Not long now!

Hi everyone!

Just a quick few lines (if anyone is still listening!) to say I'm back on 4th October for a month. While I've been working hard on learning Thai (if I'd known how hard it was, I'd never have started!), I have been learning something of Buddhism.

In "The Celtic Alternative" written by Shirley Toulson, it says that early Celtic Christianity was similar to Buddhism. I can say that she was right in that Christianity is (compared to other faiths), but wrong in that early Celtic Christianity was any more so.

More to follow when I get back!

This blog is suspended until October... sorry!

Hi everyone! Just to say I am heading off overseas for three months on Thursday to learn how to teach English. Peter Mitchell will be taking the lead with the fellowship for now.

So do come back here in October when I'm back!

Gans pub bennath

Andy

Photo - me and John Lambourne on his Cornish lugger SS19 "Ripple". I can tell you, it's a hard slog sailing it!

Off to France AGAIN!?

Yes, I'm off to Brittany again for two weeks from this Sunday. As I'll be camping, I just hope the weather will be good! I enjoyed my French course in Brest (see photo above of my multi-national class) and now it's time to put it into practice.

More to follow if I can find a cyber cafe over there as I'm not taking the phone or the computer, just some books.

Luxury!

Newsletter 45 - May 2011

Dear friends

Sorry if I have been off the air a while with regard to newsletters, but there’s not been much to report. I don’t believe in emailing just for the sake of it! There are a number of things to share…

My movements I am taking a gap year and so I am handing over day to day running of CPS to my deputy, Peter Mitchell, with immediate effect. I am spending two weeks in May in Brittany networking and hope to go abroad to learn a foreign language during July, August and September. Peter lives in Truro and is very well connected, so this may result in new opportunities!

CPS Displays A fair amount of money has built up as a result of members’ subscriptions (PLEASE become a member!). I am getting two small display stands made which are suitable to be set up in churches etc with some leaflets to get us noticed. More to follow when they are made.

Celtic Spirituality Conference An important conference is taking place in Northumbria 11-15 July, hosted by the Bishop of Whitby, cost £298. It will have some experts in the field, and it would be great if someone could get to attend it. Ring 01482 562455 or see www.ukltg.com for details.

Goings on, down under…. I’m pleased to say that the bi-annual Cornish-Australian convention focused on the ‘Copper Triangle’ west of Adelaide will see CPS featured in workshops etc run by our two members there, Ted Curnow and Robin Pryor. Ted and his wife Beryl will be in Cornwall in August when we hope to welcome them.

Bewnans Kernow, CASPN, Diocesan Ecology Committee etc We have representatives on these august bodies, but maybe there are others we might send representatives to. Any ideas? How might we help? Networking is the name of the game – we are now involved, for example, with training Methodist and Anglican clergy who are coming to work in Cornwall.

The Bible in Cornish I have been assisting collect monies to help get the Bible in Cornish into print. I am glad to say there was a good response and it should be out in a few months with CPS as a sponsor. Might even get our logo in it with luck!

Oll an gwella

Andy

Photo: Me cutting my birthday cake today which says on it - Happy Birthday Andrew. Nearly a free man! (I'm a civilian on 1st June)

Our Breton connections.....

Do you think that saints in the Celtic tradition ended in 664 with defeat at the Council of Whitby? I hope not...

St Tugdual, as he later became known, was a French soldier who was captured by the Germans in the Second World War. By the time he was released, he only weighed 36 kilograms – about five stone. He then went to live in Nantes in Brittany where he joined the Celtic Orthodox Church, eventually becoming one of its priests. He soon became renowned in the church in Nantes for his holiness, but felt called to live a more solitary life as a hermit. He was given some swampy woodland not far away near St Dolay by a woman he had healed of blindness and decided to live a life of prayer there alone in 1955, building a tiny church where he could offer the mass and pray. He had no money or income, but local people brought him food until he died in 1968 when only 51 years old. Before he died, St Tugdual prophesied that prayer would continue at the site after his death, but it was to be unoccupied for nine long years. It was only then that three men, inspired by his holiness and example, decided to live the monastic life there and to found the Church of the Sacred Presence.

This new, much larger church (see photo) was built by these monks’ bare hands, local people providing the money for the materials and continuing to feed the monks as they had fed St Tudgual. (There are parallels here with Revd George McLeod’s rebuilding of the abbey on Iona using trainee ministers.) Like their founding saint, the monks there today have no income and are still totally reliant on the generosity of the local people. One of the original three monks is still there – the saintly Bishop Maël (left) - and the remains of St Tugdual are to be found in a shrine in the church. Directly outside its entrance is the well that supplied St Tugdual’s needs, it still providing the water for the monastery to this day as the monks choose to live without electricity or running water. I stay there now and then and visit the monks when I can to take them food and to learn from their example of faith. For they have given up everything to dedicate their whole lives to prayer.

Tugdual was deservedly made a saint by his church after he died, proving you don’t need to go all the way to Tibet to find and meet holy people – I know just the place in Brittany where you can find plenty of them, and maybe one modern day Celtic saint in Bishop Maël.

