The Turning of the Season

As we reach this weekend, the earth turns once again. The solstice marks a threshold, a moment of transition, of the earth tilting gently, once again, on its ancient and steady axis. The seasons turn without human permission or intervention. The natural world keeps its own sacred rhythm. These cosmic thresholds always invite me to pause. To remember that time moves in circles, not just in straight lines.

The church’s calendar turns too. We step now into what is called Ordinary Time. I’ve always found that phrase a little odd. There is nothing ordinary about the unfolding of life. The Celtic wisdom that has shaped so much of my reflection over this past year reminds me that every day is woven with the divine — in tree and bird, in sunrise and rainfall, in breath and heartbeat. Ordinary Time is not empty time. It is inhabited time. Sacred time marked by both cosmic rhythm and human story.

And today, the first Sunday of Ordinary Time, the lectionary brings the unsettling story of a person possessed by many demons (Luke 8:26-39).  Or perhaps more accurately, possessed by a system of forces so strong that when Jesus asks for a name, the answer is Legion — many, a multitude. The name evokes not just personal torment, but collective oppression.

In the story Jesus crosses a lake, encounters a person living among tombs, naked, shunned, chained, suffering, and brought healing. The person is restored, clothed, and in their right mind. The demons are driven out, but not into nothingness. Instead, they enter a herd of pigs, who then hurl themselves into the lake and drown.

I find it a strange and somewhat distasteful story. The cost of this healing disturbs me, especially in light of our recent retreat. The demons, driven out of the person, enter the large herd of pigs, who then rush down the steep bank into the lake and drown.

Of course, I don’t struggle with the healing itself — not with the liberation of one who was tormented and marginalized — but with the ease by which the lives of the animals are discarded, as though their worth is of no account. 

The swineherds’ loss, the drowning of creatures, these should not be read as incidental details but something to pause on and think about the impact. The earth community suffers collateral damage. This is not a minor point, perhaps. especially for those who joined in our year long reflection on Celtic Earth including the most recent session on Animal Kinship.  All creatures are part of the sacred web of life. There is an interconnectedness of all life. I want to think not just about the sacredness of humanity but of every creature. It is sad how quickly animal life is seen as expendable — even in our sacred texts.

I’ve read this story countless times, but I always stumble here. The ease with which the animals are cast aside.  A large herd are lost and drowned. The lives of these creatures treated as expendable. The non-human world is sacrificed for human restoration. It reminds me how easily the lives of creatures are dismissed. Also, I don’t want to forget the swineherds whose livelihood was destroyed. 

Will they receive harsh punishment from the owners of the pigs? Will they be forced to a life of poverty? Is there a hierarchy of humanity reflected in this story?

It troubles me. 

And, as if that is not enough to trouble me, as I linger with this passage, I am drawn to something else, again a theme I talked about at the retreat — the power of naming.

Naming holds power. Naming recognizes existence.  Women are left unnamed in so many Biblical stories. The texts allow men their names, their lineage, their voice but women are anonymous: the woman at the well, the hemorrhaging woman, the Syrophoenician woman, the woman caught in adultery. Their stories are told, but their names are lost. Their full humanity is veiled. Unnamed, unrecognized, invisible.

In the story the demon names Jesus, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Child of the Most High God?” There is power in naming. To name is to acknowledge existence. To name is to grant presence.

And Jesus asked the demon their name. This is a sharp contrast to the many silences around women’s names. A demon is worthy of a name, worthy of being asked for their name but the woman at the well wasn’t given that same recognition. Again, this is not minor.  It speaks to the centuries of silencing and marginalization of women’s voices and stories. The very act of naming becomes an act of recognition. And recognition is a step toward dignity.

As I step into this new season, as I enter Ordinary Time, I find myself holding all these layers together: the sacredness of every creature; the pain of those whose voices are silenced, the power of naming to restore visibility.

I want to let this story remind me to notice lives that are treated as disposable; to pay attention to those lives the stories overlook, both human and non-human and to join in the work of returning dignity, voice, and presence to all who have been made invisible.

(Photo: Our Evening visitor — June 2025)

Pentecost: A New Genesis

 

This weekend we come to the end of a journey—a year of reflection under the banner of “Celtic Earth.” Three retreats, each drawing us deeper into a spirituality that honours the earth, land, water, trees, mountains and finally animal kinship.

Today, we conclude that exploration as we arrive at Pentecost.

The day the Spirit came—not quietly or politely—but in wind and flame. A day when boundaries fell away, and people spoke across difference. A day when something wild and holy swept through a gathering and changed everything.

That phrase stood out to me as I pondered this was, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”

I have often read the verse and thought only of human flesh—young and old, women and men, enslaved and free. And, of course, that is true. But, in light of the retreat and our time spent exploring animal kinship, I now fine myself reading it differently — all flesh. All flesh must include fish and birds, insects and rodents, horses and dogs,. That’s much broader than we usually allow. If the Spirit was poured out on all flesh, then perhaps Pentecost wasn’t just a moment for humanity—it was a moment for the Earth.

The Celts spoke of the Holy Spirit as the Wild Goose — not the soft dove of with gentle coos — but a honking, flapping, messy, untamable bird. That image makes sense to me. Maybe the wind that filled the upper room wasn’t meant to be domestic, but to be wild and free.

The Spirit doesn’t simply comfort. It disrupts. It changes the way we speak, the way we listen, the way we live.

And hopefully it changes the way we relate to the other lives who share this Earth with us.

In our retreat sessions, we spoke of Francis and the Celtic saints—Brigid, Cuthbert, Kevin, Columba and Ita who related to animals not as symbols or resources, but as companions. Brother Wolf, Sister Dove, otters who warm a saint’s feet, blackbirds who nest in a monk’s outstretched hand. Each of these saints understood that creation was not beneath us but beside us.

I wonder, on Pentecost, when people began speaking in new languages, if the Spirit which was poured out on all flesh was also teaching the new language of creature kinship.  Maybe the Spirit is still doing that, still teaching the new language of the earth.

In Genesis, Adam names the animals. Sometimes naming can become possession and we’ve seen the damage that does — dominion, ownership, power and lack of caring.

In the Celtic tradition, to name is to honour. Not to control, but to bless. To speak a creature’s name with reverence is to acknowledge that it, too, bears the breath of God.

What if Pentecost is a new Genesis? A new breath sweeping the earth. A new naming born not of dominion, but of kinship.

I think the Spirit is still being poured out on all flesh. And the Earth still waits—not for us to dominate it, but for us to listen to the language of the more-than-human world., to speak rightly back to it, to live as kin with it and finding true communion in the companionship of all flesh.