Expedition to the Marble Quarry

At the beginning of the 20^th century there was a Marble Quarry on Iona.  The marble is a beautiful white with green veins throughout.  The altar and baptismal font in the Abbey church are both made with Iona Marble.  The marble was shipped throughout Europe and the United Kingdom for building.  It closed in the mid 1900’s and was essentially abandoned.  There are pieces of machinery remaining.  The workers created a sea wall with large blocks of marble and granite to keep the sea from flooding the quarry.  The National trust for Scotland is working to preserve as much of the machinery as it can.  The quarry is a beautiful and wild place.  Definitely a thin place. 

Here is the interesting thing.  You pretty much can’t there from here.  Which sounds pretty strange.  It is after all an island.  And a relatively small island.  You can actually stand on a hill on the island and see both the east and west coast.  There is one single lane road on the island, about 2 miles of road.  There is about 2 miles of rocky road, and then the rest is sheep trails.  Interesting thing about sheep, they can walk on just about any surface, and tend to do so in single file, thus creating a trail.  As a human you may or may not be able to follow a sheep trail, and often you don’t know the difference until you have gone a bit farther along a trail than you should have.  The Marble Quarry is not on a road, it is not on a rocky track and it is not really of much interest to the sheep. 

One more valuable piece of information about the island.  It is Scotland.  It rains.  It rains a lot.  I have decided that Iona is simply a tropical island without the palm trees.  And in a lush green hilly place with lots of rain you get bogs.  Imagine marshland with only a bit more rich black soil.  It’s the sort of surface that sucks the shoes right off your feet.  And apparently sheep love them so their trails often go through bogs.  One more thing about a bog, you really can’t judge the depth of a bog by looking at it.

Armed with that information you can now understand when I say Sunday we set off on an expedition to the Marble Quarry.  We went from the village to the bay at the back of the ocean and then along the track to Columba Bay, and then began hiking along the sheep trails.  These were apparently mountain sheep, because we found ourselves walking down the side of a steep hill.  After two hours, including sand, rocks, bogs, heather and hill, we found the Marble Quarry.  It was wonderful.  We climbed on the rocks and sat overlooking the sea.  It was quite a vista.  For our return we decided to walk parallel to a fence line, following sheep track, and discovered bogs of new depths.  But the views were amazing, and turns out the sheep knew a short cut.  Our return took only an hour and a half. 

This is a thin place. 

looking down into the Marble Quarry from the top of the hill

Sea from the marble quarry

Sheep track towards the marble quarry

baptismal font in the Abbey church made from Iona marble

Leaving plans

There comes a sudden awareness that your time on Iona is drawing to an end.  The Wednesday prior to your departure it occurs to you that next week you won’t be saying farewell, but boarding the ferry.  It is a faint and distant consciousness.  However, on Friday at the jetty waving off the guests you realize that you will not be present for the next group of guest’s departure.  Shortly after that at the first of three morning meetings, it will be announced that you are leaving.  You will be asked to tell if you are having a leaving service and what the particulars of that might be.  At lunch on Friday you will be asked to say something to all your fellow staff members.  For the first time since you arrived you will not be able to work on leaving cards, because it’s your leaving card.  

I have two colleagues leaving with me, one from Australia and one from Oregon in the U.S.  We have planned our leaving service and will serve smores (they were a big hit).  I will have Tuesday off this week rather than Wednesday.  I will have a couple of gatherings on Tuesday.  Wednesday we leave on the 7 a.m. ferry.  We are also planning for breakfast in Oban (or the ferry) that includes eggs and bacon.  My two friends will take the bus to the south to visit the Isle of Islay.  I will continue on by train to Glasgow.  One of my cousins will meet me there and I will visit with my Scots family.  

Senior vollie

We had a leaving ceremony tonight.  It’s not anything new, we have one every week for the volunteers that are leaving.  Along with the reality that the people who were here when you arrived won’t be here when you go is the reality that everyone here now has been here a shorter length of time in comparison to you.  You become the “senior vollie.” You don’t so much realize you’ve become the senior person until someone says “you need to show me that before you go.”  And you realize that someone is aware you will depart.  As senior you are expected to know how to solve all problems such as cooking rice for 60 in fewer than 10 minutes, or how to thaw frozen bread quickly without using the microwave. 

