The Monks of St. Columba

By Israel Nelson

St. Columba Abbey exists only in the imagination its author, the Reverend Israel James Douglas Nelson. The Abbey is populated by eccentric monks who follow the Rule of St. Benedict, squabble with one another, and are members of the Church of Scotland. These stories tell how they live out their monastic lives on the island of North Uist, pestered by cabbage-loving seals and idiosyncratic guests, including the Queen herself.

As far as Israel Nelson knows, there is no Church of Scotland monastic community that follows the Rule of St. Benedict. He doubts if there is any such place on North Uist, an island in the Hebrides that does exist. He chose to locate his imaginary community on North Uist because few people have ever heard of it, especially Americans. He is somewhat familiar with the Church of Scotland, the mother church of the Presbyterian Church (USA), of which he has been Teaching Elder member for more than 50 years. He's also familiar with the Rule of St. Benedict, as an occasional guest in Cistercian houses where that rule dominates. So, come along and meet the monks who share a common life following the Benedictine rule and honoring the founder of the Christian faith in Scotland, St. Columba of Iona.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667897646

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Preface

As far as I know, there is no Church of Scotland monastic community that follows the Rule of St. Benedict. I doubt if there is any such place on North Uist, an island in the Hebrides that does exist. I chose to locate my imaginary community on North Uist because few people have ever heard of it, especially Americans. I am somewhat familiar with the Church of Scotland, the mother church of the Presbyterian Church (USA) of which I am a teaching elder member for more than 50 years. I am also somewhat familiar with the Rule of St. Benedict because I have been a guest in Cistercian houses where that rule dominates. So come along with me and meet the monks who share a common life following the Benedictine rule and honoring the founder of the Christian faith in Scotland, St. Columba of Iona. Oh, yes, I have been an Associate Member (now a full Member) of the Iona Community for many years. Iona Community is real, a part of the Church of Scotland, and based on the island of Iona in the Hebrides. We are a community devoted to justice for all people, engaging in efforts to promote world peace and establish life-sustaining economies that support ecologically sound practices in all cultures.

There is an urban legend that the American humorist, Garrison Keillor, spent a season on North Uist teaching the Stated Clerk how to write accounts of daily life in the Abbey. But that is only a legend. Any resemblance, then, to Lake Woebegone in Minnesota is purely coincidental, but there have been some quiet weeks at St. Columba’s Abbey…

John Scottus serves as Abbot of the Monastery. A studious man, he is noted for his soft-spoken nature and his efforts to always put a good face on what he advises. He is rarely critical in a negative way and almost never loses his temper. He is a scholar who is well acquainted with Celtic spirituality and a leading world authority on Celtic Christianity. He is also the Abbey musician, leading the monks in the music of the Offices from the console of the organ. As Abbot this year, he is also responsible for presiding at the worship services and usually delivers the homily.

Brother Patrick is the Abbey cook. He has been at the Abbey longer than any other monk and he served in a variety of roles before becoming cook. Before his conversion, he served a prison sentence for fraud and lived on the streets of Glasgow where he sometimes worked as a longshoreman, but he can no longer work on the docks because of his age. He is bigger than any of the other monks—tall and burly. He has worked very hard at cleaning up his vocabulary so that he rarely utters any curse words even when very angry about criticism of his cooking. The only reason he accepted the position of cook is because he planned to rely upon the skills of his sister, a famous chef, Laura McCormick, who regularly demonstrates cooking on the tele. Unfortunately, he does not contact her very often and tries hard to make it on his own. He accepted the cooking assignment when he could no longer work in the monastery fields due to his deteriorating spinal condition.

Brother Aidan is the gardener. Prior to joining the monastic community, he was a banker in Edinburgh. He retired from banking after the death of his life partner, John. He always enjoyed gardening and so was excited to accept the post of Gardener for the community. He chooses vegetables to enhance the diet of the monks since he is aware that few of them ever think about their nutrition. He also continues to exercise to keep his handsome physique in good shape. Even though much of his adult life was spent in Edinburgh, he is originally from Llanfairpwllgwyngvligogervchwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogogoch on the island of Anglesey in Wales, where he spoke Welsh Gaelic. When riled, he can deliver insults in his native tongue, but they take a long time to deliver and no one is ever really quite sure what he has said. His use of English retains some of the Welsh propensity to use the most syllables available to say the simplest things.

