transitionING in faith through the lifestages
The Coracle Trust offers places of hospitality for pilgrims and navigators to share stories, cultivate learning and instil an openness towards Christ.
Throughout our lives transitions require us to review what has become most significant and meaningful to us. Whether triggered by loss, profound love or uncertainty we aim to reflect well upon our inner life and outer world through readings, art, poetry, metaphor and now through walking (wellbeing and the outdoors). Here we gather and distribute via an e-newsletter personal and collective work (reflections) from within the Coracle community and draw on the work of theologians, writers, poets and artists as they strive to provide maps for the wellbeing, maturity and faith development of individuals and communities. Please use the site wide Search facility below to enter subjects of interest.
We explore, offer and consult on generic and site specific installations. We craft and advise on contemplative trails and collate pages of trails and spaces within Scotland, providing accompanying reflective material. We also run groups in Edinburgh: a mid-life spirituality group and a motherhood and God group. Contact coracletrust@gmail.com for more information.
TOPIC REFLECTIONS FROM GROUP WORK
In the experience of beauty we awaken and surrender in the same act.
John O'Donohue
Photograph: Blue valley, Ales Krivec (unsplash.com)
It takes the four seasons of our life to develop the art of doing all things playfully; that is religiously.
Janice Brewi and Anne Brennan
Picture: Children's games, Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Fidelity through changes.
Picture: Friends, Konstantin Makovsky
All dreams, (even the nasty ones we care to call "nightmares"), come ultimately in the service of physical, emotional, and spiritual health and wholeness.
Jeremy Taylor
Picture: July Night, Frederick Child Hassam
Faith is a verb, a process of becoming, involving our loving, trusting, believing, acting, suffering, valuing, knowing, committing. Alan Jamieson
Picture: The Vendramin family, Titian
Accepting the life that is awaiting us
Photo: Annie Spratt, unsplash.com
I the middle of my winter I found an invincible summer. Daniel O'Leary
Photo: Kwang Mathurosemontri
I wake to a perfect patience of mountains...To merciful Him whose only now is forever.
E. E. Cummings
Picture: Samuel Palmer
Do some things get better as we age?
What might these be?
Picture: Self portrait with red flower wreath and chain, 1907. Paula Modersohn becke
Entering deeply in to the soul so as to enter more deeply in to humanity and the mystery of God himself. Peter Feldmeier
Photograph: Houses on clifftop, Jonas Lavoie-Levesque (unsplash.com)
A liquid society. Do we underestimate the effect of postmodern culture on our faith?
The impact of internalising the extroverted bias in culture.
Picture: Self portrait, 1901 Heinrich Kuhn
Torpor and the refusal of joy. The word literally means "not caring" or "being unable to care". Kathleen Norris
Picture: Elijah and the angel, Denic Bouts
Disorientation...an abrupt or slowly dawning acknowledgement that constitutes a dismantling of the old known world and a relinquishment of safe, reliable, confidence in God's good creation.
Walter Bruggemann
Picture: The fall of Icarus, Peter Paul Rubens
Infatuation and enchantment - Nesting and manipulation - Crisis - Resolution and integration.
Picture: The entombment, 1612. Peter Paul Rubens
If we wish to live freely and expansively we must learn to die or diminish or take risks.
Photograph: Stephen Wood
Time for intuition, inklings and trusting the unconscious.
Everything is gestation and then rebirthing. Rainer Maria Rilke
Picture: Branches of an almond tree in blossom, Vincent van Gogh
The LORD had said to Abraham, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."
Photograph: Stephen Wood
Second growth: Discontent, restlessness, doubt, despair, longing as signs of growing pains.
Picture: Sven Schlager, unsplash.com
What imprints have landscapes made on your soul?
Photograph: Hill and village scene, Elaine Li (unsplash.com)
Our rootedness, our sense of place and space, is profoundly bodily.
God delights in being visible and tangible in human skin. The Blessed Trinity dwells deep within our bodies.
Daniel O'Leary
Photograph: Boots, Amanda Sandlin (unsplash.com)
Seen it all, done it all, heard it all,
Mid-life, no "no more bullshit passage".
Cynicism and the love of all things.
Picture: Niagara Falls, Pavel Svinyin
A consideration of the Beatitudes.
Photo: Clashing zebras, David Meier (picography.co)
This hidden life, this first courageous life, seems to speak from silence.
David Whyte
Photo: Underwater swimmer, Jacob Walti (unsplash.com)
To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day. Lao Tsu
Photo: Leaf, Grzegorz Mleczek (unsplash.com)
All of life is archetypal. Jesus has therefore within himself all the patterns of being, relating, growing and ministering that all people have.
Janice Brewi
Picture: Simeon's song, Rembrandt
Lord, transform our prejudice, nurture our growth, deepen our questions, widen our view, challenge our comforts.
May our thoughts make us explorers.
Picture: Stamp, wikicommons
Shame and vulnerability. The Invisible Church - a book review, Downloadable pdf material launched. Two new groups: East Lothian and Explorers
Caring is the greatest thing, caring matters most. Frederick von Hugel
Picture: Kneeling man planting,1881. Vincent van Gogh
Creating space between people. Henri Nouwen
Picture: Light of the world, Holman Hunt
Ascent and descent for women and men.
Photo: Underground, Sam (unsplash.com)
Religion is always, in one sense or another, about making one out of two.
Picture: Man and woman on the beach, 1893. Thomas Pollack
What is my characteristic style of coping with endings?
What and where is home?
Picture: Montfoucault, 1874 Camille Pissarro
Eucharist living. Liturgy and life.
Picture: Supper at Emmaus,1602, Caravaggio
Everything is already given.
Richard Rohr
Picture: Waiting for the ferry, 1915. Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky
The body is a doorway into inner space or presence.
Picture: Annunciation, Fra Angelico,
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
At the end of the day, how do you know you have done enough? Pete Edwards
Photo: Tangle of railway lines José Martín (unsplash.com)
The signs of transition are a resurgence of immense fear, so the temptation is to return to the tried and tested. Which is half right.
Richard Rohr
Picture: Two crosses, Bridget MacAulay
I need to be humbled, cooked in the tears of loss for any deeper life to emerge.
And there was a new voice, which you slowly recognised as your own.
Roger Housden on a Mary Oliver poem
Picture: In front of the Isle Tudy, Maxime Maufra
It is morning, afternoon or evening. Begin.
Thomas Merton
Photo: Watch, Levi Saunders (unsplash.com)
Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it. It's frisky, and a theatre for more than fair winds...Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.
Mary Oliver
Picture: Winger Dance, 1903. Hugo Simberg
What does it feel like to be silent before God, and before others?
Picture: Morning in Riesengebirge, Caspar David Friedrich
What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah
Picture: Coalmine in the Borinage, 1879. van Gogh
Meditations on the mingling of joy and sorrow.
Somewhere, somehow, we began to live as if we were separate, alone and in danger. Once afraid, we constructed a self out of that fear and have been steadfastly defending it ever since. Kabir Helminski
Picture: Sunlit bush, Lukasz Szmigiel (unsplash.com)
SEASONAL REFLECTIONS and MAGAZINE
Stop at any point in your day to reflect upon the day's graces and pulls. Set within the context of the changing seasons this is an audiovisual liturgically based ‘altar’ for stilling ourselves and re-viewing our experience of Life this day.
Images and quoted content are either understood to be in the public domain or are used with fair use principles in mind. Please inform us if your material should not be used.
Articles in Life and Work and EDGE publications.