During our Saturday tea break which only staff attends, no guests are on the island, we sit in the refectory (dining hall).  It is a quick break because there is so much to get done, but the senior kitchen vollie is expected to prepare a special for tea – like banana fritters or toffee, banana and cookie crumbles.  The ultimate insult would be to serve plan old cookies.  (I am thinking smores.)

This week I become the senior kitchen vollie.  And most of all it means that all the people who have taught me so much in the past five weeks have returned to whatever was their “real” life.  One was headed to a new life as a cook on a yacht.  One was headed to cooking school.  One was headed to a protest rally against injustice to others.  One returns to college to continue her education.  What is means is that I have to know that those I will leave are prepared to be the senior vollie.

This is a thin place. 

Santa

Santa and the elves

Three wise men

Three wise men

Christmas in July

Several Australians are here on Iona as resident or volunteer staff. And apparently their custom is to celebrate Christmas in July. Not the whole advent part of Christmas, but the commercial Christmas. Being located south of the equator, their winter is our summer season, so to be able to wear winter Christmas clothing they celebrate during their winter. So one of the Australian vollies made last Friday Christmas. The kitchen made a special Christmas feast, and feast was the only word to describe it. We decorated with all the traditional decorations. Played all the right music and even exchanged gifts. Several of the resident staff wore their Christmas garments. One even gave the Queen’s Christmas address. With a little imagination, ingenuity and effort July 16 was Christmas. And it really left like Christmas.
Sounds fairly random. Until you consider how random our calendar actually is. We make up holidays or the government legislates holidays. Christmas, the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, has no evidence that supports that actually being his day of birth. It is the day, the time, the season we set aside to remind ourselves, hopefully, of that event. So why couldn’t any random day, July 16 for example, be Christmas?
And if that’s the case why not celebrate all days as special days? Can we live as if this very day is a day the Lord has made, and rejoice and be glad in it? What would that look like?
This is a thin place.

rainy wednesday

My day off is Wednesday, and each Wednesday has been a dreary, wet Scottish day.  This doesn't stop you from doing anything, it simply is the weather.  Yesterday was no exception, but there was the additional benefit as the day went on the temperature dropped and the wind increased.  I have been wearing a beanie cap on the colder days to keep my head warm, and yesterday the wind nearly took it off me.

However, during night worship, the sun broke through.  I have posted an image of the sun against the south wall of the Abbey.  Wednesday night is creative space worship, and we had been invited to wander throughout the Abbey and enjoy the space.  What we discovered was that while we were inside worshiping, God was outside creating -- a double rainbow.

This is a thin place.

What God was doing while we worshiped

Sudden appearance of the sun during worship

sunset at jetty

Sunset from the jetty

Hospitality

The Benedictines believe that you should greet all as if they were Christ.  Many Benedictines Abbeys are retreat centers, where all are welcome.  Here on Iona we are also in the hospitality business.  During orientation they ask us to be helpful and hospitable, even if we don’t know the answer we should take the guest to someone who can be more helpful.  It is funny to listen and watch how this plays out.  Some of the vollies give long explanations about how that is not their area, but if they can have a moment the guest will be taken to someone who works in that area.  These explanations tend to be long.  Others tend to just take the guest by the hand or arm and lead them directly to the source.  Others pretend to know the answer, and muddle their way through it.  The housekeepers are the fountain of knowledge for the guests, in most cases, and because of the variety of their tasks they can be difficult to locate.  And because the kitchen is next to housekeeping, we are often called upon to respond to questions for which we can’t even make up an answer.  But still you give it a go. 

One of the ways we are asked to be hospitable from the kitchen is to prepare special meals for those that have differing dietary requirements.  We prepare food for vegetarians, gluten free, dairy free, nut free and vegan.  Much of what we cook daily is vegetarian, so that is never a challenge, because occasionally it can be very trying to come up with meals that are not repetitive for guests with special needs.  We were quite excited this week to learn that we only had 10 vegetarians, with no other specials.  Last week we had a young man that was strictly vegan, and he approached me with a question about the salad dressing, “was it something he could eat?”  Not being fully versed in vegan limits, I just took him to the kitchen to view the recipe for the dressing.  His group leader was impressed by that show of hospitality. 

