Day 6: Reaching for the Oars

A Week of Drifting · Day 6 of 7

The story. Around the year 563, Columba sailed from Ireland with twelve companions, not knowing what his work would become. The Celtic monks spoke of going out to find their “place of resurrection,” the place where God was waiting for them. Columba’s was a small, windswept island called Iona. From there the faith spread across Scotland and the north of England. He did not plan it. He was carried to it.

The reflection. By now you will have noticed something. You reach for the oars. Five minutes into the drift you are planning tomorrow, replaying a conversation, wondering whether this is “working.” You catch yourself turning the walk into exercise, or the sunset into a photograph for later.

This is not failure. It is the practice. Each time you notice the reach, smile, and take your hands off the handle, something in you learns a little more about trust. Some days you will let go forty times in half an hour. Those may be the best days of all.

And if nothing finds you? If the whole time is just wind and footsteps and an ordinary sky? Then the drifting itself was the prayer. Being led is perhaps the oldest form of prayer there is. The monks did not drift to relax. They drifted to be sent. Nothing in the drift has to be harvested to count.

Today’s invitation. If you can, leave an afternoon unscheduled in the coming days, or even an hour of one. Make that open time your coracle. Say the six words. Each time you notice yourself reaching for a plan or a task, let your hands open again.

A question to carry. Where in your life are you still gripping the oars?

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