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