The Long Road from Arbroath to Kanuga
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Simon ruth de Voil
Currently serving as Kanuga Conference Center’s musician in residence, Simon Ruth de Voil journeyed to the mountains of North Carolina to share his love of the natural world, his deeply contemplative music, and his unique spiritual experience through daily birdsong vespers, a Wild Sanctuary Retreat, and a Spring Equinox Concert on Wednesday, March 20th.
Drawing on 15 years of study, training, and practice that grew from his time living and working in Iona Abbey in Scotland, Simon is an experienced workshop and retreat leader. While influenced by many traditions, Simon’s spiritual path and teaching are deeply rooted in Celtic Christianity, the wisdom of the earth, and in the Scottish land where he’s spent most of his life.
“My music and reflections are my soul's way of making sense of the beauty, vulnerability and endless richness of this human life,” explains the soft-spoken Scotsman. And, despite a calm and placid demeanor, Simon has traveled a long and winding road during the course of his 48 years. Indeed, his life has been a journey that leaves him uniquely positioned to connect with people wherever they are physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
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Sitting with Simon in the Chapel of the Transfiguration on the Kanuga campus, a 1400-acre retreat center near Flat Rock, his serene demeanor and lilting Scottish accent suffuse the space between us with a restorative sense of tranquility. His calm manner and easy smile are even more notable as his story unfolds and the listener realizes that the road that led him to this moment was strewn with challenges, heartache, and obstacles to happiness that few of us will ever have to face.
Today, Simon is an ordained interfaith/interspiritual minister, a sacred musician, a spiritual mentor and a worship leader. In this calling, he incorporates chant, ritual, storytelling and mindful practice to create a space for sacred connection and witness. He describes himself as a “churchless minister” comfortable in a wide variety of churches and non-religious spiritual communities. His openness to the variety of the human conditions he encounters is summed up in a favorite saying, ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I.’ He adds with a gentle smile, “I love that expression. We’re not that different on the inside.”
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Simon, age 48, grew up in the small town of Arbroath nestled against the North Sea on the eastern coast of Scotland. His childhood experience was not particularly positive. He recalls Arbroath as a place with significant poverty and people who often live hardscrabble lives. He very much felt the outsider and he grew up with a distrust of much of society. His interactions with other children and adults were often difficult so Simon retreated to the nearby beaches and woodland sanctuaries for solace.
Simon was first introduced to the healing power of music when he took piano lessons as a child. Dyslexia, however, made reading sheet music difficult and he would improvise, playing by ear or creating his own songs. “I was my teacher’s worst student,” he recalls with a grin. But the door to his musical soul had been opened and at age 14 he taught himself to play the guitar. “I was the classic mixed-up teenager writing songs.” Then he adds with a laugh, “I even had a band called Censored Freedom.”
Even with music and the safety he found in nature, Simon’s adolescence was a difficult time, and he was anxious to leave for university in Glasgow when he turned 18. He had not grown up in an especially religious tradition and describes himself as an agnostic throughout his university years and the years immediately following graduation.
At university, Simon studied Psychology and Soviet Studies which he explains as the random interests of a young person finding his way through life. He also played a lot of music and busied himself with volunteer activities. He and a friend started a duo called Icarus and they played and sang at art museums and coffee shops. “I would sing about the land. Nature and spirituality have always been solace for me. That's my church, is nature. Very much in the Franciscan tradition.”
Following graduation, Simon worked as a telephone counselor with youth dealing with issues of unplanned pregnancies, sexual abuse, or the challenges of being an LGBTQ youth. He also prepared to embark on some very dramatic transitions that would alter the course of his life in both a physical and spiritual sense.
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Transitions
During his mid-20s, Simon underwent a gender transition that was both incredibly challenging and emotionally fraught for both him and his family. It was also, however, a time of profound liberation and discovery as Ruth transitioned to Simon and he discovered and embraced his authentic self.
Simon’s transgender journey was the subject of an award-winning documentary entitled, Funny Kind of Guy. The film captures Simon’s struggles as a transgendered singer-songwriter who gains a truer identity of self but sacrifices the comfort of a well-practiced singing voice to the effects of hormone treatments. As with many personal trials, Simon sees this journey as one of his strengths now. “I remembered being the last person on the bus that anybody would sit next to. That type of experience informs my ministry, and I have incredible compassion for people in the margins.”
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By age 30, Simon was married and he and his wife moved to Iona Abbey to run a retreat center on the small island. Iona is rich in religious tradition and is regarded as the birthplace of Christianity in Scotland. The ancient abbey and monastery was founded by St. Columba and Iona is believed to be the location where the famous Christian manuscript, The Book of Kells, was written.
Simon lived on the island from ages 30 to 33. “My Jesus years,” he explains with a smile. Although his marriage did not survive those years on Iona, Simon experienced “a massive spiritual awakening” while at the Abbey and it was there that he received his calling to become a minister. He very distinctly recalls the instruction he received. The voice that spoke to him said, “I want you to a be minister in a new way that doesn't exist yet.”
