by Coracle | Jan 6, 2020 | Church Unity, Contemplative Life, For the World, Justice and Mercy, Liturgical Seasons, Pilgrimage
A Christmas Letter from Nate Bacon of InnerCHANGE, our partner ministry in Guatemala. Dear Family and Friends, Christmas as a time of giving is a beautiful thing! Sadly, our consumerist society has warped that wonderful ideal, into a bit of a buying frenzy which can...
by Coracle | Jan 3, 2020 | Contemplative Life
by Kate Harris | Dec 20, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.” Luke 2:6 (NIV) In an unknown town, a week’s distance from the womanly wisdom of mother, sisters, aunts, it began. Plodding heavily beside...
by Rick Mastroianni | Dec 16, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
She insisted on seeing me face-to-face, unveiled, defying all custom for the betrothed to remain apart until the wedding feast. I watched her eyes rain when she saw doubt and pain in mine. They said it was a good match: me from David’s royal line, she connected to...
by Drew Masterson | Dec 10, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
Advent, when we allow it, transports us back in time to a relatively small and unheralded province of the Roman Empire where a people waited. This people had enjoyed millennia of imperfect but close communion with their God; He had walked with them, spoken to them,...
by Coracle | Dec 6, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Vocation
Poem and Reflection by Julie Harrison Eastwood Coracle Fellow, Class of 2019 Eucharist Song Prepare the fields lay them open and ready to receive graft and seed to be baptized with rain with tears as we wait in the hospitable silence Sing with the fields greening in...
by Bill Haley | Oct 18, 2019 | Church Unity, Contemplative Life
For a long time my life has been formed and fed by the monastic tradition. It began by reading Henri Nouwen’s Genesee Diary in college, and it was that book that introduced me to monasteries, the Trappists, and spiritual direction. Since that time and over time God...
by Rick Mastroianni | Oct 1, 2019 | Contemplative Life
I’m among many who have benefitted from experimenting with the practices found in Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. Friends from various Christian traditions practice the Prayer of Examen, a contemplative review of the day in which we reflect on moments of...
by Drew Masterson | Sep 24, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Creation
Robert Frost once defined poetry as a “way of remembering what it would impoverish us to forget.” Poetry emerged as the first form of literary writing in human history way back in the 3rd Millennium BCE, and indeed the vast majority of ancient literature comes down to...
by Coracle | Sep 24, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Creation
A poem by Julie Harrison Eastwood Written during the first Coracle Fellowship retreat in January, on a grassy little island just big enough to sit on, beside the water. Forgiveness is Love, said the winter-swollen creek. Impatience is the brush-tinder for every bad...
by Coracle | Sep 23, 2019 | Contemplative Life
In mid-May of this year, 2019 Coracle Fellow and accomplished painter, Carolyn Marshall Wright, sustained a serious concussion. The injury, from which she is still recovering, left her largely confined to her home for the next four months, where she alternated between...
by Bill Haley | Sep 17, 2019 | Contemplative Life
I imagine that many of you, like me, did not come from a sacramental tradition. Perhaps you find yourself in one now and still have questions when it comes time on Sunday for “Communion,” “The Lord’s Supper,” “The...
by Kelly Gould | Sep 10, 2019 | Contemplative Life
As we approach the halfway point of a year of gathering together, I reflect on what I thought this year would be and what its reality has been. When I discovered the Fellows program, by accident really, I immediately heard God whisper my name, “Kelly, this is what we...
by Abigail Whitehouse | Aug 27, 2019 | Contemplative Life
My husband and I live on an Air Force base, and a few weeks ago, I went for an afternoon walk along the trail that circles the runway. I had just purchased a jogging stroller from my sister’s neighbor and wanted to give it a try, but the timing was terrible and the...
by Karla Petty | Aug 20, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Pilgrimage
I. Kyrie II. Gloria III. Credo IV. Sanctus and Benedictus V. Agnus Dei We’ve just finished another Coracle pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This time, we walked along the Camino Portuguese using the Coastal Route option. It leads you for...
by Coracle | Jul 29, 2019 | Church Unity, Contemplative Life
Father James has been my spiritual director for over 20 years, and my life is unrecognizable without his ministry (see more about that here in “What is Spiritual Direction”). In a recent session we were talking about the polarized moment our country is living...
by Drew Masterson | Jul 25, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Creation
Before you read the quote from C.S. Lewis below, I highly recommend that you watch this performance of J.S. Bach’s Fugue in G Minor, commonly called the Little Fugue. Pay attention to how the opening lines of the piece ripple through different registers of the...
by Bill Haley | Jul 18, 2019 | Contemplative Life
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of speaking to about 20 college students from The Falls Church Anglican who were back for the summer or getting ready to enter freshman year. I was basically told ‘talk about whatever you’d like,’ so I chose to reflect back...
by Karla Petty | Jul 15, 2019 | Contemplative Life
It was a dark room with about 16 other people in it. Unseasonably hot outside, the air conditioning was going full blast, and I shivered under a duct as I awaited Rose Cousins, Canadian singer/songwriter, at a small venue in suburbia. Her 2017 release Natural...
by Coracle | Jul 7, 2019 | Contemplative Life
Alice Findler, a 2018 graduate of the Coracle Fellowship, took the opportunity to draw her passion for photographing the natural world together with her love of Psalm 148. Here is what she had to say about her endeavor: This project is an appreciation of the Lord’s...
