Islands: Prelude to the Holy

For me, there has always been an island.

Growing up, my family spent all our summers at a place in Pennsylvania where my grandparents owned a cabin onfthe Delaware River. On the maps it is identified as Shawnee Island, but to us it was simply, “The Island”. To reach it we had to go by boat across a narrow branch of the River known locally as “The Binnekill,” a Dutch word peculiar to the region and used to identify the smaller branch of a divided river.

Crossing a barrier with such an exotic name may have contributed to the enchantment which the Island cast over us, whether we were actually there or not.  Everything about our life there was different, starting with the outdoor toilet facility, and including the hand pump in the front yard. To preserve our food we put it in an Ice Box, for which blocks of ice had to be purchased in town and brought over by boat like everything else.

For many families, all that inconvenience might have been a bad thing, but for our family it worked exactly the opposite way. Every activity became an occasion to be celebrated, whether it was a fishing expedition or was going into town once a week to take a hot bath at our grandparents’ house. In those days we never went to church, but, looking back, it seems that the simpler life on the Island was almost like a proto-religious catechumenate that cleared our minds of distractions and opened our eyes to see the wonder in ordinary things.

It wasn’t only me. As I have often said and written, at the Island it was as if “things were as they should be, and people were at their best.”

It was at the Island that I first began to pray, although I knew neither God nor holy text of any sort. At age seven or eight, upon arrival at the Island I would run down the path through the woods shouting to the trees, “I’m back! I’m back!” I didn’t think of it as “prayer,” but I knew it was a strange thing to do. At night, the river whispered to me through the thin walls, reminding me of its flowing presence on every side.  For that to happen, it had to be an Island.

Those were happy times, the happiest we ever had as a family. At night, while the river flowed, the adults would converse softly between hands of bridge, like retreatants during the Greater Silence in a monastery. Their purpose was to keep from disturbing us, but there was little danger of that, because there was a porch-swing suspended from the ceiling that creaked and groaned with every movement, however slight. Far from disturbing, the creaking of that swing was one of the most reassuring sounds I have ever heard, and, in the silence of the night, I hear it still.

It was also at the Island that I learned to fear and respect the world. In 1955 there was a sudden flood, an unpredicted disaster that drowned hundreds of people and very nearly drowned us, had we not left the Island in a rowboat just as the river over-topped its banks, and only hours before our cabin was swept off its foundations and washed downstream to where it came to rest among some water birches. I was twelve, and for the first time felt the cold power of death surging around us, power my father could not tame with reasoned words, but only ride upon and desperately hope, like the boat he rowed across the Binnekill numerous times, rescuing stranded tourists from our soon-to-be-submerged Island.

Now I am poised, with Nancy my wife, to travel to another Island, this one with the overtly numinous name of “Holy Island.” It is far from Pennsylvania, off the northeast coast of England, surrounded by the North Sea. One does not have to take a boat to reach it, but must be prepared to drive across a causeway that is dry only at low tide. Once upon Holy Island, one must stay until the tide permits return.

What will we find there? I know there is a parish church, and the ruins of a long-abandoned monastery. There is a village with pubs and shops. And there is the North Sea, on every side. It was here in 635 C.E. that Celtic monks took refuge from Saxon invaders, and from here that they went back to the mainland to reintroduce Christian ways to their conquerors.

Will the North Sea whisper like the Delaware, and will the treeless landscape coach my prayers as did the Pennsylvania water birches?  Will there be some random, reassuring sound like the creaking of a rusty porch-swing? If, as I most sincerely hope, no life-threatening storm or flood arises to chasten us,  even so the wind and surf will, in league with the spirits of ancient Celtic monks, act in concert to humble us, and bring us to our knees.

Whatever else occurs, Holy Island will speak in one way or another, because, for me, there has always been an Island.