by: Jessica Patchett
The older I get (and, I know, I’m not very old), the more I value memory. I can remember a time when things were different than they are now. I can remember people who aren’t around anymore. I’ve visited countries that have preserved the relics of people and times that no one has seen for millennia.
On a recent trip, a guide introduced me to an elderly farmer and fisherman, whom, my guide said, was famous among his neighbors. They could remember when he and his father had engineered a way to catch, clean, and preserve enormous sharks during a famine that had threatened to starve them all.
This fisherman had inherited a large family farm and a shoreline that welcomed the miraculously measured tides of the ocean. In the shadow of a steep, green mountain, the farmer’s home was a treasure. But, the elderly man said that the most valuable thing he inherited was not the lush farmland or ocean-front property, but the little chapel that sat in a lonely field, where sheep safely grazed. When his father gave him full ownership of the farm, he also gave him full responsibility for ensuring that the land where the chapel sat continued to serve as sacred ground as long as he was alive and into the next generation.
The farmer said that the little white chapel was an active church – a parish of four, he said – me, my wife, my son, and my dog. A few times a year, a priest visits. On occasion, the farmer allows tourists to return to the chapel and be married there. Many visit and are amazed by what they find inside, and I am no exception, but that’s another story for another time. The foundation and some things in the chapel are relics of the 1600’s. The farmer claims there has been a Christian church on that site for more like 1000 years, when the people of Iceland were first exposed to the Christian faith and told the stories of Jesus.
Inside the chapel, the farmer stood in front of the communion table and interpreted what he saw in the painting that hung above it. I couldn’t understand the words he was saying, but his actions told a story I knew well.
He took bread and broke it. He took a pitcher and poured glasses. He motioned to the people around him, ‘Eat. Drink. All of you’. They ate and drank. And then, their eyes were opened and they recognized him.
Then, the farmer said, in English, ‘The gospel of Jesus’. And I said, ‘Amen. Thank you for continuing to tell the story ’. The farmer replied (and I listened, with my guide translating), ‘The story is what makes this place sacred. It is why people come here and say, ‘God’s presence is in this place’. It is why they remember this place and want to return’.
Through centuries, in seasons of struggle and hope, people have remembered and retold this story and their eyes have been open to God’s very presence among them. May it be so for us as well.