I'm heading back over to see him in mid May and to see the huge improvements that have been made since I was last there. It seems they were left some money. I hope to see if I can get to see Father Job Irien of Mihini Levenez - they have a website now but is all in French or Breton! The Celtic Orthodox Church has a site in English if you want to have a look at it - www.orthodoxie-celtique.net/index_english.html

AN URGENT APPEAL! the Bible in Cornish

I'm still in France until 9 April learning French, but I've just received this appeal for funds to typeset the newly translated Bible in Cornish. People need to get a cheque to me by early May to get their name in the book. It is in the same sort of Corish as our prayerbook.

The single most important factor in the establishment of modern written vernaculars in Europe was the publication of religious texts, for example, Queen Elizabeth’s Irish catechism (Dublin 1571), Foirceadul Aithghearr in Scottish Gaelic (Edinburgh 1652) and the Welsh Bible (1588). The publication of the Holy Bible has always been of crucial importance to any language, since a translation of the Bible is manifest proof that a language is worthy to express the word of God. Luther’s German version of the Bible (1534) and the English of the King James Version (1611) have both left an indelible mark on their respective languages.

We now ask you to subscribe to the publication of the first complete Bible in Cornish and thus to assist the Cornish revival. The book, published by Evertype of Co. Mayo in Ireland, is sponsored by Cowethas Peran Sans of Newlyn. An Beybel Sans is written in Standard Cornish.

The translator of the Bible is Professor Nicholas Williams, the foremost present-day translator of Cornish. The first draft of his translation was based on the original texts together with a collation of several other versions. Next the draft was reviewed by a number of competent Cornish speakers, whose comments helped improve the readability of the translation. Thereafter the translator searched the Middle and Late Cornish texts—miracle plays, homilies, and portions of scripture, to find all those passages where native Cornish renderings could be used in the translation. Such passages by speakers of traditional Cornish have been incorporated throughout the Cornish Bible, and add to its authenticity. Wherever possible, personal and geographical names are those attested in traditional Cornish.

We are now asking for contributions of £50.00 to £500.00 to help cover the costs of this project. All contributions will be gratefully acknowledged: the book will contain a list of subscribers (Rol An Ragprenoryon) for those who donate £50, and a list of benefactors (Rol an Vasoberoryon) for those who wish to donate more. Contributors will of course also receive a copy of the book.

The book will be set in two columns on pages measuring 130mm x 190mm (7" x 10") in a typeface suitable for easy reading. Maps of the Holy Land in Biblical times and St Paul’s journeys in the Mediterranean will accompany the text, with place-names given in Cornish.

We believe publication of the first Cornish Bible will be a very significant moment in the history of the Cornish language, and indeed will enhance the Christian tradition of the Celtic countries.

Contributions can be made by cheque in pounds sterling, payable to “Evertype” to Andy Phillips (Cowethas Peran Sans, 1 Orchard House, Orchard Place, Newlyn, Penzance, TR18 5BG), or in other currencies by cheque paid to “Evertype” (Cnoc Sceichín, Leac an Anfa, Cathair na Mart, Co. Mhaigh Eo, Éire). Subscriptions can also be made by PayPal to everson@evertype.com. Contributions should be received by Saturday 1st May 2011. Each contributor is requested to give his or her name (clearly written so that it may appear without error in the book) and his or her address (also clearly written, so that the Bible may arrive safely at its destination).

Michael Everson (Evertype, publisher)
Reverend Andrew Philips (Cowethas Peran Sans/Society of St Piran)

Lent is nearly upon us - HELP!

Lent is nearly upon us – the 40 day period of spiritual self-examination and self-denial Christians go through in preparation for the great festival of Easter. Forty days after easter comes Ascension Day when we recall how Jesus ascended into heaven.

The day before Ascension Day I become a civilian again on the first of June. I will have served as a chaplain in the armed forces since January 1992. I’ve served with the paras, Royal Marine commandos, the Guards, HMS Albion and was Chaplaincy Team Leader at RNAS Culdrose for three years until recently. I’ve just finished serving with navy harriers based at RAF Cottesmore in Rutland and am currently on resettlement leave in my home town of Newlyn. I’ve had a great time but it’s now time for a change and to move on to other things.

Change is not usually very easy, so we often avoid it if we can. Three drinking, smoking, gambling old age pensioners all decided they should give something up for Lent and arranged to meet on Ash Wednesday the first day of lent. The first arrived and sat there twitching as he’d just given up smoking. The second came in and turned a shade of green as he had vowed to give up the booze and was now surrounded by temptation. Then the third man turned up with a big smile on his face puffing a cigarette, straight from the betting office with a big wad of cash and ordered a double whisky. His two friends asked him what he’d given up for Lent. Hang gliding, he said.

Lent is all about seeking to choose to try and change ourselves and our lives for the better. Christians are called upon at this time to be seriously reflective and try to see and own up to their faults so they can do something about them. So stay with me this week as I consider the opportunity Lent offers people today for positive change and spiritual growth.