Journal

Category: Contemplative Life

One Fool’s Offering. What’s Yours?

“Originality consists in returning to the origin.” – Antoni Gaudí I hadn’t heard of Antoni Gaudí before spring of 2004 when I first visited Barcelona, but you can’t miss him once you’re there. Of the many works this master architect designed, his pièce de...

Failure and Freedom

By: Joe Riffe I hate failing. It’s excruciating. This was true when I was young. I hated failing at school or at sports or high school attempts to be “cool.” Becoming an adult hasn’t changed that fact. My opportunities for failure have just changed. Now they are work,...

Small Surrenders

Thomas Merton said: “We are not converted only once in our lives but many times, and this endless series of large and small conversions, inner revolutions, leads to our transformation in Christ.” As a child, I was considered a Pollyanna in our family. A...

Lent Resources 2017

Liturgical seasons can act as guideposts through the year and Lent is a particularly special one.  It’s easy to get caught up in the “sackcloth and ashes” part of Lent, with all the self-denial and focus on our own sin.  This is important to...

Light in the Darkness

Several years ago, my wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a getaway in southern Utah. Where we stayed, we were bordered by the Colorado River on one side, and on the other by the dramatic red sandstone structures that make up the landscape. One morning...

WWJD? Love all the way.

The power of God was shown most clearly at the resurrection of Jesus.  God defeated death. The love of God was shown most clearly on the cross of Christ.  God poured out his life for us.  And Jesus said, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another”...

Who, me? Journal?…Really?

By: Desiree Barker Coracle Spiritual Director, Northern Virginia I will begin by saying that I did not grow up keeping a diary or a journal. I had two younger sisters and writing down personal things in a diary was not a safe activity at our house! While in college, I...

“Friendship Forms.”

By: Heather Strube Coracle Spiritual Director Baltimore, MD “Friendship forms. Friendship is a much underestimated aspect of spirituality. It’s every bit as significant as prayer and fasting. Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship...

God’s Love = 20/20 Vision

Right on the heels of Epiphany, appropriately, I’d like to ask: Has something familiar ever suddenly, or maybe over time, become totally new to you? Have you ever asked yourself what shifted that allowed that newness to flood into something so familiar? For me, it was...

I Believe

By: Yonce Shelton Coracle Spiritual Director December 2016  I believe because I go to the woods and am met.  I go not to get away from, but to draw closer to. I go with desire.  Or a question.  Or the sense that I carry something.  Or three words on a sticky note.  I...

Welcome to 2017!

2017 is going to be a big, strange year, full of challenges, with much uncertainty.  You feel it.  We all do.  I do, deeply. And just like it is true at the beginning of every new year, the world needs more people who are alive and strong in God to powerfully be his...

Remembering Bill Scherer

On December 31, 2013, Bill Scherer, father to Tara and father-in-law to me, entered the larger Life.  He was a founding board member of Coracle, and instrumental in enabling Corhaven to come into reality, among so many other things.  Below is the homily that I...

God Came

This Advent season, when I pause to reflect on the meaning of it and prepare for that feast day and celebration that is Christmas, my heart is filled with gratitude.   It may seem rather simple to say, but I’m really grateful that God came. God came. It’s that simple,...

What leads you to wonder?

My first invitation to wonder about Jesus’ coming came when I was a boy, stealing away to my childhood living room and sitting alone among all the bright trimmings of the season. Without really knowing it was happening, the mystery of the season seeped into my soul....