Columba

Columba, fiery Irish prince and Druid turned monk and priest, often ventured off his sacred island of Iona on restless missionary journeys. One of his most ambitious journeys was to the court of the Pictish King Brida, deep in what we now call the Scottish Highlands. It is told that on this journey, Columba was received as guest into King Brida's feasting-hall.

As Columba sat, honored as a guest according to ancient Celtic law, he saw seated on the King's right an immense man who was louder that anyone else in the feasting-hall. This immense man had an immense, booming voice, and he raised it in shouts and hoots of laughter and snatches of song as he raised on high a precious vessel, a crystal goblet from the distant and legendary land of Greece. Upon asking his neighbor, Columba learned that this man, large of body and large of presence, was Broisin, the King's personal and feared Druid--court poet, wizard, and the power behind the throne so potent that it was rumored that the king himself feared the hulking magician.

Behind that vast arrogant man, Columba saw a second silent figure hidden in the shadows. Columba peered and finally descried a teenaged girl, standing with head bowed behind Broisin. As she would dart forward with a look of terror to fill the huge man's goblet with mead when he gestured and swore, Columba knew that the girl was Broisin's slave. Columba noted the fear in her eyes, her ragged tunic, and a large bruise on her right cheek.

Columba found the courage and temerity to raise his voice and call out (for his voice was famously loud too), "Broisin, I have a guest-gift to ask of you."

The hall instantly hushed at the stranger-monk daring to ask the sacred guest-gift of the fearsome Druid. Broisin paused in his drinking long enough to glare beneath bushy brows at Columba. "And what is it you ask, little man?"

"Release your slave-girl."

Broisin stared while the gathering gasped at Columba's pure nerve, then hooted in contempt. Swinging the goblet to his lips, Brosin leered at the monk and asked, "Why? Do you wish to have her?"

"No, I just ask for her to be freed."

Broisin roared with mirth and contempt. Again swigging a great gulp of mead, he wiped his streaming lips and beard with the back of his free hand before shouting, "The guest-gift may be sacred, but you little man and your little strange God have no respect here. The curse of the crows to you and to your asking, and the girl stays mine."

Gasping now at this flagrant denial of the request made by a guest, the gathering stared now at Columba. Were he a warrior and a man of honor, the only answer to this insult would be to draw sword.

Columba stood slowly, locking eyes with Broisin. Turning to the king, he bowed his head respectfully, then with not another look at Broisin he spun on his heel and strode, robe and cloak flying, out of the hall, pursued by Broisin's scornful laughter. Columba's disciple Bathene hurrying along behind.

Bathene knew that Columba also had a temper, so he scurried after his abbot in silence until, almost two miles from the gates of King Brida's hall, Columba paused by the bank of a stream crossed by a narrow ford. Columba stooped and, to Bathene's puzzlement, began to dabble his hands in the water and pebbles at his feet.

Standing, Columba looked at his own palm and asked aloud, "Bathene, Broisin is a powerful man, is he not?"

Not knowing what his abbot was playing at, Bathene answered, "Yes, I suppose so, Father, very powerful."

"And powerful men only understand and respect power greater than their own, do they not?"

Still puzzled, Bathene answered, "Yes Father, I suppose that is true."

Columba then smiled a smile that was not altogether pleasant. He said, "Ah, but Bathene, do not forget that in the world of the Gospel it is the poor who are raised on high, and that it is through the weak of the world that God shames the strong."

Columba raised his hand and showed Bathene a small stone. "Do you see this stone, Bathene? Do you think it is large?"

"No Father, that is a rather small stone."

Columba tossed the stone in the air, and caught it with a flash and snap of his hand. "Small though it be, a big man will take great hurt from it. And now, Brother, it's your pardon I'm asking, for we have some walking to do." Columba turned and strode off, back towards Brida's hall, with Bathene again hurrying to keep pace.

Back at Brida's court, Broisin the Druid was louder than ever, bouyed by his humiliation of the stranger monk. At the moment that Columba tossed and caught the stone miles away, Broisin raised his precious goblet on high once more. Shouting, "It's to myself I drink!" he brought it to his lips.

Some say that as he did so, they saw a tiny glittering object drop from the rafters straight for the Druid's face. Other say not, but all agree that as Broisin tilted the goblet to drink his own health, the priceless cup shattered into a thousand glittering shards. They twinkled like stars as they fell to the rush-strewn dirt floor.

The crowd turned from the glass fragments in amazement to see a more amazing sight. For Broisin the Druid, that great fearsome man louder than loud, louder than a bull in heat, was silent, grasping his own throat with convulsive hands, face turning from his usual mead-soaked red to a deep purple. Gasping for very breath, the great man slowly collapsed to the floor where he curled like a tiny infant, heaving and wheezing to draw even one scant breath.

After their walk, Columba and Bathene found the gate of Brida's hall without guards as even they had gone to stand in the deep circle around the dying Druid. The crowd looked up as Columba and Bathene entered the hall and silently parted to allow Columba to stand beside the huge man curled upon the floor.

Columba stooped while Bathene drew near, to better hear what would be said. In a low but clear voice, Columba asked, "Broisin, do you long to breathe the clean free air again?"

Unable to answer, Broisin jerked his head back and forth to say yes.

"Then" said Columba, his voice the same volume but with a shake of rage, "let that poor child of God breathe the free air too, and be quick!"

Again, Broisin convulsively nodded his head in assent. As he did so, he coughed and retched and, with a wheeze and a whistle, drew the first shuddering free breath that he had enjoyed since his goblet had broken all to bits.

Servants helped the great man to his rubbery legs and half-helped, half-carried him from the mead-hall. One of the servant, stooping, saw among the glass fragments a strange object. Silently, he handed to King Brida what he had found. It was a small, white stone, smooth from lying along the bank of a river.

The former slave-girl went with Columba and Bathene back to Iona, where some say she became the superior of the community of women who had also formed on the island.

But what we do know is that this story has been told since the 7th century, and says some deep and timeless things to us today. For our age is an age of slavery, no less than that of Columba. It is an arrogant and forgetful people who call Columba's time the "dark ages", forgetting the deeper darkness of our own and often not knowing where to find the Light. Slavery is alive and well, whether on 82nd avenue outside our doors, among the silent hopeless poor and those on whose shoulders and backs the prosperity of a few are laid, and in the fearful dread of our own hearts. There are countless arrogant Broisins, who buy and sell the dignity and happiness and the very air of the poor and those without voice and the very voiceless, abused earth and its creatures. But remember today, remember Columba, remember the man and all those women and men who saw and see the many faces of slavery among us and the many disguises with which Broisin still strides and laughs among us today. To be a baptized servant of Christ is to not turn away. And to make no peace with slavery. Make no peace with slavery.