What I've Learned on Iona...Part 2

Community living is hard and not every type of community is for me

I have always been drawn to the idea of community...even in my teenage years i really liked the sound of 'living in community'. Such was my interest that I proposed legislation when I was part of a model parliament for youth that forced everyone to live with others and build community. I suppose I was drawn to the sense of belonging and togetherness it implied. I love intense personal friendships of open sharing, giving, vulnerability and i thought that living in community my skills in this respect and my passion for people could be well utilized and realized.  

Before Iona I had a smattering of what I think I would have thought of as community living experiences: I lived in a dormitory during my first year of university; I spent 3 months on a small remote island in Vanuatu, living and working together with a group of 16 volunteers; I've lived in houses and apartments with men and women from all sorts of different cultural and religious backgrounds. I felt fairly adept with the whole community thing.

One of the reasons I came to Iona was for the experiencing of living in community- to have the most 'full' experience of living in community. Full because I knew it would involve living, working, worshiping, and playing on a small island with a group of people for a whole year. I had never quite done all of that before and for so long! But I thought I was well prepared for it...

Turns out I was not prepared like i thought i was.

I realized rather quickly that community did not mean the same thing for everyone and many people here on Iona didn't even call what we were doing together community. This required me to re-adjust my expectations. And I saw that building relationships when you are doing everything together gets very complicated and it can also be very painful. At that point the term 'community' lost its feel good connotations for me. Still, I do desire to build a community in my post-iona life. I know now though, that in any future community I want to have a little bit of division in my life- between work and personal life. Still, though I know I want to build interdependent relationships and accountability with a group of people.

For there has also been a richness in what I've experienced here. I've made some dear friends who know me in a way probably few friends do- cause they've seen the way i work, the way i worship, and the way i live and we've walked through that all together in the good and the bad. My shadow side has probably never been so clearly on display as it has been here. And even so, I have been the recipient of a lot of love and care and do feel a sense of belonging. 

It's been difficult, joyful, full of learning and I am thankful.

The slightly crazy friends/roommates/work teammates

What I've learned on Iona Part 1

This past week and a half has been one of great change here on Iona. We welcomed and said good-bye to our last official guests of the season and said farewell to most of the volunteers. So suddenly there are less than 20 of us in a place that not so long along was brimming with over 100 folks. 

The rhythm of my job has changed significantly from doing a lot of physical work- lifting, mixing, cleaning, polishing, and folding- and tons of people time to a lot more solitary work and more office time- thinking, planning, and trying to be creative. 

Our worship moved from the big abbey church which holds several hundred into a small chapel which i doubt could fit more than 30.

The days have become significantly shorter, the weather is wilder and colder. The hotels have closed and the gifts shops are shut for the season. The only place to go on this small island is either of two general stores (open 10-1, 2-4) or on Thursday nights you can go to the village pub during the only two hour period that they are open during the week (9-11). Soon close friends will make their way from Iona and on to new things. In under three months I will do the same.

To say its been a hard year almost feels like an understatement. I do not know if I have ever struggled so much with being in a particular place before. This is for many reasons, complicated to explain to others (and sometimes also to myself). I will share some of my thoughts on what I have learned here with you all, perhaps more as a chance for me to explain it to myself than for the benefit of anyone else. To understand what this experience of living, working, worshiping, and playing together with a group of people on a small Scottish island has all meant.

Christianity can be inclusive and love centered. 

For two years  before coming to Iona I had very little to do with the Christian church. I was, in many respects hurt by the exclusivity of the church and the guilt/sin focused Christianity I found so commonly around me. My ideas of god had shifted during my time of studies from seeing god as a personalized figure 'out there' taking care of me to seeing god in many forms all around me and my own responsibility to be the spiritual being I was created to be. I also became a feminist and queer advocate and could not stand the 'he'-ing of God and all of male centered imagery and glorification.

I saw on Iona a Christianity which did embrace LGBTQ people and attempted to offer alternative non-male images and language for God. Here was a Christianity which also attempted to advocate for faith being the springboard for peaceful action in the world. I remember celebrating communion here for the first time and it being a true revelation for me that communion can be about love and acceptance for everyone. Growing up, communion was a time to repent and turn from sinful ways and we were pressured not to partake if we weren't 'right' with God. But I had never quite felt right enough with God to have communion. One of the first communion services I experienced on Iona included words from a song by the rapper, Eminem.This grabbed me right away and for me is a testament to the phrase so often used that describes Iona as a 'thin place' where the sacred and secular do not get divided. Not that everything here is perfect- often I've felt we do not do enough to be inclusive in worship and I've struggled to feel spiritually centered. Still, encountering different ways of practicing Christianity has been very important for me.

