A Modern Knighthood

Members of the Blue Pilgrim Knighthood are on the island. I am asked to wriite a message for their newsletter This is it.

A Message from Wise Guardian to The Blue Pilgrims Knighthood October 2007

Since I shared your retreat at Offchurch a few years * ago we have not been in touch. Life is full of this and that , and our devotion to Divine Simplicity surely means that we must focus on the Present Moment, rather than vainly strive to be in touch with everyone all the time. Nevertheless, you have always remained in my heart. Some might say that your regular recourse to Tennyson and his Arthurian myths makes you dated, or irrelevant. I disagree. I believe, with you, that our emerging society cries out for truths and values that those myths keep alive.

Since I was with you I have written a novel (as yet unpublished) and visited Canada. In the novel Saint Aidan, the Peoples? Saint, is stationed by his Iona monastery at the royal stronghold of Dunadd, where Saint Columba anointed Dal Riata?s first king. That Christian King became a monk and so delegated his leadership of battles to his son Arthur, who won many victories at twelve places between the two Roman walls, and made alliances with Christian Britons thatv reached into the south west. Legends were growing about the late Arthur while Aidan was there, and he broke through the mists of later misconception. He found out, for example, that the Round Table is a knot of rock in front of what is now Stirling Castle. The novel is called ?The Lost Gospel?, for Aidan also takes a Gospel to Syria, and meets a follower of the Prophet Mohammed.

In Canada the Chief of Staff of the main Opposition Party, on hearing of a grass roots movement of people living out noble ideals, said ?We politicians must tap into this.? My host eschewed high office in politics, and has set aside his executive business position, because he wants to enable others to live out their highest ideals, rather than be dragged down by ego-centred agendas he is deputed to deliver. He, and others, have a vision of creating a ?Celtic Christian Village? in woodland. That is, a circle of simple, wooden dwellings where people of faith may gather for a day or a week to seek the ways of Christ for their profession and their land. What could be a greater calling than to see businesses where a person?s word is their bond, and where good, not profit, is the primary goal. To rally the forces of good. To create a ?cabinet of conscience? of the noble and wise from every walk of life. To re-establish courtesy in relationships and honour in love. To appoint Christ as the Leader of the Land?

Now I am down to earth on this little island and you are down to earth where you are. And each thing we do, each greeting we make, is grist in the hands of the Christ who is God come down to earth. This, therefore, is also my Christmas wish for us all.

Wise Guardian.

I came to the retreat under my birth name, Ray Simpson. When Undaunted asked me about adopting a Kinghthood name I explained that on the very day I discoverd that my first name, Raymond, meant Wise Guardian, my Community of Aidan and Hilda asked me to be its Guardian.