Dayenu

As we celebrate the Passover with friends at Lillyfield we will regale one another with tales of God’s faithfulness. Since most readers of my musings will, sadly, not be with us, allow me to provide a brief synopsis of our journey before sharing with you a Lillyfield “Dayenu.”

Thirty years ago this year Anna and I traveled some 3000 miles to steal a first-hand glimpse of what was being rumored to be a visitation of God at a church in Toronto. We were surprising and completely transformed by a God more loving than we had ever known, that everything became new. As an aside, if you are interested in learning more of that story a book can be found titled, We Caught the Fire and Our Britches are Still Burning.

In the ensuing months we would follow the Wind to Russia, South America, Israel and many other lands, even moving to Nashville for over two years. Amazing adventures all, but our hearts were most dearly drawn to the tiny island of Lindisfarne, also called Holy Island, in northern England bumping up against the Scottish border. It was there that we were plunged deeply into the wells of ancient Celtic Christianity. It was beginning to look as though we would move there when the Wind suddenly shifted, and we were instead invited by our King to walk out these Celtic values in the Gaelic island of Île Royale off the coast of Nova Scotia.

Annas inheritance was there. A hundred acres of pristine forest on the coast. I certainly married up. It had been a strict rule in her family that no inheritance would be given until it was passed with the death of the giver. Anna’s parents were quite young and spry, yet when we visited the land with them only days after the twin towers collapsed and were still burning, her father was so struck by God that he could not speak. When he could speak, he poured oil on his daughter’s head and said, “Do with this land whatever the Lord puts in your heart to do.”

We called the land Lillyfied because the Hebrew word for lilly is shushan, also the name of city where Esther was called “for such a time as this.”

I received a vision of a plan for a new Celtic monastery including several buildings. I drew it on a napkin in my seat on plane as the vision came. We had a little money so we started to build. The money ran out when the first building was just half complete. That’s when Big Blue Life Insurance company called asking if I would be willing to sell them the rights to Boxes, a business process the Lord had previously given me for my financial practice. Big Blue wanted to expand it to their network of financial professionals. The initial payment was enough to complete the first building, while the ongoing license fees would help develop the rest of the monastery over the next two decades.

From our earliest days at Lillyfield we were most fortunate to establish some of the deepest, most rewarding friendships we had ever known among the island’s residents.

Then young people began dying. Drug overdoses, suicides, three deaths in our wee community alone. We all began praying in the small prayer loft of the newly completed first building we called the Gatehouse. We prayed that God would bring a solution, and as often happens when one prays, we soon became aware that we were to be part of the answer to our prayer. We met with the local high school principal and offered to share our fledgling monastery a few of their at-risk students over the summer to help us steward the land, build the buildings, and learn to live together without the drugs. We just lived life together. Worked, ate, played, cleaned our rooms, practiced our Celtic values, central to which is the value that all people are children of God, with the fullness of the Trinity residing within them. To a person, these young campers began to discover the Light within them and their lives were changed in dramatic ways.

Prior to this time, many of the most promising young islanders would leave when they came of age as the path to prosperity was razor slim for those trying to build a life on Île Royale. But now that began to shift. Many stellar young people, who had left over the years, began returning to live at Lillyfield and help with the summer camp. These young people married, started families, businesses and churches. The whole island was being reinvigorated by their zestful infusion. As a result, our summer camp was no longer a necessity and Lillyfield shifted to become a launching pad for the endeavors of these young societal change agents.

Out of one of these endeavors we were blessed to meet and be lovingly entwined with esteemed native spiritual elders, the medicine woman, Josie, and her beloved mystic mate, Frank. If you have not yet experienced my musings concerning them, please see Love at First Sight and Can I Be Frank With You?  These leaders, who were much sought after throughout the Atlantic provinces, made a home-away-from at Lillyfield and played an instrumental role in the God-experience people had as they made the pilgrimage here from all over the world.

I expect that the majority of those finding their way to this compilation of musings are of a non-Jewish life-history, as are the Abbas and myself, so you may be unfamiliar with the Dayenu, sung or recited as part of the Passover Sedar to remember the miraculous works of God in the exodus of the Hebrews from their captivity in Egypt. Dayenu, simply means “It would have been enough.”

This Passover we have written our own Dayenu to remember, with thankful hearts, the miraculous ways of God for us at Lillyfield.

I invite you to enjoy it along with us…

If You had radically transformed our lives through your visitation of love in Toronto and not opened the well of Celtic spirituality on Holy Island, it would have been enough.

If You had opened the well of Celtic spirituality on Holy Island and not commissioned us from across the continent to Île Royale, it would have been enough.

If You had commissioned us from across the continent to Île Royale and not miraculously accelerated Anna’s inheritance of the land, it would have been enough.

If You had miraculously accelerated Anna’s inheritance of the land and not opened your storehouse for the funding and creativity of the buildings, it would have been enough.

If You had opened your storehouse for the funding and creativity of the buildings and not rested upon Lillyfield to make it a thin place, it would have been enough.

If You had rested upon Lillyfield to make it a thin place and not enriched our lives with the very deepest of treasured friendships, it would have been enough.

If You had enriched our lives with the very deepest of treasured friendships and not brought the light of hope to so many young campers, it would have been enough.

If You had brought the light of hope to so many young campers and not drawn the faithful young believers back to revitalize our island, it would have been enough.

If You had drawn the faithful young believers back to revitalize our island and not restored the strength of our own children, it would have been enough.

If You had restored the strength of our own children and not opened our eyes by entwining our hearts in unconditional love with Frank and Josie, it would have been enough.

If You had opened our eyes by entwining our hearts in unconditional love with Frank and Josie and not brought transitioning pilgrims from around the world, it would have been enough.

If You had brought transitioning pilgrims from around the world to be wooed by You at Lillyfield, and only to be wooed by you at Lillyfield, it would have been enough.