Saint Collen of Llangollen

I called these “black sheep stories” when talking to Jon Murphy about them earlier.The religious elements can turn some folks away while the fantastical elements tend to make some Christians uncomfortable. I’m fully aware of this.Other strikes against them: they aren’t the Bible, they offer up something else besides moral takeaways, and their purpose isn’t as clear as a bulleted list.It’s not really my intent with these to be preachy, nor is it to bring wooey superstition through the back doors of belief. I do, however, think that Christianity has become a bit monochromatic out there on the digital wires, and it’s no bad thing to revisit abandoned voices. If our ancestors appreciated such stories, what does it say about us and our sensibilities if we find them threatening or ridiculous?Saint Collen lived in an Ireland divided amongst itself. The country by his time was overwhelmingly Christian in terms of belief, but its folk followed customs that long predated conversion. Priests would remind you regularly of Jesus and His Disciples; grandparents would tell you tales of Cú Chulainn and Manannán mac Lir. This tension is evident in Collen’s story.Speaking of, Collen didn’t get his wish entirely, did he? Despite his strong notions and insistences, it wasn’t for him to decide how rational the world actually was.When trying to conjure up older notions about autumnal holidays, we often say that our ancestors believed in a “thin veil” around the time of Halloween or Samhain. This is new language. To those in Collen’s time, there was no veil at all. Reality itself held a spiritual dimension every bit as real as what could be held in the hand. Our reality is no different if we’re honest about it. When viewing children belly-laughing over pizza and soda at a birthday party, you don’t need a PKE meter to notice that there’s love present in the room. It’s also no mere metaphor to say that there’s grief darkening a house that had just lost a loved one.I recently visited my folks down in their retirement house. After a serious amount of searching, we were able to find a collection of family photos that spanned the years before my birth to the early 2000s. My mom insisted they were physical things that only took up weight and space in the closet. Yet she still kept some, and held some to her heart as she came across them in the pile. To me, those sentiments carried a weight every bit as real as the glossy paper they were printed on.Earlier, when we were home, my daughter was looking at some polaroids she had taken. She didn’t find them particularly interesting and wanted to throw them away. I told her that she’s going to want to hold on to those. “Photographs get funny over time,” I told her. “They become more valuable the older they get. You’re going to wish you had those as an adult.”Nothing in life is unilateral. We never get to decide such things anyway. Get full access to Penny Wagers at pennywagers.substack.com/subscribe