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.