River Jordan - The Ancient Way: Discoveries on the Path of Celtic Christianity

River Jordan writes with a hard-bitten confidence comparable to Ernest Hemingway. And yet, in the Southern tradition of William Faulkner, she knits together sentences that can take your breath.

Florida Today

River Jordan is the Souths Anne Lamott: hilarious, authentic, irreverent, and breathtakingly insightful about all things spiritual.

Joy Jordan-Lake, author of A Tangled Mercy

Beautifully written, atmospheric.

Kirkus Reviews

Raw-boned. Unflinching. Gut-level honest.

Bren McClain, author of One Good Mama Bone

River Jordans words flat-out sing. One may speed-read the paper, the grocery list, and the email, but not the words of River Jordan. Her stories court you to pace yourself and give them their due.

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, author of Suck Your Stomach In & Put Some Color On!: What Southern Mamas Tell Their Daughters that the Rest of Yall Should Know Too

River Jordan takes her reader deep into the human spirit.

Patti Callahan Henry, author of the New York Times bestseller Driftwood Summer

River Jordans melodious writing lets you see-feel-taste the wind.

Nicole Seitz, author of A Hundred Years of Happiness, Trouble the Water, and The Spirit of Sweetgrass

River Jordans written words are as poetic and enchanting as her name.

Denise Hildreth, author of Where Living and Life Meet and Flying Solo

I always knew that River Jordan was a wellspring of stories; I just never knew theyd be so breathtakingly beautiful.

Lynne Hinton, author of Friendship Cake and The Arms of God

For Saint James of Glasgow, for Iona, and all the stories in between.

This is what the Lord says:
Stand by the roadways and look.
Ask about the ancient paths:
Which is the way to what is good?
Then take it
and find rest for yourselves.

Jeremiah 6:16

Out of Ireland they came, bearing Celtic names and breathing holy power.

The Celtic Missionaries of Ireland

Once upon a timein a land far away, a little girl ran away with the Romaor gypsies, as many called them. She was just six years old, and so was still true to her own naturea wild and beautiful thing.

Before she ran away, the girl lived with her father and mother, who had left the New Country to work in the Old Country, a few miles beyond the ancient, walled city of Amberg, Germany. The girl felt shed been exiled from the holy land of her home on the shores of the swampy Gulf Coast of Florida. Without consent, shed been ushered to a cold place away from her beloved grandmother and her playmates and cousins. Being an only child, she thought, as all only children do, I am all alone in this world. She never felt this to be more true than during those first days when she had been taken so far from the faces she knew and loved. To her, the grey skies of the Old Country were interminable, summers were short, and sunshine, a rare and precious commodity.

They lived in one of seven bland, six-story buildings on the edge of vacant fields, and beyond those was a dark forest. These were the old times, and the old ways still ran through the people and the land, and there remained room to roam.

One particular summer day, the girl was playing outside within the shadows of the buildings, which marked the childrens boundary because it kept them within earshot of their mothers. With windows open, a mother inside could hear the gentle sounds of play, or the cry of a child in trouble, or, worse, if all suddenly turned to silence. Silence meant secrets, or rules being broken. The girl always obeyed the rule of the shadow. Until the day she didnt.

If you are ever lucky enough for Roma to come passing by you with their horses and wagons, you will hearas the little girl did that daythe tinkling of their bells, strung this way and that, announcing their arrival long before they are seen. As the ground rocks beneath their feet, the bells sing out the song of their freedom.

We are free, and we are wild,

and tonight we will dance beneath the moon,

below a canopy of stars.

We shall laugh, and we shall drink, and we shall sing.

We are alive; we are alive; we are alive.

First among the children to hear the bells, the girl stopped playing and walked to the edge of the shadow, her eyes searching intently for the source of the hypnotic sound. Soon the other children turned too, to gaze across the stretch of field as the wagons rolled into view and then cut away toward the woods in the distance.

The girl stepped out into the light, cupping her hands to shelter her eyes from the sun for a better view. Without another thought or a dare or permission, she dropped her hands and ran full force, determined to catch the wagons. Timidly, a few other children followed, then all of them left in pursuit. This is when the silence of the shadows began.

A spark, an urgency, twinged through the girls body. Soon she was far, far ahead of the other children. One by one they fell behind, until they had all stopped and returned to the safety of the shadow. As the childrens shouts faded behind the girl, she realized she alone was nearing the caravan.

The sky was an ocean of blue, and the girl felt a completely new sense of elation coursing through hersomething that had been absent thus far from her short, serious life. She reveled in this sense of emancipation. The sun was warm on the top of her head, and her hair flew out long and loose over her shoulders, bouncing as she flew. Her heart soared and her spirits lifted.

Then the girl heard her name called, over and over. She ran on as her mothers voice grew fainter and more frantic. But suddenly, the girl felt a weight on her heart, as if a rock had tumbled up from the ground and lodged in her chest. And as another rock, and another, tumbled up and piled on, she knew with a deep sadness that she had to return to the arms of her mother. She ran on, but her steps slowed, until finally she stopped and stood still, her mothers voice now a small flutter.

The girl stood motionless, alone in the field, watching the wagons until their sound became a mere echo of bells. Until their coming and going seemed but a dream. Then the girl, head hung low, turned. And in sad, plodding steps she walked back into the shadow that wasnt her life.

Kublai asked Marco: