A Small Round Boat

A recent read is entitled, "Celtic Christian Spirituality."  Honesty requires confessing that my reading in that area is very limited.  One section which really struck me was the material about Celtic Christians being wandering saints.  They became pilgrims and wanderers according to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  Some of those journeys were on land and some were on water.  "Using a small round boat with no oars (called a coracle a curragh), a pilgrim band would climb into the boat, cast off and entrust themselves to 'currents of divine love'   Eventually,...the sea or river would  bring them to rest at a place they had not chosen, for they allowed themselves to be completely open to the movement of the water." 

 

Such an image brought to mind the way Oswald Chambers wrote about abandonment. The way to the most intimate and powerful relationship with God is through the waters of turning lose of everything regarded as precious for the sake of God.  For many of us it is a life long journey.  We go along thinking we are right in there where we need to be on the road of faith only to have the Spirit show us something in our heart which is holding us back or causing us to walk a way other than the road being walked by Christ.  The Celtic Christian tradition of getting in a boat with no oars is a powerful image of what it means to abandon all to God.

 

I wonder.  I wonder too much.  But, still I wonder if in the beginning of our faith journey, the Spirit puts us in one of those small round boats with a word about getting ready for the journey to wherever.  I wonder if that is how it was and I also wonder why I kept shifting my weight around so that I could get myself somewhere I wanted to be.  Looking back I think I was getting out too much instead of staying put so the current of the Holy Spirit could move me to the place and the moment filled with His bidding.