Celtic Advent November 19th   36 days until Christmas

St. Medana of Galloway.  This is one of those Saint stories that you start to read about and say "you've got to be kidding me," followed by a small measure of revulsion.  Now that I have given you my up front warning, I am going to tell you that I think this whole story of St. Medana needs to be taken metaphorically, and that if it is, you can get something from it.

So...here's the story.  Medana is an Irish princess, unmarried, therefore a virgin, but with large beautiful eyes.  Some Irish prince decides that he has the hots for her, but she is really not into that, and instead wants to devote herself to Christ.  She decides to head over to Scotland to get away from his unwanted attention.  But he is obessessed with her and heads over to Scotland to track her down.  She is able, through some divine intervention to escape him, but he confronts her when they are on opposite sides of an unfordable river.  "Why won't you leave me alone," she says, "I just want to devote myself to God!"  "Sorry," says the prince, "but I am obsessed with your beautiful eyes and can't get you out of my head."  (I am paraphrasing of course, they were probably much more eloquent than this). Whereupon, Medana decides that if her eyes are causing the problem, then she should get rid of them...she gouges out her eyes and tosses them over the river to the prince...Hmmm.  Later, after bathing her head in holy water, her eyes miraculously grow back.  Fortunately by this time, the eye-obsessed prince has taken a powder back to Ireland and Medana can live out her life of devotion and prayer.
There are obvious bibilical parallels here: "if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out," but, as I mentioned at the beginning, I get much more out of this story if I approach it metaphorically.

What, in my life, is something, whether in my personality, my language, my lifestyle or personal appearance, that seems to give people an incorrect impression about me?  Medana's eyes gave her Irish stalker some impression about her as a person.  Am I, consciously or unconsciously giving people a wrong impression?  How many people truly have an understanding of some of my bottom line motivations and beliefs?  I think in one sense that is why I decided to "blog" this celtic advent material rather than just write it in a private devotional.  It forces me to be public with both my beliefs and my struggles.  It is so easy in our society to hide or gloss over what you believe in and just go with the flow around you, particularly when so much of our work environment is secular.  The opposite extreme is there also.  Many of by ultra right wing Christian friends assume that, since I am Christian, that I share all of their beliefs.  It's awful easy to just keep silent, to do or say nothing.  I don't know if the historical personage of Medana truly removed her own eyes, but I do know that the motivation behand her actions deserves scrutiny on my part, and a resolve to move toward a higher level of integrity. And so...

Lord, you know when I am being sincere, when I am speaking the truth about what I believe, and when I am being inappropriate silent.  Inspire me to be more aware of times when I am not being honest about who I am and what I believe.  Help me to cast off false visions of myself and to correct the misperceptions that I may have allowed others to form about me.  I think, Lord, I will need this beyond just these forty days...this sounds like a struggle that may take me while...so be patient with me.  Help me through the unfathomable depth of your love, Amen.