We are also asked to be hospitable to one another.  One of the ways we show hospitality to one another in the kitchen it by working over on Friday shifts.  Every other Friday is a cleaning day, two people will be scheduled for early shift, finishing at 11 and the other two will be scheduled from 11 until 2:30.  The other center will be responsible for our meal, so we can give the place a good scrub.  We have agreed that the early folk will stay a little later and we can finish the clean and restock by 12:30 so that no one comes back after lunch.  Over the course of your stay it works out that you work over once or twice, and get out early once or twice. 

This is a thin place. 

Another day is done. 

If you got an itch...

This is a statute outside of the Mac.  It is called The Fallen Christ.  The calf is scratching his neck.  There was much discussion about the theology of Jesus, cows and itching. 

Clear in afternoon

Tide out, clearing skies

Rain in Tobermoray

Village of Tobermoray, tide in, cloudy and rainy

Tobermoray

Last Wednesday I ventured off the island again, but t this time headed to Tobermoray, a nice little sea village on the east coast of the Isle of Mull.  Takes only one ferry and two buses to get there.  You may have seen images of Tobermoray on calendars or television.  It has the distinct visage of all the buildings on the Harbour walk being painted bright colors.  Unfortunately it was a rainy day when I was there so my pictures are not the best.

I walked along the shops.  Quite a nice collection of shops, silversmiths, jewelers, bookshops and a card shop painted purple and gold.  My favorite shop by far was the RNLI (Royal Navy Lifeboat Institute) shop, which is charity shop raising money for the RNLI.  They are a bit like our Coast Guard although with no military mission.  They are an all volunteer force whose tasks are sea search and rescue.  The Harbour there also had a nice assortment of sailboats including a catamaran I had seen last week in Oban.  Instead of sails it has two fixed wings which I suppose you adjust to the wind. 

I returned to the island of Iona on the last ferry and settled in for another week of work. 

More stones

If Christ's disciples keep silent these stones would shout aloud.

we say that every morning during our affirmation at worship

Bay at the back of the ocean

Bay at the back of the Ocean

this is on the west coast of the island and it is a rock and sand beach

Fiesta

A friend of mine arrived on Iona this week. Originally he had planned to be here earlier in the year, but life changed those plans. Instead he was here mid-summer. Like the good friend that he is he had asked if there was anything I needed brought to me. And because this is a civilized place, I responded “no everything was okay.” So he brought me what he knew I would be missing – Mexican food.

Granted it was pretend Mexican food, freeze dried Black bean tamale pie, microwaveable taco filling and canned salsa, but nowhere else on the island was there anything close. When I mentioned to some of my housemates about my bounty they were envious, so I threw a Mexican Fiesta. In the dry stores of our kitchen I food flour tortillas that had been sued for wraps, and I baked these for tortilla strips. And we partied. It was quite fun. And it was a miracle of sorts. Thirty people shared a very small amount of food and there was enough for all. Seems like most everyone, regardless of their country of origin desired Mexican Food. Even my colleague from Paraguay admitted that it wasn’t that bad, actually it was the best Mexican food on Iona. So for what would have been a rejected, marginal meal in the U.S. became a fiesta feast on Iona, shared with an international collection of people celebrating the bounty of friendship.

This is a thin place.

Being prepared

There is much to be said for scouting programs that encourage, train and prepare young people to face lives challenges. They even have the phrase “be prepared” as a part of their pledge or motto. I am coming to realize that being prepared takes on a whole new meaning in other places. It is summer on Iona and the United Kingdom which means that it will be beautiful one minute and then it will rain. Significantly. In torrents. For about 10 minutes. And then it will stop, and the sun will shine. There is very little warning. It simply rains. Forecasts don’t seem to matter. The only thing that is predictable is the wind, as in there will be a little more wind today than yesterday. I am learning to say, “oh good its raining.” You must be prepared. You must have your waterproofs with you at all times.
Now I admit to not being wholly prepared. The correct answer to “do you want to get your foul weather gear off the boat?” would have been “of course, what a practical idea” instead of “no, I’m good.” I do have my raincoat with me and it is perfect. Stylish. Lightweight. Waterproof with a hood. What it is not is long enough. From mid thigh down I get dampish. Sometimes plain old wettish. Sometimes very wettish when I forget to carry it.
What else am I not prepared for? How will I prepare for what lies ahead? For example, how do I continue living in community when I physically don’t live in community.
This is a thin place.

