Psalm 104

"The birds nest beside the streams and sing among the branches of the trees"

As you read this I'll be flying back home from Ireland, having finished up teaching my class on Celtic Christianity. You'll see a few more posts about Celtic Christianity in the months to come.

As I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, the Celtic Christians had a very enchanted, sacramental view of nature. As a part of our class we spent a day at Glendalough and explored the legacy of St. Kevin.

St. Kevin was noteworthy for how he embraced animals and the natural world. There are many legends about St. Kevin and animals, but here is one of the more famous stories. It was common for the Celtic saints to pray with their arms outstretched, as if on a cross. One day, when praying this way, a mother blackbird landed on Kevin's arm and laid her egg. Not wanting to disturb the mother or egg, Kevin stayed in his position--about a month--until the egg could hatch and the baby leave the nest.

One of the points I make in Hunting Magic Eels is that people often overstate, usually to sell your something, just how distinctive the Celtic Christians were. But much of what we find in Ireland is found elsewhere in the tradition. The asceticism of the monks in the beehive cells on Skellig Michael explicitly imitated the Egyptian desert fathers. For every St. Brigid there is a Catherine of Siena, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, or Teresa of Ávila. And for every St. Kevin there is a St. Francis. For example, St. Francis' famous "Canticle of the Sun" displays a similar embrace of the natural world:

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor, and all blessings.

To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.

Praised be You, my Lord, with all your creatures;
especially Brother Sun, who is the day, and through whom You give us light.

And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
and bears a likeness to You, Most High One.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;
in heaven You formed them clear and precious and beautiful.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which You give sustenance to Your creatures.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom You light the night;
and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Praise and bless my Lord,
and give Him thanks,
and serve Him with great humility.
Amen.

That said, St. Kevin pre-dates St. Francis by 600 years. Even more, nature stories like St. Kevin's are common across all the Celtic saints. For example, where Francis tamed a wolf, St. Brigid tamed a fox on one occasion and a wild boar on another. St. Kevin wasn't a solo act. The entire crew of Celtic saints displayed a resonance with nature. And again, all this was six centuries before St. Francis.

All that to say, while we can overstate the distinctiveness of the Celtic Christians, there was something unique about how they experienced God in nature. They were a gang of St. Francises, six hundred years before Francis. Which brings me to Psalm 104.

Psalm 104 is a hymn of praise for God's ordering and care of creation. A sampling of the song:

You make springs pour water into the ravines,
so streams gush down from the mountains.
They provide water for all the animals,
and the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds nest beside the streams
and sing among the branches of the trees.
You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home,
and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor.
You cause grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for people to use.
You allow them to produce food from the earth—
wine to make them glad,
olive oil to soothe their skin,
and bread to give them strength.
The trees of the Lord are well cared for—
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
There the birds make their nests,
and the storks make their homes in the cypresses.
High in the mountains live the wild goats,
and the rocks form a refuge for the hyraxes.

You made the moon to mark the seasons,
and the sun knows when to set.
You send the darkness, and it becomes night,
when all the forest animals prowl about.
Then the young lions roar for their prey,
stalking the food provided by God.
At dawn they slink back
into their dens to rest.
Then people go off to their work,
where they labor until evening.

O Lord, what a variety of things you have made!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.

St. Kevin and St. Francis couldn't have said it any better.