Such a call for someone who long considered himself agnostic was both startling and frightening. “I kind of panicked.” But when Simon heard the sound of God laughing at his trepidation, he was reassured. “I realized straight away, that God wouldn't ask me to do something I didn't know how to do.”
At a defining crossroads in his life, Simon considered his options going forward. He knew that he didn’t want to have a church, so he decided to train as a carpenter as Jesus had done. And, since he was living on an island, he resolved to learn to build wooden boats
At age 33, Simon de Voil was about to prepare for a radically new path. “I was very agnostic before Iona, and I left with the strict instructions to be a boat-building minister.”
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Before leaving Iona and amidst the grief of his failed marriage, Simon recorded his first solo album, Sacred Earth, which he describes as a musical picture of three years spent living in Iona Abbey. He then returned to his parent’s home in Arbroath to heal. There he found solace in his music and spent time busking in the street and playing in restaurants and local churches.
Once he felt emotionally strong enough to proceed with his calling, Simon traveled to Pemaquid, Maine to work as an apprentice with Rev. Bobby Ives. Ives was a boat-building Quaker minister who founded the Carpenter’s Boat Shop modeled on the Benedictine principle of finding balance in a life of work, worship, prayer, hospitality, and service. Simon spent four years there building boats and exploring his own spirituality. He also started to build a new life in the United States. “I never intended to live in the States. I came over to study both ministry and wooden boat building and fell in love with an American girl, so I'm still here,” he explains.
After Pemaquid, Simon attended One Spirit Seminary in New York City and became an ordained minister. Today, he and the “American girl”, Linden, are married and live in Orange, Vermont.
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Simon feels that he has been called to radically alter worship. He quotes Pope Francis who said that Christian faith was “not a museum to look at and save” but should rather be a source of inspiration. Francis also called upon his bishops to have “courage to bring life and not make our Christian life a museum of memories.”
To this end, Simon embraces the constantly changing groups of people with whom he shares his spiritual path. “I think church is changing in that spiritual gatherings do not have to be the same people all the time.” He treasures his time with the disparate groups he encounters during his ministry and travels. “I love leading worship, it feels terribly holy to me.”
Simon describes himself as a Celtic Christian – a form of Christianity that focuses on original blessing as opposed to original sin. The Celtic Church also celebrates the sacredness of nature – an emphasis that closely aligns with Simon’s love of the outdoors and his ability to see the holy in all of creation. As he explains, “Where do we go to have this connection with the earth that we desperately need? We can go to St. Francis, but we also go to Celtic Christianity.” He adds, “Christ shines out from every stone, is in every tree, is in everything. I always knew that God was in nature and not just in the church.”
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Simon’s music, not surprisingly, is integral to his work as a minister. He views himself as a musical interpreter who can recast the “beautiful songs within the Christian tradition that are tied up in religious language” so that more people will find them accessible and more personally meaningful. “I've taken prayers and placed them in my own faith and my words. Then I sing them.”
He recently released a song called The Bookmark Prayer which is a variation of a prayer written by St. Teresa of Avila in the 16th century. The common translation of the original text was:
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing away.
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.
Simon’s interpretation of St. Teresa’s prayer attempts to make the language more inclusive and accessible for the people he encounters in his travels.
The Bookmark Prayer by Simon de Voil. Featuring Aimée Ringle & Alexa Sunshine Rose.
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you.
Everything changes,
I alone remain.
Hold patience, for nothing is wasted.
Presence in all things,
I'm with you in all things.
Ultimately, the music and lyrics of Simon’s music are filtered through his heart, mind, and voice to create interpretations that create connection with the people he encounters during his ministry.
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Simon will finish his music residency at Kanuga in the coming week and the public is invited to his Equinox Concert on Wednesday, March 20th. When he leaves, he will carry special memories of his time in North Carolina. “The mountains here are very friendly and alive in a way that's really very much like the west of Scotland.” He also appreciates the feeling of being “home” in a beautiful setting. “The people here recognize my prayers. They often tell me, ‘I want that prayer for myself. That's true to me.’”
As our interview concludes, we step outside the chapel into the natural beauty of the Kanuga campus. Standing under a beautiful Carolina blue sky amidst the embrace of a mountain forest, Simon absorbs the divine that surrounds us. “The land here is very sacred. I feel blessed to come and sing prayers here. It is such a blessing to me, and I hope that I can be a blessing to the land and the people that come to this place.”
Simon’s Spring Equinox Concert will be on Wednesday, March 20th, a contemplative concert set by candlelight at the outdoor labyrinth at Kanuga. The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Concertgoers are invited to join us for dinner in the dining hall beginning at 5:30 p.m. Rain location: Chapel of The Transfiguration. Tickets and more information here.
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Read more about Simon’s life and music at https://simondevoil.com/home
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From Kanuga, Simon will travel to Black Mountain, NC to participate in Holy Week events with St. James Episcopal Church there. Included in the week’s activities will be a Celtic Heart Opening Concert on March 26th. Link here for complete details: Link here for more information.
