"Over the last twenty years spiritual director, teacher, and pilgrim Tracy Balzer has made more than a dozen transatlantic visits to Scotland's Isle of Iona, welcoming the hallowed spaces of the island to sculpt, bend, and sustain her spiritually. ""It might be said that Iona has been my spiritual director,"" says Balzer, for with each visit she is freshly confronted by key questions of faith: Who am I? Who is God? What am I to do with my life? Set against the backdrop of Iona's deep Christian history and exquisite natural beauty, A Journey of Sea and Stone explores these questions, prompting each of us to reach for meaning in our daily lives and to consider the myriad ways God might be inviting us into something new. Tapping our innate desire to seek and find, to encounter God in creation and in the history of faithful people, Balzer guides us in our own journeys to cultivate and find sustenance and connection in sacred spaces. Deep passages of reflection are complemented by rich illustrations reflecting the island's stunning terrain and Celtic heritage, providing spiritual seekers and armchair travelers a fresh entr'e into the world of the sacred, wherever they may be."
Tracy Balzer is a speaker, spiritual director, retreat leader, and an oblate at Subiaco Abbey. She is the author of Thin Places, A Listening Life, and Permission to Ponder, The founder and leader of Sea & Stone Journeys, she organizes spiritual pilgrimages to the British Isles. Tracy also hosts the podcast A Listening Life, where she guides listeners through the prayerful practice of lectio divina. Tracy lives in Siloam Springs, Arkansas where she serves as director of Christian formation at John Brown University.
Introduction: A skilled spiritual director asks the directee questions that will help them listen for the voice of God in their life. Those questions are all rooted in three that are essential: Who is God? Who am I? What am I to do with my life? WHO IS GOD? Columba's Bay: What are you searching for? Jesus tells his followers that "the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls" (Matthew 13:45). What is the deepest longing of our hearts that can only be satisfied in something "other," in something transcendent and of eternal value? St Martin's Cross: Who is Jesus? One of the great curiosities of the Gospels is that Jesus' own followers seem to have a hard time getting a grip on who Jesus really is. And Jesus asks them, point blank: Who do you say I am? He asks us the same question. Dun I: What do you see? The contemplative tradition of Christianity has a singular objective: to teach us to pay attention. This chapter reflects on the what it means to pay attention, and to do it from a different vantage point. WHO ARE YOU? Hostel: What's your story? One of the gifts of spiritual direction is that it gives space for honest engagement with what is true about ourselves -- where we've come from, what has shaped us, where have we seen the hand of God at work. Pilgrims: What are the spiritual knots that need untying? In a spiritual direction relationship, this question emerges quickly. For often, the presence of a "spiritual knot" is what brought the directee in the first place. Where are the places in life when what I Sacred places provide space for the reflection that our typical, frantic lives do not. Space where, if we listen, we will hear the voice of God. Staffa: What brings you delight? "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" Matthew 6:26-27 This is a serious challenge in our fear-filled world. WHAT ARE YOU TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE? White Strand: What are you afraid of? This chapter seeks not only to help the reader be honest about their own fears, but to also provide a word of encouragement through a profoundly instructive experience on Iona's White Strand of the Martyr's. The Bothy: Where do you want to live? This chapter explores the concept of "home" in depth, calling us to affirm that God himself is our truest home. Val's Farm: What gift can you give to the world? What is my role in the world? What was I created for? What is my purpose? These are questions that a good spiritual director will help to process. And while answers to the questions are certainly helpful, it's the processing that is perhaps most formative.
"[A] glowing testament...Christian naturalists will relish this." --Publishers Weekly "Which books keep you sane when the world locks you down? For me it's those with marrow-deep ties to the geography they describe--Wendell Berry's Port William stories, Timothy Egan's pilgrimage to Rome, Henry Beston's year on the beach at Cape Cod. New to this heartening shelf is Tracy Balzer's A Journey of Sea and Stone, the tale of her longstanding love for the cloistered island of Iona, off the Scottish coast. We all have places we seem to have known forever. In lucid, rhythmic prose, Balzer develops a spiritual travelogue of solace and gratitude, of openness to wonder and reason, and of a longing for what Beston called 'the dear earth itself underfoot.' This is a welcome book." --Leif Enger, author of Peace Like a River "The ancient tradition of spiritual pilgrimage reminds us that ordinary places can be holy places. Tracy Balzer takes us to the holy Isle of Iona to find fresh inspiration and meaning in our daily lives. If you want a spiritual pilgrimage that will renew your faith, you don't have to travel far. All you have to do is read this book!" --Dr. Winfield Bevins, director of church planting at Asbury Seminary and author of Ever Ancient, Ever New "A visionary, Tracy Balzer draws us in to a vivid sense of what holiness looks like, feels like. She demonstrates how anyone who experiences this transformative power can never again be the same--it is that radical." --Luci Shaw, Writer in Residence, Regent College and author of The Generosity and Eye of the Beholder "This book is about listening and looking and learning; it is about being deeply there to hear the heartbeat of a place, and the teaching that comes from all these things is gracious and generous. This work is like a polished serpentine stone from St. Columba's Bay on Iona: hold it to the light and you find more every time you look." --Kenneth Steven, author and poet "The real gift of Balzer's book is learning that our ordinary lives and receptive hearts can become sacred 'islands' in their own right as we create sanctuaries for ourselves and one another." --Lisa Deam, author of 3000 Miles to Jesus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life for Spiritual Seekers "Tracy Balzer has given us all a wonderful gift. She invites us into sacred spaces and reminds us that we, on our own soulful journeys, are on holy ground." --Brent Bill, author of Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality
