May 18 & 19: Iona Abbey

I've begun my week in Iona. If you are Presbyterian, you've probably heard about Iona. If you're not, it may not have crossed your radar. 

Iona is an island off of an island off of the west coast of Scotland. It was the place where Christianity "arrived" in Scotland, when Columba and a few friends landed a boat from Ireland here in the 6th century. Even today, it takes a long time to get here. A train to Oban. A ferry to the island of Mull, a bus across Mull, and another short ferry to Iona. Mull itself is lovely:

Iona developed into one of the major centers of western Christendom in the 1st millennium CE and remained a focus of Scottish Christianity until the reformation, when the buildings were abandoned. In the 1930s, an ecumenically-minded group of Scottish Presbyterians revived Iona as a place of intentional Christian community. The is the main entrance to the cloisters:

This a a view of the abbey church from inside the cloisters:

I'm here for a week for a program about creative worship led by the Wild Goose Resource Group, a loose collection of creative people who are committed to creating brave and meaningful worship for the whole church. 

I'm living in a small room. Bathrooms are shared. Meals are all shared at long tables. Worship happens twice a day, at 9AM and 9PM. All of the residents for the week have a daily job--my job is to tidy up the Iona shop.

I'm enjoying the rhythms of this place, and the natural beauty of it. More to come.