A gift offered up to Jesus at Epiphany: “I want to bring Jesus my Best Self this year – the Who He would have me Be.”  

Dear Friends: 

Question:  Is Celtic Worship Celtic with a “k” sound or Celtic with an “s” sound? Celtic starts with a “k” sound (unless you’re talking about the basketball team.) Often, we are asked, “what is Celtic Worship”? I love to answer that question. Early Christians, living in regions of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the edges of England, living among God’s creation, tending to the hills and fields, the animals, the seas and the babbling brooks, found God in their daily endeavors throughout nature. God’s painted skies reached to comfort the green grasses as four legged creatures witnessed the glory of God’s earth from mountaintops to valleys low. Celts developed a unique language and a way of worship that touched the beauty of the earth as all came to know God as God beside, beneath, before and behind, in this world and the next. Today, we, as Epiphany, know this ancient worship through the contemplative, reflective, quiet Celtic Worship every first Sunday of each month at 5:30 p.m.

We arrive in the calm of the evening with the sun setting as the night sky hinges. The lights are low. Often, Melissa Woodhead invites us into the quiet with the playing of her harp. Jiji Park accompanies Melissa, usually on the piano. Worship is poetic, and rhythmic with a special emphasis on the tenderness of God in our every day woes and blessings. Somehow, Celtic worship provides space for us to ponder, “where is God?”

As a community, we sit with one another. We share in the reading of scripture to draw closer to God. We pray with one another as friends praying with Jesus, our companion along the way. Our words are not weighted with words we can’t comprehend. In the place of a sermon, a reflection is offered by an attendee. Usually the reflection is a story about where someone is with God in their life at the time. Meditative music follows the reflection for all to simply rest in the words that invite us into the spirit of God’s grace. Then, we’re renewed and fed by God’s most holy meal as we share in the The Lord’s Supper. We light candles as signs of hope and gratefulness for God’s transforming power in our lives. Throughout, we sing our favorite hymns: Seek Ye First, Be Thou My Vision, Just as I Am, and Amazing Grace, to name a few. Worship comes to a close with a blessing:

May the road rise to meet you,May the wind be always at your back,May the sun shine warm upon your face, May the rain fall soft upon your fields,And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.   

The sun sets and darkness fills the skies as we go out into the night sky. For many Celtic Worship is the fuel that gracefully, peacefully, gently fills our tanks for the days ahead. Or Celtic Worship is the drawing together of a community united in God’s grace and made free to go out into a world troubled by individualism and insecurity. Celtic Worship equips us to see together God’s world as God’s world, not our world.

Finally, Celtic Worship is always evolving, shifting in the continuing quest, “where is God?” Mark your calendars and come to Celtic Worship March 3 at 5:30 p.m. Come again April 7. Keep coming. Our prayer is, you will find God. 

This week, be safe as the weather encroaches. Or, as the Celts might pray…

 “Into a dark world, a snowdrop comes, a blessing of hope and peace, carrying within it a green heart, a symbol of God’s renewing love. Come to inhabit our darkness, Lord Christ, for dark and light are alike to you.”

See you on Sunday dear ones. 

Blessings,

Hillary