Returning Light by Robert L. Harris

Author:Robert L. Harris [Harris, Robert L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-10-01T17:00:00+00:00

A Spiritual City

Arrival at the pier may not provide much comfort: the wind can whip in from the north-east directly into the landing cove, haranguing those disembarking with gusts of spray. There is shelter to be found under a wooden canopy further along the road. This road was built in the 1820s and leads along the southern flank of the island to the lighthouse. Earlier men had to scale the heights directly overhead without any such shelter. Eventually, they erected a steep set of coursed stairways leading to the monastic platform, six hundred feet above.

No one really knows how the monastery and the steps evolved, how long it took, or what was the sequence of building. Tantalizing portions of wall remain: perched in a nook high above the landing or hidden in corners not usually in view. Eventually, intricate masonry came to support steep, crafted ladders of stone, snaking back and forth on steep and difficult terrain. Even by the main ascent, there stands a ruined cell upon a terrace clawing into the rock, standing only by compacted earth and vegetation.

It is not possible for us to say how each structure was designed to be used on the island. Yet something can be said about what was done here generally. The monks would have believed that all building was to spring from, and be informed by, an act of prayer: ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’

Irish monks knew the psalms by heart; they would have been regularly recited on the Skelligs. Exposed as these monks were, as removed from the shore, these lines must have challenged, haunted, and sustained their daily activities.

The island falls away below upon all sides once more. I stand on each step as upon a tiny platform, a foothold over the nothingness below, which falls more steeply away as I climb. On these same footholds, the psalms were daily intoned to the background of the crying gulls, resonating upon the empty air:

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.

Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion … the city of the great King.

God is known in her palaces for a refuge …

God will establish it for ever …

so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth …

Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof.

Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces …

He will be our guide even unto death.

These verses from Psalm 48 refer to a physical city, but also to a spiritual one. They refer to a protection recognized at the very extremes and limits of living. In building such a city, the placing of each stone became fundamental, critical. In one of the lives of the Desert Fathers, a story is told of monks being troubled at not finding proper direction for their work.

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