Good Sunday morning, Substack.

Celtic spirituality retreat concludes today. I’m not quite ready to return to the world, the headlines, the hand-wringing over polls.

We’ve been learning about various people in the Celtic tradition: Brigid of Kildare; Pelagius, who didn’t exactly say what Augustine claimed, or at least said much more of value than what Augustine finally got him excommunicated for, after multiple attempts. But we’ve also been listening for the divine—in one another, in nature, in ourselves—which the co-leader invites us to do with a hand over our hearts. That simple gesture has unlocked some long-dormant grief that I’m trying to make space for.

When I arrived at morning prayer yesterday, I sat in a random pew. Only later did I look up at the wall. Amid all the stations of the cross, scattered throughout the chapel, this was the one closest to me.

Image: the divine-human one and his mother, hand over heart.