Coracle news

Reflection Day, April 2009

Posted Thursday 30 April 2009

You pull your coracle to the edge of the sea, jump in and push into the water, towards the open sea. Where are you being taken? In April this year, a number of us (representing groups that have been part of Coracle over the last seven years) met to reflect on The Coracle Story, ably led by Julia Ling. Mary Kernohan recalls... We recollected the history of Coracle acknowledging its original vision and guiding principles of working to provide people, especially those in transition, with a context to learn and explore the meaning of the Christian life in the everyday world. We heard stories about the journey travelled by each of the groups set up by Bridget and Kenny. Each contributor laid down visual elements to create a main centrepiece and noted what our involvement had offered us and what it had offered to others. Whilst contributions varied, there was a theme of security, nurturing and friendship as people offered the ‘wavy’ phrases below. We then considered how the story might go forward, imagining our onward journeys, sailing forward in our coracles. We used different media to explore our thoughts some painting, others modelling clay, whilst others recorded words. A theme emerged of open water and energising wind. Our conclusions from the day were not practical next steps but rather a ‘peaceful uncertainty’, a ‘comfortable unknowing’, a need to trust the wind and a strong desire to continue the journey and a new chapter in the Coracle story. Mags Bryan’s response to one of the sessions ‘Where are we being taken?’ was to draw this picture of Jesus with his chest opened to show the open sea. She comments…

During our time of reflection I was shocked to experience such a desperate longing to be part of His very being. Because no sea or shore could take me to that deep place-an outward journey was just not enough, I found myself ripping open the source of freedom and life knowing that as I did so, I was free…. returning home to a vast open space.

The sense that our destination if any is the open sea, which is God himself, journeying with Him was echoed by others and mirrored in Peter Nielson’s recollection of the theologian Stanley Hauerwas’s words, ‘Salvation is to be on the road again’.