Taking the coracle.

Each summer some unseen magnet drew me to Britain's Holy Island of Lindisfarne, a cradle of Christianity from the seventh century onwards. Was this magnet a passing romance, or a deeper call?

To find out, I decided to stay there in the depth of winter. On New Year's Eve, 1988, I watched the Archbishop of Canterbury's Midnight Message on TV. His theme was how `cradle places' can shape civilization. After switching off the TV I stumbled through the dark to a stable--in such a place Christ had been cradled--and offered up the land to God.

My whole being, and the earth itself, seemed to shake and turn around. I felt certain God was saying: `Yes, I want a new cradling, as significant for this age as was the first cradling of faith that came from this island of Lindisfarne. Like that first cradling, this one will be close to the people, close to the earth, close to the world of the Spirit.'

At that time I was team leader of the Christian Church in Bowthorpe, Norwich: a unique partnership between six streams of Christianity. I became increasingly conscious that the great streams of Christianity, which had become separated over the centuries, had once flowed as one. Also that healing is as needed for a nation as it is for an individual.

So I and six others founded a community named after two Celtic saints, Aidan and Hilda, who lived some 1,300 years ago. Our community is a network of believers in various countries who seek the healing of their lands, and follow a way of life with the help of a `soul friend'. (Soul friend, Anamchara, is the beautiful Irish term for a mentor).

Long ago, Celtic Christians caught the imagination of the world as they sailed across oceans in coracles (small rowing boats made of skins), blown wherever God's winds took them. As my work in facilitating this new cradling increased, I realized that I must be willing to give up my secure job and stipend and step, as it were, into the coracle God had waiting for me. So, in April 1994, I moved to Lindisfarne to pursue this calling, supported only by the prayers and gifts of friends.

Since then I have been wonderfully led. Books and resource materials have been written; lives have been changed; a stream of people have come for retreats; amazing networking has developed through the Internet; and people all over the world have felt drawn to break free from old mentalities and get into coracles of one sort or another.

When people make their vows and join the Community of Aidan and Hilda (which we call `taking the coracle'), the following words are said to them:

`God is calling you to leave behind everything that stops you setting sail in the ocean of God's love. You have heard the call of the Wild Goose, the untameable Spirit of God. Be ready for him to lead you into wild, windy or well-worn places in the knowledge that he will make them places of wonder and welcome. He is giving you the vision of a spoiled creation being restored to harmony with its Creator, of a fragmented world becoming whole, of a weakened church being restored to its mission, of healed lands being lit up by the radiance of the glorious Trinity.'

Currently Christians are making penance for things which created dysfunctional patterns during the second millennium in order to enter the third one humbled, reconciled and freed to explore new ways. Some, for instance, are making `prayer walks of reconciliation' along routes where Muslims were killed in the Crusades. A new set of dynamics is coming into being.

As more and more people make acts of atoning service to those who have been wronged, some of the baggage of hates, hurts, fears and mistrust could be left behind, leading to a fresh start. Undreamed of voyages lie ahead.