Hobble Creek Review
| Jim Krosschell |
ST. BENIGNUS
The church on the hill overlooking the sea is so small that there
could have been room only for the priest and his furs and holy
chalice. It’s called the Church of St. Benignus but it’s probably not a
church at all. The guidebook says it measures 3.2 meters by 2.1
meters and speculates it was his tomb shrine. I imagine the faithful
dragging and splitting and piling those stones in remembrance of a
humble man, the psalm-singer, the bishop of Ireland following
Patrick, the doer of good. It’s all they had to give, their sweat and
their prayers to God and the everlasting rock.
I think those measurements must be the outside dimensions; the
stone walls are thick, leaving only enough room for a bed or a coffin
or two or three penitents. The roof is gone. They could build walls
and doors of stone, but not a roof, the physics would have defeated
them. And fifteen hundred years have defeated any sheltering
boughs or beams or turf or tiles. That’s OK, for the wind should sing
the hymns, not us, and the sun should splinter pews, and the rain
mildew our velvet altars. Easter bonnets should blow away. Hot air
rises and disappears.
Theirs was a simple, brutal life: they groaned and cursed, keeled
over, gave up, got up again. They learned how to pray with their
bodies, to Cuchulain and Cromwell, St. Patrick and Yeats, Gerry
Adams. We sit among them on this beautiful day on Inishmore. We
watch a goat in a stone-ringed field, we eat bread and cheese on the
hilltop, the sound of surf pounds the shore and the temples, we long
for simple, back-breaking labor in a garden.
Down the hill a bit are the remains of a round tower and the outline
of a monastery. Cromwellians took the stone to build a fort on the
shore, I read. Big religion is good at that, turning plowshares into
swords; good at building big things to keep out the howling north
wind; good at praying in comfort, safe inside, in the mind. There is
no agony of the body, or should I say, the only agony of the body is
someone else’s agony – cutting off hands, the abuse in the sacristy,
sending young people to war. Everyone seems to have a personal,
direct-line relationship to God. Everyone is a Decider and the devil
is content: he can rest a little longer, religion is doing his work.
We get up from our lunch and walk once more around the shrine.
You can’t get in the doorway. It’s blocked by a rusting iron grating,
to keep out the midnight tokers, the fornicators, the island foxes, the
fallen away. We smile and say, “Right. Why break the habits of a
lifetime?” but as we return to the semblance of civilization now
fouling Inishmore – the tour buses, the supermarket – and the ferry
back to Doolin, we are quiet, looking at the low white cottages on the
shore and the bright green gardens that are fenced by rock pulled
each year from the earth, that are lovingly tended, that were created
from nothing but seaweed and heather and faith in the power of
nature. And then flying back to civilization: headlines blare,
presidents bray from pulpits, our days jangle like cheap jewelry.
Looking for faith, we won’t cross the threshold. We hold out for back-
breaking work in the garden of the mind.
The church on the hill overlooking the sea is so small that there
could have been room only for the priest and his furs and holy
chalice. It’s called the Church of St. Benignus but it’s probably not a
church at all. The guidebook says it measures 3.2 meters by 2.1
meters and speculates it was his tomb shrine. I imagine the faithful
dragging and splitting and piling those stones in remembrance of a
humble man, the psalm-singer, the bishop of Ireland following
Patrick, the doer of good. It’s all they had to give, their sweat and
their prayers to God and the everlasting rock.
I think those measurements must be the outside dimensions; the
stone walls are thick, leaving only enough room for a bed or a coffin
or two or three penitents. The roof is gone. They could build walls
and doors of stone, but not a roof, the physics would have defeated
them. And fifteen hundred years have defeated any sheltering
boughs or beams or turf or tiles. That’s OK, for the wind should sing
the hymns, not us, and the sun should splinter pews, and the rain
mildew our velvet altars. Easter bonnets should blow away. Hot air
rises and disappears.
Theirs was a simple, brutal life: they groaned and cursed, keeled
over, gave up, got up again. They learned how to pray with their
bodies, to Cuchulain and Cromwell, St. Patrick and Yeats, Gerry
Adams. We sit among them on this beautiful day on Inishmore. We
watch a goat in a stone-ringed field, we eat bread and cheese on the
hilltop, the sound of surf pounds the shore and the temples, we long
for simple, back-breaking labor in a garden.
Down the hill a bit are the remains of a round tower and the outline
of a monastery. Cromwellians took the stone to build a fort on the
shore, I read. Big religion is good at that, turning plowshares into
swords; good at building big things to keep out the howling north
wind; good at praying in comfort, safe inside, in the mind. There is
no agony of the body, or should I say, the only agony of the body is
someone else’s agony – cutting off hands, the abuse in the sacristy,
sending young people to war. Everyone seems to have a personal,
direct-line relationship to God. Everyone is a Decider and the devil
is content: he can rest a little longer, religion is doing his work.
We get up from our lunch and walk once more around the shrine.
You can’t get in the doorway. It’s blocked by a rusting iron grating,
to keep out the midnight tokers, the fornicators, the island foxes, the
fallen away. We smile and say, “Right. Why break the habits of a
lifetime?” but as we return to the semblance of civilization now
fouling Inishmore – the tour buses, the supermarket – and the ferry
back to Doolin, we are quiet, looking at the low white cottages on the
shore and the bright green gardens that are fenced by rock pulled
each year from the earth, that are lovingly tended, that were created
from nothing but seaweed and heather and faith in the power of
nature. And then flying back to civilization: headlines blare,
presidents bray from pulpits, our days jangle like cheap jewelry.
Looking for faith, we won’t cross the threshold. We hold out for back-
breaking work in the garden of the mind.
Jim Krosschell's essays have been published, or are forthcoming, in
Saranac Review, Contrary, Amarillo Bay, Cantaraville, Sangam, and
others.
Saranac Review, Contrary, Amarillo Bay, Cantaraville, Sangam, and
others.
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