Sunrise Stroll & Chat at the Sea of Galilee with the whole world!
By Fr. Eamon Kelly
Where do you find atheists, agnostics, Protestants of all kinds, together with Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others strolling and scrolling together with a Catholic priest, resonating together and often offering to pray for each other when special needs arise for any of those involved? It’s virtual but it is real! Watch the Sunrise Stroll & Chat in our Youtube Channel
When Covid closed the door for pilgrims, social media opened many new windows to have contact, not only with the views and sounds of the Sea of Galilee environs and even as far as Jerusalem or the Mediterranean Sea, but with a real new community, where sharing and prayer unite people across all continents. Some even call it a family! Hardly anyone knew each other before!
We simply stroll along as the sun is rising and notice many details of skies and mountains, flora and fauna while we let the daily scripture readings stimulate thoughts and reactions. Often, the sun’s reflections in the lake or from between the clouds match Scripture’s promptings. Egyptian geese and their three growing goslings have been regular features these past few months. Read April 12, comments on my Instagram, Facebook or YouTube platforms https://linktr.ee/ekellylc to sense the value and gratitude which people from around the world express.
Who doesn’t like to see a Sunrise?
And how about a Sunrise over a lake or the sea?
A Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee?
Every morning at Sunrise for over 3 years we are connecting with each other and with previous generations across biblical history and ever since. Magdala’s archeology makes that all the more tangible. We can see Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan right from our Sea of Galilee shore, here in Israel.
A close, biblically-rich neighborhood connected live with people in Malaysia and the Philippines, Norway, and England, from Oceania to Scandinavia and South America and Africa to Alaska, Ireland, Scotland, and Japan! Today’s problems around the Earth echo biblical times, tangible in Magdala’s ancient ruins and palpable during our Jerusalem visits. We feel these connections.
Some people prefer low profile in social media. Many participate comfortably and anonymously by using a pseudonym or pen-name to be present on any of these platforms. YouTube seems even more discreet with hardly any interaction.
My goal each morning is to livestream about 15 minutes on Facebook which I post afterwards on YouTube. Then I usually do a much shorter version on Instagram live, 2 – 4 minutes. The daily posts for the last three years are still available online on all three platforms. We are also posting them now on both Magdala’s Facebook Page and Magdala’s new English YouTube Channel. We even created a WhatsApp list for those who wish to be notified when we have some special opportunities or are about to go live daily. You can find this link in the notes of each post along with a link to the daily readings.
Sunrise Stroll & Chat stimulates pilgrims, future and former.
Great for people who will never come here for all kinds of reasons.
A beautiful gift to share with people who are shut in or convalescing.
Great for parents and grandparents to show their grandchildren at breakfast or bedtime.
But also a great tool for busy people to exit the hyper-stress bubble for a daily breather and enter nature’s serenity and sync with our beautiful human family through ages past and across our Globe today!
Some people participate before going to bed and report it brings peace after all the world’s daily turmoil. Others start their day with new energy, while some relish it as a revitalizing short break from pressures at work!
I find I’m discovering new insights in what I had thought were familiar treasures. Just like when you explain a political issue to a child, it will be different from how you discuss it with colleagues and different if you discuss it with people of similar or opposing mindsets. Browsing through the two books God gave us, Nature and the Bible, together and within a community comprising people of so many different faiths, cultures and personal situations, has been very enriching for me personally. In dialogue, one must enter into the other’s perspective. This exercise in finding common ground is near and dear to the Culture of Encounter developing in Magdala, Crossroads of Jewish and Christian history.
Some people take Sunrise Stroll & Chat as a devotional! But, it is not a lesson or a homily or preaching or teaching or lecturing or a prayer group — it’s just a friendly chat with you! It is spontaneous, easy, simple, and tries to be kind, gentle, peaceful, inspiring and encouraging. Strolling in nature gets almost equal voice to scrolling the scriptures as God speaks to us through both. We delight in nature and scripture and their interplay. Our Cosmos of beauty and truth newly alight in each day’s fresh sunrise suggests to us that behind this gift there is a Giver! The awareness of his presence enhances our daily fulfillment!
We are excited to recognize our special mission, especially towards a broken or hurting sister or brother whom we might encounter today. Far from a harangue, we try to walk together friendly, different as we may be, offering nourishing thoughts that are tasty enough for people to come back tomorrow for more! The dignity of each person made in the image and likeness permeates our reflections. It’s a relaxed space of contemplation in a hyper stressed world. We stop to smell the roses and watch the caterpillars and suckling calves amid the rocks and the thistles and brambles of Galilean hillsides. Occasionally we meet very interesting people along our paths like an Ironman or a pilgrim girl who arrived after walking nine months from Finisterra / Santiago de Compostella in NW Spain to Jerusalem or a media celebrity or a person years in a wheelchair and so many regular pilgrims.
Those who participate and follow Sunrise Stroll and Chat encourage and inspire me, pilgrims, guides, travel agents, artists, bishops, priests, seminarians, moms and dads, grandparents, teenagers, retirees, college students, specialists, and experts, …it’s humbling really to see how this little sunrise activity touches very different people in their own unique way.
Come! You! Welcome everybody to the untiring novelty of our daily sunrise!
The Bible was born here
The world pivots here
We are reinvigorated here!
Something poetic, unplanned, and unscripted
A surprise each day — even for me!
Time, silence, strolling in nature and faith; reason and humor; vision and mission
My intertwined life is the microcosm seeking meaning and redemption
Wonder, delight, renewal
I’m not a specialist.
Just another believer and pilgrim!
I want to give testimony of faith more than big explanations
Come indulge in the freshness of sunrise and scripture with us, a community of beautiful people in a gifted and challenged world, some chatting together and others quietly contemplating from the serenity of their kitchen or pillow! This is Sunrise Stroll & Chat! Now you know!