Distracttions and temptations

It is difficult to imagine distractions and temptations on such a remote place.  I am on an island that requires two ferries and a bus to reach this destination.  The physician visits the island on Thursdays.  The bank visits the island on Wednesdays.  The children who finish primary school will leave the island each Monday to attend secondary school in Oban.  They will return home on Friday’s, and continue that process throughout the school year.  I have been here three weeks.  I know most of the full time residents on sight.  I know most of the cats and dogs by name.  But there are distractions and temptations.

For such a small place, there is an enormous selection of books.  Each house, the Mac and Cul Shuna has books in their common rooms.  The vollie gathering area, the McNeil Library, is a library.  There is an excellent library in the Abbey.  There are 120 people who live on the island year round and they have a public library.  How cool is that the bank is on wheels and rolls into the village once a week, but the library is a fixed structure.  Every retail establishment sells books, including the grocer, and there is even a dedicated book store on the island.  I find this very distracting!  Everywhere I go there is a book that I feel compelled to at least pick up and at most begin to read.  So far it has been just a distraction; I have not succumbed to the temptation to purchase any books.  So far. 

However the temptation that vexes me the most are the stones and shells.  I pick up stones.  Random stones.  They call to me.  Typically I pick up one stone from each place I visit.  I have done this for a number of years, from all over the world.  I heap them in a basket on the entry way table of my home.  And here I am on an island, covered with rocks and shells.  I have this overwhelming temptation to pick up each stone.  My mantra has become, “you will pay for each kilo over 23 kilograms” (50 pounds for those not doing metric).  So literally I will pay for my rock collecting that gets out of control.  I have managed to maintain one rock from each beach, but I have visited only two of the six beaches.  And everyone says you must pick up rocks at Columba’s Bay. 

Maybe I am avoiding that thin place. 

Early morning traffic jam on the way to the Abbey. 

Tides out in Buennsan, Isle of Mull

Early start to Oban to go shopping

Returning to civilization

Wednesday was my day off and I decided to return to Oban and purchase those souvenirs I left behind. My friend was leaving on the early ferry and I went along with her. She had completed three months as a volunteer on Iona and was continuing her travels in the United Kingdom by visiting Belfast and London. But first she was having her hair done, to rid herself of “island hair.” As we sailed along on the ferry we chatted about the return to civilization.
Now that is somewhat of a misnomer. Iona itself is civilized. Indeed, I have been in far less civilized places. I have a warm bed, with a mattress, hot and cold running water and don’t share the bathroom with a large spider. We eat very well, no make that excellent, which I help craft. There is apparently, unlimited font of tea, and somewhat marginal coffee. I do rush off to work most days having to meet a deadline. There is pressure associated with work. There are meetings to attend, although all conveniently crammed into one day. And social life, holy pete, I have more of a social life on island with a resident population of 150 people than I do at home. Just this week I have a poetry reading, two dances, two parties and a concert to attend, and that’s only up until Tuesday.
Beyond all that once you leave this island and the next (Mull) and the next (UK) to return home. There are things my fellow vollies are concerned about. For example, how will I be able to maintain a rhythm of life that includes at least daily worship? How will I recall that I am living in community when I don’t share a home with 13 others? And my greatest concern? What will I do about keys? We don’t use keys. Nothing is locked. My room isn’t locked. The house isn’t locked. The kitchen isn’t locked. The Abbey isn’t even locked. How will I function again in a world so filled with a lack of peace and justice that all those keys are required?

