do you have something against the Indians learning to work?”
“‘The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and
the good.’ Our Lord washed the feet of his apostles. Would you let
me clean your boots?”
“Clean someone else’s.” he sneered. “Didn’t you see those bones
yesterday?”
“What bones?”
“The bones of a previous expedition. You didn’t see them?”
“I’m positively glad to tell you that, no, I did not.”
“The bones of horses. With the bones of men. They were careless.
You only had to look at those bones to know there is only one thing
these savages understand, and that is the iron of a sword. Or the
rock of a bullet. That is the only way they can be taught respect!”
Pánfilo glared at his audience, daring anyone to challenge his
authority. They all looked away, in deference, except Tamanoa who,
unlike the others who had averted their eyes, looked at Pánfilo
defiantly.
Affronted by Tamanoa’s steady gaze, Pánfilo thwacked him on
the chest and sent him flying. But that wasn’t enough. Knowing he
had an audience, Pánfilo planted his feet astride of Tamanoa and
unsheathed his dagger.
I yelled, fearing the worst. But I was not quick enough to
intervene. I cried out as Pánfilo swiftly cut off Tamanoa’s nose.
Blood spurted everywhere, covering Tamanoa’s face, but Pánfilo
would not let him up. He laughed.
“What have you done? You devil! What have you done!”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

Excerpt

of Nunavut again, and then told a tale called “The Story of Nunavut”. The
word means our land she said but it also means more. Nunavut means
our land and all that it encompasses – including all of the stories from
the beginning.
Nunavut was a creation story of the people and the animals. It was
the story of how the people lived in the old days and about the good and
evil spirits and monsters. It was the story of how the Kablunat came and
brought good things like tools and rifles, and bad things like the diseases
that killed the people – and that were still devastating the population. The
story told how some people who were ill were taken to hospitals in the
south. Some, who were deemed criminals by the Kablunat, were sent to
jails in the south. Others were sent to places much further north, where
the hunting was bad, and they starved to death. All of this took place for
reasons only the Kablunat could fathom.
There was no anger in the story. At its core, was a shouldering of all
responsibility. The Inuit believed that they had done something evil to
bring about this fate.
The old woman’s story ended with provocative questions about the
future. How could the Inuit show the Kablunat that they were human
beings with valuable ideas and ways? How could they help the Kablunaut
regard them as equals? How could they win the Kablunat’s respect?
The longer she spoke, the more beautifully her ancient wrinkled face
glowed in the soft light of the seal oil lamps. Ken had met people who
were considered illustrious by Western society, but sitting and listening,
spellbound, in that igloo he was sure that he was in the presence of true
greatness.
She concluded her story by saying, “Perhaps, it would be a good idea if
we could have Isumataq.”
John translated. “Isumataq means many things. “It can mean very big
or it can mean the boss, but if you put all the meanings together, the big
one is, ‘an object or a person in whose presence wisdom might reveal
itself.’”
This electrified me. This went very deep inside: the idea that wisdom was
not something that one had, that wisdom was something that existed and
one must allow it to show itself as opposed to having ego involved. That I am
wise and I am great? No. Wisdom is great, and it must show itself, but it can
only do so if one is prepared to allow that to happen. How interesting. Here
was a thinking that had occurred before with the peoples who lived in the
deserts of the east. A sky god had been invented and he would only reveal
himself through you; he wasn’t something that simply existed. It was your
behaviour and your way that allowed that god to exist. That god could be
good or evil but that was dependent on your behaviour. That way of thinking
eventually became written down as the Old Testament.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573