Tracy Balzer, director of Christian Formation at John Brown University, released a book in June called “A Journey of Sea and Stone: How Holy Places Guide and Renew Us.” This is the fourth book Balzer has written about the Christian walk and practice.
“A Journey of Sea and Stone” was inspired by a beautiful, tiny, Scottish island called Iona that Balzer has visited many times in the last 20 years. Balzer’s first book, “Thin Places: An Evangelical Journey into Celtic Christianity,” was also written about Iona.
She often leads small groups of pilgrims who want to learn more about the history of the tiny isle. “It is spectacularly beautiful, quiet, with its own ancient Abbey church where community worship happens each evening,” Balzer said.
Iona, according to VisitScotland.com, is home to about 130 people, most of whom farm the land traditionally. Missionary evangelist Columba and his followers landed on the island in 563 A.D., signifying the island as a historic Christian pilgrimage site.
Iona Abbey is known as the best-preserved elaborate ecclesiastical building from the Middle Ages, complete with a well-preserved ninth-century Celtic cross. Legend claims that Reilig Odhrain, Iona Abbey’s burial ground, is the final resting place for 48 kings of Scotland, including Macbeth.
“I have found our Christian history in Celtic lands fascinating and inspiring, and so I’ve done a good bit of writing about it,” Balzer said. Her writing process is “reflective and contemplative, a result of my attempts to listen to God in my life and respond in writing,” she said.
Writing this book has allowed her to relive some of her experiences and reflect on the lessons she learned while on her pilgrimages to Iona. She hopes that her writing communicates her passion for ministry and her desire to help others listen to God and each other.
According to Balzer’s website, using the background of Balzer’s trips to Iona, the book addresses the desire of humans to seek and find God by “prompting each of us to reach for meaning in our daily lives and consider the myriad of ways God might be inviting us into something new.”
The thesis of Balzer’s book is “that God is speaking always to us, but paying attention and listening to Him is a challenge in our chaotic lives,” she said. “I want this book to encourage readers to be on the lookout for God — whether they are on a remote Scottish island or on the Siloam Springs trail.”
While international trips like to the inspirational island of Iona may still be difficult to plan, “my hope is that in this chaotic time, this book might offer a way to slow down, to offer a bit of space to turn our attention to the movements of the Spirit…and mostly, to grow in awareness of Jesus beside us, before us, behind us, above and below us,” Balzer said.