copy of post sent to "Loyal Order of Shilah"

Back in August 2009, I ran across this and some related web sites about becoming a knight within the Celtic Church of Yahweh. I and others submitted our names for consideration. I know I received a reply (email confirmation) , but others said they never did. I was told that some study material would come, but none has yet. My eldest son, Brother Josh age 16, was eager to get started. Finally, at the start of March, I wrot a letter to Brther Theo and Pastor Fears and told them that I have always thought they were on the right track, even if I haven't heard from them since that first e-mail. I also told them that we were going to continue as if we were authorized to train. Essentially, we would continue our study as Brothers and eventually would move on to the next stage, that of Squire.
Our role of brother has not ended, but we have added a new level of training and dedication. On May 31, my son and I will take a pilgrimage to an outdoor chapel (actually a Grotto). From our house it is just over 44kms. We will be dressed in rough robes that we sewed by hand. Armed wth only our walking sticks (we do have many wild animals in the area. We leave at 3:00am, and we think it will take about 8 1/2 hours to reach the Grotto. From there we will be joined by friends and family, and will state our intention to become Squires in pursuit of full knighthood.
Also as a note, on correspondence (e-mails, handwriting, facebook, etc.) we will add the post script "esq." to indicate to all our stage.
We also intend on issuing a press release about this so that the public is aware. You can also follow this progress on my related blog.
http://knightsofcanada.blogspot.com/
Until then...God's grace to you and yours, Brother Bradley Avi

Knight Need 2: A woman to love

This title might sound a bit funny, but I mean this in full seriousness. Among mankind there are certainly men who will never marry, some who may never have any significant interest in women, but I speak here with respect to the mass of mankind. Statistically, most men will marry. Even if they choose not to, they will find their lives enriched by significant contact with the more fare gender.
It is as God, himself said, “it is not good for man to be alone.”
The second need for a knight is a woman to love, or sometimes literature will refer to this person as the woman of his interest. Young men, think back, even before you were significantly connected to a particular woman, an adolescence, a spark began to fire in your mind. Suddenly, you looked at yourself and said. “Wow, do I really dress like this?” You decided to make efforts to put aside the image of a boy for that of a man. This new image that you took on was one shaped by a desire to attract the attention of a woman, whether a general woman, or more often a specific woman.
Left to our own devices, I fear many men would end up as the most brutal of cavemen, dressed in fur and leather, chewing the leg off of some animal cooked over a spit.
Women have a civilizing power over men. Recently, I was reading a friend’s post on Facebook and had to laugh. He was pretending he did not marry and what would have happened for him.

Marvel Comics Presents What if Scott never married Wendy....We join our Thirty-nine year old hero in his apartment...er...bedroom in his mothers house as he asks to borrow her car so he can go to the comic book store and spend some of the money he earned as assistant to the shift manager at Taco Bell............................

I doubt I would have fared better.

Back in the days of lore, when men trained to become a knight, young squires were training in a manor house where there were always many available young ladies who young men were available to interact. Young squires were encouraged to find a young lady of their attention. Please don’t misunderstand this. This was not an early marriage proposal. It was not just a way to envision a dating relationship. This person was simply an…inspiration for a young knight.
As I said before, a young knight was to be inspired by their service to their Lord (or King), but this relationship was servant to Master relationship. Although it serves much good for the character of a young knight, it is the Lady of attention which expands the other side of one’s character.
The squire (and the knight) knows that he needs to act appropriately for her benefit. He does what he does for his Lord, and for his Lady. His exploits are for the honour of his Lord and Lady. Some of these are obvious (saving the life of his King), will encourage him to keep working hard to build his body into a fine tool for service. However, this does not explain the need for a young squire to learn the rule of chivalry. The Lady of his attention is the one inspires him to become, not the greatest of savage brutes, but the greatest of noble men.
One of the web sites that I have enjoyed for this concept of Chivalry is:
http://www.chivalry.net/

You might want to check this out if you have time.

I am not sure if you have ever read the story Don Quixote, a great read if you find the time. Don Quixote is old man who’s mind is failing him and decides that he is a knight errant. To this end he finds a woman of his attention. Amazingly, she is actually only a peasant girl in his local town. At one point the admits he has only seen her once and has never spoken to her. In fact, he doesn’t even know her name he called her Dulcinea. He then proceeds to go out in the name of his Dulcinea to bring her honour. The following is his description of Dulcinea.