I came to Iona with the question: is there a place for me in Christianity? I am not sure about the answer to that question. And if there is a place, I don't know if I want it. But I would not trade the experience of worshiping and experiencing Christianity here for anything. 

Fun with Parents!

A few  weeks ago, my parents came to Scotland. I introduced them to Iona and we had chance to go traveling together. It was very good to see my parents again, to chat, to explore, to eat and drink, and to just enjoy each other's company.We made our way around Mull, over to Loch Ness and Inverness, Dundee, St.Andrews, Chester, and then to Cardiff where we visited my sister Carlee.

Some photo highlights from our journey:

A lot of driving around Mull yielded many beautiful sights along winding and twisting roads and also included a visit to a castle:

Enjoying a lovely walk around the manor house where we stayed for a night:

Went to Cardiff to spend time with my sister Carlee:

Enjoying the sights of Hay on Wye a town in Wales known for its multitude of used book stores including this one in an old castle (stocked up on my feminist theology books :) )

The tour of my home in grumpy pants mode:

We saw lots of cute lambs and sheep on our journey. My mom never did get her own photo of a black lamb, so this one is for you mom:

The time of my life...

The past few weeks, I've spent with Jodi traveling around Scotland and also spending some time on Iona. We had the chance to see the sites in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Isle of Skye, and Glencoe. The two week break from work was well needed as was just getting off the island for a while. During our travels, we enjoyed nature's beauty doing lots of walking and some hiking, took advantage of several free cultural events, gave ourselves a Scottish education  in visiting many museums and art galleries, watched movies, ate delicious food  and just enjoyed lots of laughs and interesting conversations together.

Now post-vacation comes the tough part of settling into work and life here on Iona again... There is lots of work to catch up on and it will take a while to adjust to the fast rhythm of life here once again. hmmmmm, why can't we always be on vacation? :)

Some photo highlights from traveling...

Fun Edinburgh signage:

Stopping to smell the flowers at the Glasgow Botanical Gardens:

Lazy warm days:

Haircutting adventures in Glasgow:

 Hiking Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye

Relaxing into the silence of memories in a Portree Cafe, Isle of Skye:

The boat trip to Staffa that made us very sick:

Fingal's Cave, Staffa

Beach Dancing on Iona:

 Cream tea at the Argyll Hotel:

Beautiful Isle of Skye:

Rainy Glencoe:

days off off island

Today i had a day off and went off island for the first time in a long time, and doing it made me realize what i have been missing. Its amazing how just transporting myself a few km away from Iona was so invigorating and brought me so much relaxation. I went with my friend Daniel and we enjoyed a leisurely stroll down the bustling roads on Mull (at least six cars passed us as we were walking....what is this place, a city?), a two hour lunch at everyone's favorite Ross of Mull eatery, the Keel Row, and just had a nice time of being away and talking about island related things and then a lot of other random other things like films, god, religion, sports, and crab fishing.

The weather was beautiful, the sea calm, the earl grey tea divine, my cranberry/brie/chicken sandwich a culinary delight. aaaaaaaah! horray for days off (island)!

Its definately been a while...

I've been getting comments from my parents about how I don't post anything here... They like to read about my life here and they reminded me too of all the people who do care and who would like to read what is happening in my life. And I appreciate that interest (your interest) very much.

I mentioned it briefly a while back, but its been really hard for me to keep in touch with people when on Iona. This place is so full of people that at the end of the day i just feel like i've well over filled my social needs and require time and space to just be.

And its hard to know where to start. So much has happened. And there are so many ways of things happening here that are just hard to put into words sometimes.

the biggest happening in the last 4 weeks has been the arrival of guests which has dramatically changed life here. My job is completely different in many respects and is requiring a lot of my time and energy; my relationships with people in the resident group have changed too because we are now existing across two different centres and many different jobs and roles that don't always intersect so much. We also have volunteers now as well, which expands the staff group by almost threefold. The island has literally "opened" so now there are multiple different places that one can go to eat, sip tea, or have a drink and there are also more shops where you can buy things. Tourists are around, the fields are filled with yellow daffodils and newly born lambs, and the days are becoming warmer and warmer and longer and longer.Its all just busy, sometimes almost hectic, and I am constantly challenged  to try and slow down, spend time alone, and spend time in quiet.

