Closing

Our Day started with the Holy Trinity group singing "Travel On" for the blessing preceding breakfast. The morning worship was a Leaving Service, and Julie was asked to play the prelude. The Abbey has a grand piano that is miked with speakers throughout the sanctuary.

All but Julie are traveling today. Nine of us made it safely to Edinburgh. We will do some sightseeing on Saturday and get ready to travel back to Minneapolis on Sunday.

From Julie

Watched the ferry whisk the rest of the HolyTrinity group off the island this morning. All day kept seeing folks in the distance and thinking - it's an HT person! I miss all my comrades!

Definitely delightful to be here on Iona outside the walls of the Abbey. The B&B is quaint and simple. A local fisherman gave me the day's weather report outside the pub (unsolicited). Climbed "Dun I" - highest spot on Iona - but quite overcast by noon so only partial views of the spectacular isles that dot the coastline. With every ferry comes more tourists, most of whom never seem to get much past the few shops in the harbor.

The highlight of my day was a long and "thin place" conversation with the spry little nun we admired at the Cailigh last week (terrific dancer). We met walking out on the road to the north beach. Sr. Mary John is Prioress of Saint Scholastic Priory, Philippines, and is past president of the college of the same name. The K thru masters level school (6500 students) has an extremely well developed Music curriculum, assertively teaching poor children to play and in essence saving their lives from a life of destitute poverty. In 1984 she instituted the Womens Studies Program there, funded by a former student of hers who is now CEO of a multinational corp. Was able to find land donated to them so they could add Environmental Masters level degree program.
Our conversation turned to my favorite topic of conversation, writings of Merton, and she told me that it was her Mother General (her supervisor) who was called in 1948 in Bangkok when Merton died there: as a physician she was the one to officially pronounce him dead.

This remarkable conversation with a remarkable Benedictine prioress will go down in my memory as a highlight of the time here. The vision of one woman and her community to educate the poor of the Philippines. And all because I stopped her to compliment her on her dancing!

All for now. Wonder if the HT folk are having as much fun.

Our last day

Our last day ended with a worship service of holy communion with Susan Masters presiding. We are all standing on the altar at the Abbey following the service.

Boat trip to Staffa

Many of us chose to take a boat to the island of Staffa. We saw Fingal's Cave there (made famous by Mendelssohn), and we saw the puffins. I have video from the cave and can't post it on the blog.

Pilgrimage

Here are a few pictures from the 7-mile pilgrimage around the Isle of Iona. It was a great day.

Stella's birthday

Today was the warmest day we've had--a beautiful day for walking around the island. At supper we celebrated Stella's birthday.

Our first day

We started with breakfast. Randy was assigned to morning kitchen duties. We all went to the 10:30 worship service in the Abbey. The craft room was open all afternoon so some of us worked on projects in the craft room. Sue and Jan made paper, and Joy brought her knitting. It didn't rain today!!!

Iona!

We spent a rainy morning in Oban, rode a ferry, a bus, and another ferry to Iona. The rain stopped when we arrived and the sun came out late in the afternoon. It is so good to be here.

Oban

We spent Friday in Oban and THE SUN CAME OUT!!! Susan Masters has joined us, so now we are 14. Headed to Iona tomorrow.

Fish and chips in Glasgow

First stop is Glasgow. We found fish and chips near the hotel.

On our way

Iona Pilgrimage Begins

This week, several members from Holy Trinity will travel several thousand miles to visit a tiny island off the west coast of Scotland called Iona.  Iona is home to a Christian community centered in “the liberating power of Jesus Christ and a commitment to the personal and social transformation that spring from the gospel.”  Members of the community share a common rule which includes:

·         Daily prayer and reading the Bible

·         Mutual sharing and accountability for our use of time and money

·         Regular meeting together

·         Action and reflection for justice, peace and the integrity of creation

The Holy Trinity group of travelers will participate in the life and worship of the Iona community while they are there, and they will share their experiences with us in a forum when they return.  In the meantime, however, you can follow them in their travels by visiting the blog, holytrinityationa.blogspot.com.

The Iona Community was founded in 1938 by George MacLeod, a minister who lived and served in the context of the poverty and despair of the Depression.  From a dockland parish in Govan, Glasgow, he took unemployed skilled craftsmen and young trainee clergy to Iona to rebuild both the monastic quarters of the mediaeval abbey and the common life by working and living together, sharing skills and effort as well as joys and achievement. That original task became a sign of hopeful rebuilding of community in Scotland and beyond.

Below is an excerpt from a sermon by George MacLeod, delivered in 1955, called  “Benediction of a Day.”

To take a natural analogy, there is a living flower.  You want to have it, so you pluck it.  But, by your act of plucking, it dies.

You are fascinated by a sparkling running stream, a living stream of water.  But, if you grasp it, it runs through your fingers, you scoop it into a pail, you no longer have life, but just a bucket of H2O.

There is a sunbeam dancing in your room, life from the sun.  If you pull down the curtain to capture the beam, it is gone.

There is a bracing wind that enlivens your whole being.  But try to catch it in a bag and you have stagnant air.  All this reminds us how not to get in touch with life.

Here is the root trouble of our lives.  We all love life, but the moment we try to hold it, we miss it.  The fact that things change and move and flow is their life.  Try to make them static and you die of worry.

This is just as true of God who is the Life of life.  The only way to achieve a sense of God’s presence is to put yourself in the way of Him.  In our analogy, you achieve a sense of life in the presence of a flower, by a running stream, in a bracing wind, with sunbeams falling on the stream.  You come home to say you have had a perfectly lovely day, which means a lively day.  It has been a benediction of a day.

You can only achieve a sense of God in a similar way…You can only find God in the now.