"… her name is Dulcinea, her country El Toboso, a village of La Mancha, her rank must be at least that of a princess, since she is my queen and lady, and her beauty superhuman, since all the impossible and fanciful attributes of beauty which the poets apply to their ladies are verified in her; for her hairs are gold, her forehead Elysian fields, her eyebrows rainbows, her eyes suns, her cheeks roses, her lips coral, her teeth pearls, her neck alabaster, her bosom marble, her hands ivory, her fairness snow, and what modesty conceals from sight such, I think and imagine, as rational reflection can only extol, not compare." [Don Quixote: Volume 1/Chapter XIII]



Her real name is Aldonza, and her opinion of Don Quixote evolves from distrust to sincere belief in Don Quixote's quest, and in the man himself. She begins as someone who has no self-worth, Aldonza, and through Quixote's belief in her, she begins to believe in herself as someone of great worth and takes on the name Dulcinea.

With these concepts, I believe a young squire who becomes a knight needs not only a king to serve, but a woman to love. Until my next post…God’s continued grace to you and yours, -Brother Bradley Avi

I guess I would be amiss not to post a small photo of my own Dulcinea, She has been my lovely wife for 18 years and my dearest friend before that. She's been camera shy most because she has just given birth to my 8th child, another boy. This photo was taken while she was pregnant, but I think she'll forgive me. I love you, Julie.

Couple general notes:

these are not vital for concept, but I thought might be worthy to note as far as what is happening in our life.

First a supply note:
Joshua and I picked up some Gambesons (coats that normally go under chain mail armour) from the link that I have listed on the right side of this blog.



These are the coats, they only coat $50 each. We didn't get them in black. I thought my son tended too often toward black and Celtic Knights of Canada should have Red and white, so ours are red with a white cross.

The sabres we also bought from there are well.



These are not what one would call a "functional sword", but a training sword (same type Olympic atheletes use).

The Celtic Church of Yahweh requires that their knights become masters of Self defense as well. I have struggled with this, but right now have ordered some instructional DVDs of Krav Maga (from e-bay), which I hope we will use to start this training. I have not settled on how one becomes a Master, but this is at least a start. Perhaps we will have to win a tournament in MMA, or perhaps we will have to be registered Black belts someplace. I don't know, but I think I have a couple of years to work on this.


Although I did not deem it necessary yet, I decided to buy some chain mail armour. I bought from e-bay. I have measured Josh and might buy some for him as well, but I thought I would buy mine first and see if this is the right decision. The cost was not terrible. $100, and make sure if you do this you measure over your gambeson for size. Also I have been told don't under estimate (or pick tight) this stuff doesn't stretch well.



I have also planned to make a shield. I have rough drawn an image for the shield.


Finally, I had planned to make a long serious time before Josh could move to the Squire stage. This seemed most consistant with the Celtic Church of Yahweh's position before the web sites crashed. Unfortunately, this meant that there were things that we really couldn't train for and were not at the right stage for us. While reading The Age of Chivalry by Bulfinch, I became convinced that I was thinking wrong. The criteria for becoming a squire was...age. A squire would be 14. It was expected that the character would come, and the squire stage would last longer, not the stage to prepare to be a squire, so in light of this we are planning our pilgrimage next week. The walk is about 44kms. It should take us over 8 hours. We are planning on starting at about 3:00am, and friends and family will meet us there around lunch time. I hope the weather holds out for us. We will wear our "rough clothing of the brother", (burlap robes) and exchange it for the gambeson.



I will hopefully get some good pictures to share. God's grace to you and yours.

Knight need 1: a King to Serve

The needs for a knight. I thought it would do well to include a bit about what a knight needs, and in fact, what every man needs to be successful. These ideas come from Robert Lewis’ excellent book (The raising of the modern day knight. I highly recommend it. A friend mistakenly asked me if I was just doing what Robert Lewis suggested, just putting it in application. It took me a while to answer correctly. My original impulse would be to say “no”. These ideas pre-dated the publishing of that book. When he published that book and there was a review of it in the Father’s day edition of Focus on the Family magazine, I was intrigued. I read the book as a new father. I can’t deny, that his material (esp. what I write today) has shaped my thinking. However, from the other material I have read from Lewis and having heard his Men’s conference lectures I would think he would say (if you could ask him) that what I am doing is very different then what he proposed. Like I said, you might want to read the book. It’s not long, and worth the read.



As one progresses from the stage of the Page, to the Squire, it is necessary to focus on the key Needs for a “knight”. The first one being: a King to serve. Whether you imagine a man wearing chain mail armour carrying a shield and wielding a sword, or whether you imagine a man in riot gear, with a bobby club and plastic shield (modern attire), you still have the physical image in your mind. The key difference for this person and a villain is: The King he/she serves.

Knights were generally put in the league with a King (or local Lord of some sort). They were the great warriors. They were better armed, and far better trained then a local peasant. Remember, in a time of crisis, like a war, anyone could take up farm equipment (an axe, a shovel, a stick) and fight the attacking hoard. It was the knights, who were built to anticipate this. They were trained for this. Hopefully their life was not full of one war after another, but in the time of trouble they were the great weapon against the evils that would come their way.