In my free time, I have been busy editing my thesis for publication and planning for a trip around Scotland for when Jodi comes to visit in a few weeks. And I've spending time with friends here, starting to feel settled and connected, and I would even use the word 'at home'.

There are struggles, times when i am tired and frustrated, and lonely, and times when i prefer to be dreaming of people and places not on Iona. And I can also say that I am good. I am growing, not always in ways I see or understand. In a pilgrimage I helped lead across  the island today, my friend asked us all to reflect on why we had come to iona: "To have questions answered? To have the answers to our questions affirmed? Or, to find our questions?" I think its probably a little of each, and a lot of wanting the answers to my questions affirmed. I think I came to Iona at a place of having decided many things for myself about who I am and who I wanted to be, as a person with faith, as a citizen of the world, as a friend and a neighbor and a daughter. And perhaps that is why this experience is different than other sort of intensive places i've been...the act of walking the path of the heart doesn't necessarily feel very transformative all the time, its rather ordinary and full of not such wonderful bits along with all the good parts.

A volunteer here asked me just yesterday, 'are you moving?', and I think I can say with certainty that 'I am' just in a bit of a different way than I have before or expected.

New friends: Me, Metal Chocolate, and Becki

Favorite Dude on the Island

Dueck Sisters on Iona

On Thursday, March 10^th Carlee flew into to Glasgow on the first leg of her journey to the remote island where Alicia is living for the next 10 months.  After a scenic three hour train ride through the Scottish Highlands she arrived in Oban only to hear that the ferry to Iona had been cancelled for the rest of the day.  High winds meant that Carlee would need to spend the night in Oban instead of visiting her sister who she dearly missed. To pass the time Carlee went to a traditional Scottish gathering where she learnt some new dance moves.  Bright and early the next morning Carlee took the ferry to the island of Mull.  The hour long ferry ride was followed by a forty-five minutes bus trip across the island. Finally, after an eighteen hour delay the sisters were reunited. 

Friday Alicia was working, but we did have the chance for a number of chats and a walk to the North End of the island. In the evening, we joined other residents for a Wee Sing, a chance to enjoy some favorite songs and belt it out in the beautiful, old abbey church. Unfortunately, we had a cold, rainy, and windy weekend so we spent a good amount of time inside snuggling, chatting, drinking tea and watching movies. We did venture out a few times to go to the pub and also for a walk. Today, carlee wanted to get pictures of the island and so we braved the intense winds and walked to the western end of the island. We were cold, but it was very worth it.

Tomorrow, we are off to Oban to spend a day shopping, seeing the sites and sister bonding.  Tuesday morning Carlee will head to Glasgow to make the trip back to Cardiff and Alicia will travel back to Iona.  Here are some pictures of the Dueck Sisters on Iona.  

What I've been up to

I haven't been much in the mood to make blog posts lately or in general do much communication with the non-Iona world...this is due to a combination of being busy, traveling, feeling tired, and still very much searching for my own rhythm in the new life I have here. Today, I thought I would catch you all up on what I have been busy with these past few weeks.

1) A trip to Tobermory has definitely been a highlight of my time on Iona so far! A group of us went to this little town on the far side of the Isle of Mull (Iona's neighbouring island). The day was filled with treats from the local chocolate shop, tea, and a delicious lunch out. It was also pretty exciting to go to the co-op (a 'large' grocery store) to stock up on favorite food items.

 Perhaps the best part of the day was just enjoying the beautiful scenery on the drive there...

And of course our sighting of a sea eagle was another exciting moment:

2) I also celebrated my birthday last month... marking the occasion with loved ones far away over the phone and internet and also spending time with new friends in the resident group.

Here is a sampling of some of the special gifts and cards I received. I felt very loved and appreciated- thank you everyone!

On the day of my birthday, the14th, the resident group headed to Camas, an Iona Community centre on the Isle of Mull. Camas is housed in old stone fishing/mining cottages tucked in a sheltered bay. Electricity is limited at Camas, so we shared a lovely candlelit supper together and gathered in front of the fire chatting and dramatically reading Winnie the Pooh.

3) We also went to Glasgow for 10 days of staff training. I brought my camera along, but never took it out of my suitcase so there are no pictures :(. But it was a really wonderful to be in the city again with the chance to enjoy many different types of food, buildings, people, and places. I ate Italian three times, fajitas twice, and a good amount of carrot cake. After 10 days though, I was really ready to go 'home' to Iona, to have my own little space, a sort of routine, and be once again amoung the sheep and the sea!