In the Coracle

To Pause at the Threshold (summary paper)

May 19th, 2009, No Comments

“To Pause at the Threshold: Reflections on Living on the Border” (Esther De Waal)
To Pause at the Threshold
by Esther de Waal
Morehouse (2001)
Description of the Book
To Pause at the Threshold is a short exploration of the boundary spaces in our lives and our response to these thresholds. In our everyday lives, we are often so busy [...]

A Celtic Creed

May 18th, 2009, 1 Comment

We believe in God above us,
maker and sustainer of all life,
of sun and moon, of water and earth,
of male and female.

We believe in God beside us,
Jesus Christ, the word made flesh,
born of a woman, servant of the poor,
tortured and nailed to a tree.

A man of sorrows, he died forseaken.
He descendend into the earth
to the place [...]

To Pause at the Threshold (Part 3)

May 17th, 2009, No Comments

“To Pause at the Threshold: Reflections on Living on the Border” (Esther De Waal)

The final chapter of this book is the one I enjoyed and appreciated the most.
Titled The Time Between The Times, it looks at how we live with those twilight moments when something is dawning or is in its dusk phase (whether that [...]

To Pause at the Threshold (Part 2)

May 16th, 2009, No Comments

“To Pause at the Threshold: Reflections on Living on the Border” (Esther De Waal)

There is a traditional saying of ancient wisdom: “A threshold is a sacred thing.” (p. 1)

We have thresholds, transition points, throughout our lives. In our culture, we tend to rush through them, or not even notice that we’re blasting through thresholds. However, [...]

To Pause at the Threshold (Part 1)

May 13th, 2009, No Comments

“To Pause at the Threshold: Reflections on Living on the Border” (Esther De Waal)

Esther de Waal is one of those writers that I deeply respect. She writes mostly about Benedictine spirituality, but also deeply about Celtic spirituality. She approaches monastic spirituality from the perspective of a layperson, incorporating different streams into her everyday life. This [...]

To think about, amidst the discussion of solitude and silence here lately

April 9th, 2009, No Comments

“If I could live in a tiny dwelling on a rock in the ocean, surrounded by the waves of the sea and cut off from the sight and sound of everything else, I would still not be free of the cares of this passing world, or from the fear that somehow the love of money [...]

Why a Way of Life?

December 28th, 2008, No Comments

Godly discipline is different to the rules and regulations of bureaucratic organizations. The answer to legalism is not a vacuum, but clarity about our priorities. To live authentically means that I choose my lifestyle, I do not succumb to the lifestyle others foist upon me. It means that I use my time, money and talents [...]

Rules and Monastic Life (Urban Iona Part 6)

November 22nd, 2008, No Comments

Continuing the series of digging into Kurt Neilson’s book, Urban Iona.
From chapter 22:

The writing of a Rule of life seemed to be the natural step [in Neilson's return to his parish church after his pilgrimage]. Monastic life is an old phenomenon in the Church. It was the effort to establish God’s kingdom on earth, with [...]

Being Church, Doing Church, and the fall of Empire (Urban Iona Part 5)

November 22nd, 2008, No Comments

Continuing the series of digging into Kurt Neilson’s book, Urban Iona.
From chapter 20:

A great deal of talk and writing goes into diagnosing why many ways of “being church” and “doing church” either don’t work anymore, or even if they work the result looks and feels more like American culture than it does the radical values [...]

Hunger for Community (Urban Iona Part 4)

November 22nd, 2008, No Comments

Continuing the series of digging into Kurt Neilson’s book, Urban Iona.
From chapter 16:

Many of us, I most certainly, hunger for something fresh and new and challenging and not convenient, not accommodated to the culture of this or any other bygone day. I crave a faith and a community that is grateful for the past and [...]