by Karla Petty | Apr 2, 2018 | Contemplative Life, For the World
One of the primary features of living Christianity as Christ has called us to live it is being a part of community. Whatever Myers-Briggs personality type you are, or where you fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum, there is no getting around the fact that Christ...
by Scott Buresh | Mar 31, 2018 | Contemplative Life, For the World
What a sweet and tender Lenten season for many of us here in Baltimore who have been journeying together with George Hopkins and the Repentance Project. We have encountered great darkness and brokenness in our past with tentacles that reach into the present. We opened...
by Bill Haley | Mar 30, 2018 | Contemplative Life, Spiritual Direction
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” (John...
by Coracle | Mar 17, 2018 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
Printable PDF of this prayer can be found here: St. Patrick’s Breastplate I bind unto myself today The strong name of the Trinity: By invocation of the same, The Three in One and One in Three. I bind this day to me for ever By...
by Wade Ballou | Mar 15, 2018 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
The season of Lent often coincides with tax season and these days we can find ourselves sorting through receipts and bank statements taking stock of our year financially, as well as taking stock of our interior lives. Any examination connected to federal income taxes...
by Bill Haley | Feb 9, 2018 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. – John 15:9 As we move into Lent next Wednesday, here are some thoughts that are helpful to keep firmly in mind and heart. When you’re going to truly consider and climb down into the depth of...
by Coracle | Feb 7, 2018 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
As we approach the season of Lent one week from today, please see this printable PDF that we put together of some resources we really like. We want to particularly point you toward An American Lent, an online tool which we helped develop to dive into this season of...
by Karla Petty | Feb 2, 2018 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
With Lent beginning on Valentine’s day, and Easter falling on April 1 (April Fool’s day) it’s already a struggle to enter in to an important liturgical season, even before it has started. Even without competing with greeting card holidays, it’s...
by Scott Buresh | Jan 30, 2018 | Contemplative Life, Pilgrimage, Spiritual Direction
Recently I returned with Heather Strube from Southeast Asia having done a strange mission trip with Coracle: offering spiritual direction and formation in a far off land with those bringing Jesus in even farther off lands! That doesn’t happen without some context....
by Karla Petty | Jan 16, 2018 | Contemplative Life
For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. ~ Proverbs 2:6 Time and again, the bible instructs us to seek wisdom. In Proverbs 8, wisdom is personified as a woman who calls out to the “children of man”. For many of us, seeking wisdom...
by Bill Haley | Jan 4, 2018 | Contemplative Life
Happy New Year, friends! As 2018 begins to unfold, no doubt it will be an interesting year for each one of us, full of challenges and joys. Some of those joys and challenges maybe we can anticipate, and many we have no idea are coming! But we can be assured that...
by Coracle | Dec 30, 2017 | Contemplative Life
John Rogers wrote this poem two years ago regarding his experiences sailing his own boat as well as angst over US politics. He found our website while studying the story from John 21 about Peter and the other disciples fishing. Thank you for sharing this beautiful...
by Bill Haley | Dec 26, 2017 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
In the very early hours of December 24, 2017, my mom –JoAnn Neburka Haley– passed on from this life to the next, having lived 83 years on this earth and forever in the world to come. It was not a surprise to us, we’d known it was coming these past two years and these...
by Wade Ballou | Dec 22, 2017 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
The year was 1933, deep into the Great Depression. In Murphy, NC, a small Appalachian town, a group of evangelicals seeking to raise funds had been ordered out of town. At one point before leaving: “A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform...
by Coracle | Dec 14, 2017 | Contemplative Life
By: Nate Herndon I have had the privilege of performing the Gospel through Program over the past 3 years for The Falls Church Anglican’s youth Breakaway Weekends. In case you don’t know what I mean by “Program”, it is an ongoing skit that happens throughout any...
by Kate Harris | Nov 16, 2017 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the...
by Karla Petty | Oct 13, 2017 | Contemplative Life
It’s doubtful that people ever actually want to meditate on suffering. But these mediations do come in the course of our lives, through direct or indirect circumstances. About two years ago, I wrote to you about the death of my cousin, Brian. In early Spring, I wrote...
by Karla Petty | Oct 6, 2017 | Contemplative Life
In the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there is a running gag featuring monks in sombre garments, trudging through streets, chanting mirthlessly and monotonously in Latin, hitting themselves on the head with boards in between cadences of their chant. Despite...
by Wade Ballou | Sep 18, 2017 | Contemplative Life, Coracle News
“War, sin, killing and a robbing — they say that the world is one big problem. I’ve got one, I tell you now, I can’t find my guernsey cow. I didn’t write no constitution but I got one good solution: drink a little wine, drink a little booze, sit on the back porch and...
by Bill Haley | Sep 5, 2017 | Contemplative Life
Describing his conversion, CS Lewis wrote “Into the region of awe, in deepest solitude there is a road right out of the self, a commerce with…the naked Other, imageless (though our imagination salutes it with a hundred images), unknown, undefined, desired.” It’s a...