Evening Wrap Up by Kirk (a chaperone)
Times together in the presence of our God are so sacred. Today was such a time for the pilgrims from Charlotte N.C. Listening to one another and to God can be a Sacrament. Today the team truly found one another and in doing so they each grasped a greater glimpse of God. Kirk, a fellow pilgim, and adult chaperon from Christ Episcopal wrote the excerpt below.
We started our day with a good visit to Clonmacnoise which was a monastic community started be St Ciaran. The scope of this community and its impact on early Christianity in Ireland is huge. We all learned a great deal, however we experienced such an amazing 3-hour wrap up time at the end of the day we felt we should talk about that instead. The evening closing circle began well with everyone sharing what they had written in their journals. In our journals we had placed a list of Bible verses that corresponded with feelings we might be experiencing. Do you feel lost, alone, afraid, sad, etc? We began to express what we where feeling in relation to where we where at the time. People opened up like never before. Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn.” People shared what was going on in their lives, and opened up their hearts to one another and expressed their love, respect, and support for one another. Lee said it best “Hearts where open and tears where shed.” Anne was ready to break into a chorus of, “surely the presence of the lord is in this place.” Lauren said she thought she knew everyone, but found that she didn’t know everyone as well as she thought.
One final word about the Stone Soup exercise that we spoke about in a previous blog post, we finished with a fantastic meal of grilled Kabobs and Chris Weiss tomato pie. Each group of 3 teams used this exercise to learn cooperation and community. The growth has been tremendous and we look forward to hiking Croagh Patrick tomorrow.