Brother Angus is the Porter. He is from another of the Hebridean islands, Mull, where he grew up speaking Scots Gaelic and living on a sheep farm. He is small in stature, but muscular from all the sheep wrangling done in his youth. He is fastidious about his person, an important distinction given that there is another monk in the household who also has the name of Angus. It could be said that he is ethnocentric: Scots visitors are given the best treatment, then English visitors, and finally Irish visitors—but only Irish visitors from Northern Ireland. Rebel Irish are merely tolerated. Americans are despised and receive the least favorable treatment. The Abbot has been working with him to improve his hospitality—especially toward Americans, since they bring the most money to the Abbey. There have been improvements, but Angus has a long way to go in his care of American visitors. He also tends to despise Welsh people—thus some of the friction between him and Aidan.

Brother John Angus is the only hermit attached to the Abbey—and well he should be! He is a sheep herder who found his way to the Abbey when he determined that he wanted to live a more spiritual life. He is a native of North Uist and his initial herd of sheep was derived from his family’s herd. Because he has lived alone in a herder’s wagon most of his adult life, he is not aware of how the herd’s collective odor follows him wherever he goes. A half-hour in his presence is about all most people can tolerate. This perforating presence distinguishes him from the other monk named Angus. He is gruff in manner as might be expected from someone of his profession, so his language is not always the language of a committed churchman. Although a loner, he is affable when meeting with others. He speaks somewhat loudly owing to his diminished hearing. He possesses a wonderful bass voice that can be urged into melodic delivery with the right coaching.

Brother Brendan is scholarly and a natural teacher. When he came to the Abbey, he was assigned the task of developing a school program the Abbey could offer the community—because there had been great difficulty in retaining teachers for the public school. Brendan believes in the freedom of young people to explore the world as an essential part of their learning process, so he is somewhat short on delivery of discipline to his students. As a result, it is not always clear who is running the school program: Brendan or the students. The school operates in a building next door to the Abbey, so the rowdiness of the students does not interfere too much with the regular activities of the Abbey. Some students have poor attendance due to their frequent visits to the beach, a result of the lax discipline. They can often be found tormenting the selkies (seals) down at the ocean.

Dugald, the Dark Stranger, strolled into the chapel one day just in time for Eucharist. Accompanied by his faithful Border collie who lives to herd anything which moves, he helped Brother John Angus appreciate the value of frequent showering and taught the community to do a good deed daily for someone without getting caught. Having taught his lessons, he and the wonderful doggie continued their travels.

I am Brother George. I serve as the Clerk of Session. I came to the Abbey following my retirement from a history teaching career at Oxford.

Others will visit the Abbey and lend their particular gifts to the telling of stories: Laura McCormick (Brother Patrick’s sister), the old black robed Presbyters, Henry MacLennan, Robert Remington, Connor and Tulimak Ranald, and most auspiciously, Her Majesty the Queen. These stories are presented with the great hope that the reader will be inspired to accept human foibles and explore spiritual truths.

St. Columba’s Abbey

This week in May it has been rather hot on North Uist: about 150 C. Though the wind has been blowing somewhat fierce, the sun has been out, and there has been little fog. All this good weather has encouraged the gorse to bloom and the garden to put on a magnificent show of producing tempting vegetation: neeps and cabbages and carrots.

This is why Brother Aidan, the Gardener, has been so upset. You see, the abbey of St. Columba is very close to the sea, bordered on the north by rocks where selkies* draw out of the water to sun themselves. Some of them waddled down into the garden and made beds of the cabbages and neeps. Brother Aidan had to chase them out of the garden several times—something that is always challenging, since the selkies weigh in excess of 15 stone. Their attitude is, We were here first. It’s our island. You boys have only been here since 800 AD. We will sun ourselves wherever we want.

So, when Brother Aidan came for mid-day prayers, he was steaming. That affected his singing: he was flat and loud! Abbot John Scottus had to ask him to stop singing because he was making the rest of us go off tune. The Abbot addressed himself to the chapter in Acts where Peter is advised to become more accepting toward gentiles. It was a pointed message aimed clearly at Brother Aidan. And that made things worse; Aidan knew who John Scottus was addressing. After the mid-day prayers, he expressed himself in his deepest Gaelic to the Abbot to let him know he did not appreciate being singled out. No one, he said, addressed sermons to Brother Patrick, the cook, who’s skill in the kitchen is often less than desirable. And what about Brother Angus, the Porter, also noted to be of bad temper especially when welcoming guests from the United States? Nor does Brother Brendan seem to have the best control of the rowdy students in the Abbey school. But he gets no tongue-lashing sermons!

After this confrontation, Brother Aidan retired to the garden to continue making repairs made necessary by the selkies. He re-planted some of the cabbages and neeps. Then he added another two rows of flat rocks to the rock wall around the garden. The heavy work helped him overcome his