I'm writing this from Benburb Priory, Northern Ireland where I'm staying for a weekend organised by Maranatha. When I saw it advertised in their mailing I realised the venue was a place I visited about 30 years ago as a young Christian. I have since bored many people with my reminiscences of my time here and how I felt the close presence of God, particularly on several walks in the woods by the river accompanied by the Irish Setter and Cormac and Rosheen the Irish Wolfhounds that were here then. 
Sometimes it can be disappointing to go back to places, but this afternoon I met the two dogs that now reside here - large black things of unknown breed (though not as big as Wolfhounds) - who just like their canine predecessors came along with me on a walk through the woods. In fact I was going to walk into the village, but they met me in the drive and more or less manoeuvered me off to the right to the path to the river! Talk about deja vu! Nice one God.
There are about 25 of us on this retreat, most from various parts of Northern Ireland. At our initial meeting this evening during a prayer time someone said that they felt that we should offer up our individual agendas for the weekend up to God, what we were hoping to get from it and instead ask him to do what he wanted to do in each of us. Fair enough. My first thought was that beyond re-visiting somewhere significant in my early spiritual life I didn't really have an agenda, but then I began thinking about this sabbatical/study leave and that I had an agenda for it of "having something to show" at the end of it. And I remembered that my most recent prayer to that effect was this very afternoon. It seemed that God was saying I needed to abandon that agenda, and that it was actually a human thing - I wanted to come out of this time with a neat package of guidance and direction or reading and writing accomplished to justify the time in other people's eyes. I needed to offer the time back to him (the whole S/SL not just this weekend) and let him accomplish what he wanted for it. That may or may not include some of those things - but it won't matter either way. Maybe it's a sort of variation of Matt 6 v33. Seek first the Kingdom... It could be this is what the anonymous note from the 'Caretaker' that has appeared on the end of the first entry in this blog is about. Go have a look.
I wonder what the rest of this weekend has in store? As I have no internet connection here and can't post this yet, read on...
Wednesday, Belfast City Airport...
The weekend was rather good and had a similar feel to the Renewal events I went to in the North and South of Ireland back in the 70's. (More deja vu. Is one of the features of this S/SL some re-visiting of my spiritual roots?) The people who came are from that movement in fact, some going back to the initial move of the Spirit in the 70's, some more recently 'awakened' as one lady put it. They were a lovely bunch, mixed Catholic and Protestant and the question never arose as to who was who. Which is how it should be. Good fellowship, sharing and ministry. I ended up co-leading one session (hope that doesn't count as 'work') and played a bit of guitar on Sunday to help out as one of the musicians had to leave on Saturday night. Several people asked me if I'd thought about moving back to N.I... hopefully they were just being polite and not speaking with the Unction of you know Who!!!
Then it was back to Belfast for a few days staying with mum. As they would put it here: "My ears are tawked aff me so they are."
P.S. Experimenting with adding video via YouTube.
Sometimes it can be disappointing to go back to places, but this afternoon I met the two dogs that now reside here - large black things of unknown breed (though not as big as Wolfhounds) - who just like their canine predecessors came along with me on a walk through the woods. In fact I was going to walk into the village, but they met me in the drive and more or less manoeuvered me off to the right to the path to the river! Talk about deja vu! Nice one God.There are about 25 of us on this retreat, most from various parts of Northern Ireland. At our initial meeting this evening during a prayer time someone said that they felt that we should offer up our individual agendas for the weekend up to God, what we were hoping to get from it and instead ask him to do what he wanted to do in each of us. Fair enough. My first thought was that beyond re-visiting somewhere significant in my early spiritual life I didn't really have an agenda, but then I began thinking about this sabbatical/study leave and that I had an agenda for it of "having something to show" at the end of it. And I remembered that my most recent prayer to that effect was this very afternoon. It seemed that God was saying I needed to abandon that agenda, and that it was actually a human thing - I wanted to come out of this time with a neat package of guidance and direction or reading and writing accomplished to justify the time in other people's eyes. I needed to offer the time back to him (the whole S/SL not just this weekend) and let him accomplish what he wanted for it. That may or may not include some of those things - but it won't matter either way. Maybe it's a sort of variation of Matt 6 v33. Seek first the Kingdom... It could be this is what the anonymous note from the 'Caretaker' that has appeared on the end of the first entry in this blog is about. Go have a look.
I wonder what the rest of this weekend has in store? As I have no internet connection here and can't post this yet, read on...
Wednesday, Belfast City Airport...
The weekend was rather good and had a similar feel to the Renewal events I went to in the North and South of Ireland back in the 70's. (More deja vu. Is one of the features of this S/SL some re-visiting of my spiritual roots?) The people who came are from that movement in fact, some going back to the initial move of the Spirit in the 70's, some more recently 'awakened' as one lady put it. They were a lovely bunch, mixed Catholic and Protestant and the question never arose as to who was who. Which is how it should be. Good fellowship, sharing and ministry. I ended up co-leading one session (hope that doesn't count as 'work') and played a bit of guitar on Sunday to help out as one of the musicians had to leave on Saturday night. Several people asked me if I'd thought about moving back to N.I... hopefully they were just being polite and not speaking with the Unction of you know Who!!!
Then it was back to Belfast for a few days staying with mum. As they would put it here: "My ears are tawked aff me so they are."
P.S. Experimenting with adding video via YouTube.
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