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!"#$ #%%&'()*(+,((((-./0)1((+223 45'(6*/75&89/0:(!*88&)07;(6'<%='77'/( Welcome to the Spring edition of CAIM, the newsletter of the Northumbria Community. CAIM is the Celtic word meaning encompassment or encircling. This newsletter goes out to all those who are within our circle of Community Companions and Friends. >?@(-AB"C-(>?@(-AB"C-(DDD((((:(<''E(0)(6*/75'/)(#/'=:)F:(<''E(0)(6*/75'/)(#/'=:)F(((( Paul Lucas of Gateshead((( In my experience, waiting for God to speak again courtesy of Stephen. A dream with a visit in the evening to Rostrevor usually involves going somewhere, (albeit years ago had me walking on a beach Centre for prayer for Ireland. It’s an ecu- only to the armchair) with the expectation and finding a stone with a cross in it. I menical centre which felt a bit ‘Catholic of hearing the ‘word’ – only to find that the had already found a few over the years, charismatic’ from an earlier era, but it was ‘word’ is not said, or at any rate not heard, but going out on the beach for a late good and the Holy Spirit was recognisably until sometime after you are no longer ac- night breath of air, a perfectly formed there. God speaks in the shared expression tively listening, you’ve left the chair or the cross-stone virtually leapt up from the of prayer. cell or the place, and then you hear...with... pebbles. As if that wasn't enough, a We woke the next day to find the water had well – hindsight! God makes moulds and prayer session just before Christmas been cut off: God’s sense of humour for breaks them; and just when you thought showed me a lighthouse out at sea; and me as I’d decided to abstain from all but you’d got the system sussed...it changes! lo and behold there it was! God speaks in liquids on that day – just as well we were That’s much how it was for me during a personal affirmations of time and place. going to visit the Bridge Project! We looked week in Northern Ireland in January with a Kilkeel is a small town between the sea around with Trevor and he showed us the Community team to give prayer support and the mountains of Mourne near the architect’s model of how it will be, with its and look around to see what’s doing: it was border with Eire. Rosie and Trevor (not a bridge over the river (that Rosie had seen strewn with signs of God’s undercurrent, couple) are the instigators of ‘The in a dream and the architect didn't know and the idea of being in the flow of His Bridge’, a youth project in what was pre- about). What's already there is good – the movement became increasingly apparent. viously a pub owned by a chap called Spice Tree Cafe and Drop-in Centre. I left Tyneside latish on the Friday evening Eamon who came to Christ in the proc- Amazing stuff. On from there to the Silent with a sense of personal spiritual fog; then ess of selling the pub to them. I couldn’t Valley reservoir/country park: a significant after a night at Nether Springs, I saw the do the whole story justice, suffice it to place in the landscape with a particularly sunrise before going on to Roy’s with say that these two ‘got out of the boat special aspect; a serenity and strength Brenda Grace, Gordon and Margaret and walked on the water’! God speaks in about it. Rosie seems to have acquired a Joice – a crisp and brilliant day; the ‘fog’ the actions of others... cafe there as a Bridge extension, and there was lifting. We met up with Jean Watson, This is a staunchly Protestant/Loyalist are plans for a retreat house too. We went Les and Margaret Fletcher along the way town where the kerbstones bear red, out to walk and pray and just to ‘be’ there. and saw the sundown over Belfast just white and blue paint and there’s a profu- The water from the reservoir would reach before we docked. Irish hospitality as sion of union flags, and yet at the invita- many homes in Belfast; so too, we hoped, championed by Roy’s friend Stephen Ad- tion of the local youth a rock band from would our prayers. God speaks through a ams was a wonder to behold: he gave us a sense of place. Rostrevor, a Catholic town, came to play wonderful reception and a great meal – at one of the early gigs. The sectarian The day seemed to have had a theme of and later at Cranfield, accommodation too! divide runs deep; but hope rests with the water; and that little reminder of its impor- God speaksspeaks through the open door. new generation to break the chains of tance when we were briefly without it only I actually had two other hosts in Belfast, those traditions. It was a real inspiration served to emphasise the plenty we are one for accommodation and one for Sun- to meet these folk and when Trevor used to having. In the evening Trevor day lunch; both were doctors and both shared some of the more wacky things (continu(continueded on page 3) were called Ronnie (yes, that’s right, the happening (such as the chap who turned !"