Ronnie Smith – författare

The price of this book is worth it for chapter 10 alone. If you like a true redemption story about someone who is converted nine days before they die, then this is a must. Ronnie tells some hunting experiences he has had and intertwines them with biblical principles. This is great for hunters of all kinds.

Ronnie Smith''s Mystic Land and Celtic Saints is a wonder-full expression of Celtic poetry, scholarship, and art; an amazing creation that needs to be read meditatively so that its spirituality can sink deeply into one''s heart.  It is divided, as the title suggests, into two major sections: one on the nature and sacred landscape of Celtic lands, and the second on the rich heritage of the Celtic saints.  Poetry and commentary are intertwined, so that the reader can appreciate poetry that sings, and scholarship that teaches much about Celtic history and holy sites.  The art that accompanies the text beautifully illustrates the beauty of the poetry itself. Landscape from Skellig Michael, off the western coast of Ireland, to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, off the coast of northern England, as well as numerous other thin places are poeticized; well-known saints from the Patrick, Brigit, and Columcille to lesser-knowns like the bee-keeper Gobnait, the virgin Keyne, and the protector of hares Melangell are shown to be spiritual mentors for today.  This book truly is, as Smith suggests in his introduction, a "pilgrimage" well-worth undertaking. Smith''s book reveals how he himself stands in the ancient Christian tradition of the Celtic nature poets who from the 4th through the 13th centuries lived and wrote about the awesome wonder of nature itself.

Ed Sellner is professor emeritus of theology and spirituality at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota, where he taught for 35 years, and the author of numerous books on Celtic spirituality, his most recent, Celtic Saints and Animal Stories: A Spiritual Kinship (Paulist Press, 2020).

Following his first two mystical poetry books, Roses for the Most High and Mystic Land and Celtic Saints, Ronnie Smith has composed his third mystical poetic account, this time on the Spanish Mystics. Hispanic contribution to the mystical path of Christianity is pronounced in the Spanish Golden Age of literature and the arts, the 16th and 17th centuries, where the preponderance of the saintly personages in this book lived out their lives of service. In deference to the rest of Europe, Catholic mysticism flourished through- out society during this timeframe because the Spanish held to the belief of Divine Intervention in everyday life. Therefore, mysticism impacted healing, politics, religion, literature, the arts, and social structures. One could say that the Spanish Golden Age of the arts and literature uniquely coincided with the Spanish Golden Age of Mysticism. poetical revelations celebrate the joy and sacrifice these men and women created in their lives of selfless giving to humanity.

Each saintly life was rigorously researched and Ronnie''s professional journeys through Spain and mystical encounters weigh heavily in their authenticity. The design of poems in this book intends to celebrate Spanish/Hispanic spirituality given to the world. Spanish spirituality was recognized as deeply devotional and mystically gifted throughout the Spanish Golden Age. A number of his original poems are Spanish poetical forms. He chose one of these forms, the Espinela, to resonate throughout the book on every 8th poem.