6 Easy Steps to Being a Missionary Prodigy
A tongue in cheek guide to Colmcille teaching the monks of Iona how to convert Scotland.
Colmcille’s 6 ways to flip a Scot to Christian.
What’s in it for them? Make sure they understand that they’ve only got one shot at this. Detail the promise of a permanent reward, or punishment, in the afterlife based on what they do now. Is it worth the risk that we’re wrong? I don’t think so.
Take the pagan symbols and incorporate them as you can to support but never usurp the supremacy of our one God (who is three, maybe four, but, you know, just gloss over that part).
Continue the tradition of offerings to God, but let them know that cash and tradeable goods are preferred. You are almost guaranteed the everlasting reward if it is in gold. Sell all pigs before returning.
Look for every opportunity to perform miracles/great deeds. Find the missing livestock, scare away the snakes, every skill you have is a miraculous service gifted to them from our God. Remind them often.
Take your talents from here and put them in service to their community. Tend their sick and animals, help build their buildings, carve their stone, carry their messages, breed their horses. Let them know you’ll be back regularly so they look forward to your return.
Figure out who is the most powerful person in the settlement and make tribute to them from the offerings (especially any pigs).
Repeat. Take a friend.
Soooo cynical, I know. But this week Colmcille is in my head like a crypto-currency sales man and you reap the rewards!
What’s happening is really this. I’m trying to figure out how it worked, the conversion of Scotland. There would have been tactics deployed to convert the regular people while Colmcille played the political power games with the kings and leaders. The tactics would have been taught and successes shared and repeated. The range of their efforts was impressive. What would have made a bunch of strangers welcome guests? The Gaelic h’aiodhe (guest) is used to denote churches and important other spots to do with Colmcille. It’s a very different word than conqueror or invader. How did they earn that word?
And how would that have looked for our Erna and her father?
I picture Erna as our talented illustrator and scribe and I imagine her out on her missions teaching and learning from local people about making lasting dyes and ink of more extraordinary colours. Perhaps she decorated clothing and articles for the people she encounters? Maybe this is why, when she first makes here way to the other side of the loch, they let her stay for awhile? Perhaps she plies her trade on their behalf for the time of her hermitage.
And so my silliness takes me, eventually, to an actual scene and a way to progress the narrative. I’ll report back.