#$%&'()$#'$##*&+' two Ronnies!), and their families of course. up saying he’d bought an old mine- We all went to worship at one of the three sweeper with a view to creating a several-hundred-strong services at CFC ‘Pirates for Peace’ offshore radio station ,)&'-&.($/'01/' 2' (Christian Fellowship Church). Wow, talk around the trouble spots of the world, 3145'()&'6$##$4"'788$/&' 9' about culture shock! Roy did his usual bit starting with Northern Ireland) I found -455*"$(:';<()&1$"=#' >' and though there was nothing I hadn’t al- myself the bearer of confirming visions, 0'/<..'(4'?1<:&1' @' ready heard several times before, yet having previously encountered Bridge A&B'C&<%&1#)$?'D(1*/(*1&' E' somehow it still sounded fresh. If we do the and Lighthouse and Radio Station al- C&<%&1#)$?',1<"#$($4"' F' walk He’ll do the talk! ready. ‘Broadcast’ seemed later to be a G)<('5&<"'()&#&'#(4"&#H' I' significant word. God speaks across the On to Cranfield (by the sea) where Fathom -455*"$(:';14*?'C&<%&1#' J' waves of sea and sky. Cottage was our home for the week – K<#(&1'G41L#)4?'M&(<$.#' NO' Monday was a day of house and beach, 0'D<PP<($/<.'Q4*1"&:' NN' 45'(!'=70H("/H( ")(B.0H(4'==0)1( Ian Corsie of Allerdean Neil Ruckman of Barnet I don’t know about you, but the idea of the different to anything else seen in Chris- !" #$%&'" &(%)" (*+%,-" ./)&" *01/&" $'2 ‘Celtic Arc’ (from Turkey to Ireland) often tian iconography. 31+'$'4"5$16"*,"%,&',)'"7'$%14"15" seems to me a rather nebulous concept But how did this copy of a banned text $'('*$)*8""*,4"&1/$"15"&('"'7%3" and it was a joy therefore when I recently come to be residing in a library in Flor- )&1$9&'88%,-" 7$14/3&%1," 15" :*$;<)" stumbled across the following intriguing ence? The story is that, in the mid 16th =1)7'8"51$"&('">'88%,-"?8*3'@" story, bringing the link to vivid life, whilst century Stephanos, the Catholicos of the >(*,;" 91/" 51$" *88" 91/$" 7$*9'$)A" reading From the Holy Mountain. (This is Armenian church, travelled to Rome to &('9"#'$'"3'$&*%,89"*,)#'$'4@">('" a highly-recommended book by William try and persuade the Pope to support the &($''" 7'$51$6*,3')" (*+'"" Dalrymple describing his travels nearly 10 liberation of the oppressed churches of 7$1+'4" 0'91,4" 41/0&" &(*&" &('" years ago from Mount Athos in Greece to the Orient at a time when the Armenians 31,3'7&" 15" *," '7%3" )&1$9&'88%,-" the Egypt of the Desert Fathers, via Tur- were being squeezed between a resur- #%&("*",/60'$"15""&'88'$)"*,4"6/2 key, Syria, Lebanon and Israel, investigat- gent Persian Empire in the east and the )%3%*,)"#1$;)"#'88@">('$'"%)"78',&9" ing the fate of the Christians of the Eastern Ottoman empire in the west. Knowing 15"#1$;"&1"41"&1"%67$1+'"1,"&(%)" churches – Eastern Orthodox, Syriac, Ar- that the Pope had a special interest in 7%81&" 0/&" !" &(%,;" %&" %)" 5*%$" &1" )*9" menian, Maronite, Coptic, etc – all under the history of Scripture, he had a copy &(*&" 6*,9" 7'178'" #'$'" B/%&'" threat from the political, military and reli- made of one of these rare surviving 61+'4"09"#(*&"&('9"'C7'$%',3'4@" gious storms raging around them.) manuscripts in the monasteries of the D'" (*+'" (*4" E($%)&%*,)" *,4" ,1,2 The story concerns the origins of the style Tur Abdin in eastern Turkey (not that far E($%)&%*,)")*9"&(*&"%&"%)"&('"0')&" of Celtic art which astonishes us from the from the now-very-topical border be- &(%,-"&('9"(*+'"'+'$")'',"*,4"7$12 ‘carpet pages’ before each gospel in the tween Turkey and Iraq) to take as a gift. 5'))%1,*8")&1$9&'88'$)"3166',&""1," Lindisfarne Gospels – and of which the However, his embassy was a fiasco and &('"B/*8%&9"15"&('"7'$51$6*,3')@" earliest example is the Book of Durrow, he never saw the Pope – but the gift did >(1)'"15"91/"#(1"#'$'"*&"&('" dating probably from the last years of the get as far as the Vatican secretariat, and :*,3(')&'$"7'$51$6*,3'"#%88"(*+'" 6th century, arguably the first figurative eventually found its way to Florence.