In the old stories, in times where there was no war, many of the Knights went on “quests”. These were tasks worthy of their skills. They looked for someone who needed defending; a wrong to right. They sought tasks worthy.

Yet again, when you get back to the brass tacks, you find there is very little material difference between the knight and the horrible abuser. They are both physically superior. They have some advantage (the weapons, and armour, even a horse). Or to put this another way, what is the difference between a super hero and a super villain? We come back to the King they serve. A super villain, generally serves his own interests. He is big enough, and powerful enough to do as he pleases. He takes what he wants. He harms who he wants. His urges are his master. The super hero is a servant to something greater then himself. He might have an elevated sense of justice, or believe in his country, or defend the weak. This servant role does not make him less then his counterpart. In fact, this servant role makes him “good”.

Within the Celtic Church of Yahweh, this is an important item of note. These knights do not serve a King, in the classic, political sense. They serve the great King. The Meleck Olam (King of the Universe).

If you know the Roman Catholic traditions, you might remember a Saint named Saint Christopher. He is known as the Saint of travellers. As the story goes, he was a giant who wanted to serve the greatest, most powerful King. Eventually, his is a servant of Satan, because all men feared Satan. However, Christopher found that the demons feared God, and Christopher wanted to know this God because he was obvious. He was the greatest giant, and wanted only to serve the greatest king, and eventually he does meet him (as the Christ Child), and thus you see the picture usually of Saint Christopher carrying a boy on his shoulders. He found the greatest king to serve.



God is our King (Eli-Meleck). Although he does not reign from the city of Jerusalem, yet. (Blessed be the name, May he come in our time). We still have his dedicated instruction about how one should live. We have examples in Scripture of Mighty men who were among the most significant men of God. Moses, Joshua, David were all warriors, and spiritual giants. Of course, there were great men of God who were not warriors (praised be his name), but we are focussing on these warrior servants of the king. They all were at their best as they served their king. They all had moments when they chose wrong, or lost sight of who they served, but at their best, they knew who they served, and were not distracted by their own interests.

A knight, serving his king, knows what his king desires. He knows what would please his King. He knows the goals. Is now the time to defend? Or it is the time to seek a “task worthy“? In every event that comes, the knight has the chance to balance his decisions and actions and says “yes, or no” based on who he serves.

For the modern man, there are many demands. There are often needs for family, prestige, career, social needs, interests, even worthy causes. All of these make demands on our time. Any one of these could easily become the “king” in which we serve, and in fact, there are many times when they must demand our full attention. The loom large in our vision. But, if one can remember, who we serve, I think a great many of these decisions will fall into proper perspective.

It is for that reason, a king must know the king in which he serves.

Dia annseo isteach! -God to all here

While doing some looking around for more material about Celtic Christianity, I found the administrator of the Celtic Church of Yahweh was in a discussion board about the attempts of this monastic movement. Many pieces are worth discussion, but I thought I would tackle one at a time. She calls herself Pastor Lisa on this site and she says she is from St Louis. The one answering her discussion uses the login code mfjfarrell

The whole feed can be read on http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44061/14680706/A_New_Celtic_Christian_Monasticism

“(Celtic Christians) see all of Creation, mankind and nature, as resonating the presence of God.
In your statement of faith you began with the Scriptures as the one and only source of your understanding. Celts have always been the 'people of two books' - Scriptures and Creation. Christ is revealed to us in both places!”

I think this concept is central to understanding from a more Celtic Christian perspective. Much of our evangelical/fundamentalist traditions have been tied to book study. This has been important, and I would not want to say there is no value here, but we must recognise that the truest Christian expression is a lot more then study hidden away in some ivory tower somewhere.

If we sincerely believe in a God who created our world, then we need to seek out that experience. Go outside, walk in the fields and or meadows. Breathe the air God created and thank him for his Grace to us. This is as much a part of our Christian experience as would be an exhaustive exegetical study.

Think of the life of Jesus (Yeshua), who would use the events of nature and of the outside world to tell important lessons to his followers about the Kingdom of God. His metaphors were about things like planting and harvest, about a shepherd and a lost sheep. He spoke on the hillsides and fed thousands. There were times when he went into the cities to teach, but you can see and even feel that when he needed time to be away, he would literally wander out from the crowds. That was his greatest sanctuary.

The apostle Paul also said as much when he spoke:

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse:

This divine witness was enough to convict mankind for not believing in the Creator. How little time has been spent appreciating this divine witness. Just sharing some thoughts and a challenge to seek God where he may be found.

Dia annseo isteach!
God to all here!