Celtic Advent November 21st
St. Digain.  Today's saint is from the 5th Century, born approximately 429 AD.  He was a Prince of Dumnonia, today's modern Cornwall but spent most of his time in Wales where he founded several churches, including the one that bears his name in Llangernyw.  He is honored as a "confessor," someone who confesses the faith through the written or spoken word.   What struck me about Digain, was not so much these historical aspects of his life but where he planted his church in the above named town.  It is next to a rather large, old yew tree--it is thought to be 4000-5000 years old and  the claim is made (disputed by other tree locations) of being the oldest living thing in England proper.  The Celtic Christians had a strong integration of love of nature into their faith, something they probably brought from their druidic forebears.  It was a common thought that God should be sought in 2 books--the Bible and "the book of nature."  Nature would often be linked in the Celt's mind to some aspect of holiness or directly to biblical references.
Which brings us back to the yew tree at Llangernyw.   The tree would have been there, and already 2500 years old, when St. Digain was looking for a place to found his church.  Many early medieval churches were indeed founded near yew trees.  There is a tradition...I cannot find if it dates back to the time of St. Digain...that it was the wood of yew tree that was used for the cross, and a possibly separate tradition that it was a yew that was the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.  T.S. Eliot is one of my favorite poets, particularly his work after his mid-life conversion to Christianity.  "Ash Wednesday," in particular, picks up on the theme of the yew tree.  In the last section of the poem he writes:
   This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.  ("Ash Wednesday" in T. S. Eliot, Selected Poems,  1936

One of the marvels of our current age is YouTube...and someone has a short video, without significant verbal commentary, of the yew at St. Digain's.  For me, watching it, and thinking about Eliot's verse, was in itself a contemplative experience.  The link is:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqq2Ww1veM

Lord, sometimes in my prayers, my reaching out to you, I rely to much on verbage.  Help me, Lord, to see You in all Your works, and in particular to often do that without intruding thoughts or mental commentary, to just "be" with You in the presence of Your creation.  Amen.