Daily worship

We have worship twice a day. Usually worship is at 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. The schedule for morning worship is different on Fridays and Sundays, being earlier on Friday for the departing guests and later on Sunday to accommodate as many people as possible. Each day’s worship has a theme which coincides with the rhythm of the week. For example, Sunday evening worship is quiet space, Tuesday is creative space, Thursday night and Sunday morning includes a communion service, Friday morning service is a leaving service while Saturday evening’s service is a gathering service.
Worship is led by a member of the community, either a resident or a volunteer. We are offered a signup sheet each Friday morning, and can ask to lead, read play an instrument or sing. Because of the way volunteers come and go, you are usually here a couple of weeks before there is an opening so you can get the feel of how worship flows. The community assists by providing you with a guide sheet along with everything that you should say. The morning services are fairly routine with little deviation, while the evening services are more adaptive and expansive. Sunday morning and evening worship is also affected by the Member in residence for the week. Last week we had a member present who leads music at a large church in Sheffield. All music last week was new and creative.
The only service that there is a prepared sermon is Sunday morning, and the sermon is offered by one of the Members of the community who is present to lead the week’s program. Two weeks ago the program was on interfaith work and the sermon was offered by the speaker for the week. This week we are focusing on reconciliation and justice. Our sermon on Sunday was offered by one of the leaders of the reconciliation movement in Northern Ireland. Each week the theme and focus changes which impacts the content of the sermon.
We use the Iona Community worship book, and use the Lord’s Prayer in each service. During the morning worship we say an older version of the Lord’s Prayer, complete with forgive us of our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. We all recite it together, generally reading from the worship book. But at night, at night we are asked to repeat the Lord’s Prayer according to our own tradition and in our native language. You can’t imagine the power contained in hearing all those voices, repeating slightly different words with similar context. It is powerful.
This is a thin place.

What's up in the kitchen?

One of my duties at the Abbey is to work in the kitchen. Now I do have some experience in large service kitchens. At church I often helped coordinate meals for large groups. At school I have paid close attention to when Chef gave us instructions about cooking. And as a teenager I worked for a world famous restaurant, “we do it all for you.” Not to mention, my friend has given me the privilege of being her sous chef for a number of years. But this is a little different. Along with three of my volunteer companions and some days the Cook, we prepare two meals a day for a total of 60 plus staff and guests. That’s two meals, 60 plus people, and no chance for a backup plan.
Kitchen duty has three shifts; 7 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. The early morning folks typically have two primary responsibilities, preparing porridge and preparing for the morning “vegetable chop,” and doing the baking. Some days baking means bread, or scones, or rock cakes or biscuits (cookies). These could be shortbread, oatcakes or any variety of cookies (chocolate, almond, and lemon). The baker tends to be the senior volunteer, or at least the one who wants to bake. The cook allows us a lot of latitude in what we bake with. For example, for Canada Day, July 1, the volunteer baked maple and walnut scones. She also made an amazing treacle bread. The other vollie will start the porridge, and set up all the vegetables to be chopped for the day. The guests will join us in the kitchen after worship to chop vegetables. Everyone goes to great lengths to avoid chopping the onions.
The 9:30 people typically begin to work with the guests and chop vegetables. After the guests leave there will typically be four kitchen workers, and we will prepare lunch, usually soup and bread, and make up dinner. Dinner typically is a type of casserole or stew, which will be prepared but not cooked until 5:00 p.m. All the soups, and most of the dinners are vegetarian. Sunday lunch, and Tuesday dinner are typically the exceptions. Sunday lunch is a massive spread, and Tuesday dinner is a bigger meal because the guests are on pilgrimage during the day and quite hungry when they return. After lunch the morning people will clean up, and complete a cleaning summary before leaving.
One or two people will come in at 5:00 p.m. The first thing that must be done is to warm the dinner pans. Then the evening people may be asked to prepare stuff for the morning. For example, if you have extra time you can prepare the bread dough for the morning shift person. You will clean up after dinner, and hopefully be finished by 7:30 p.m.
The cook had decided to celebrate U.S. Independence Day by preparing a great feast. We had gammon (ham), scalloped potatoes, string beans, sweet potatoes and apple pie with ice cream. I worked on the apple pie. Peel 30 large apples, core and slice into wedges. It had a cream cheese filling; 250 kg of sugar, 250 kg of cream cheese, 9 eggs and 2 tbsp of vanilla. Another vollie did the crust and finished the pies. And the coolest part of all, while working on the pies this vollie, who pursues Celtic Spirituality, and I had this cool in-depth theological conversation about God’s presence throughout creation.
This was a thin place.

Saying goodbye well

How many times do you say goodbye?  You probably can’t even keep count, and that may be the result of not paying attention to that.  Perhaps one of the most significant things gained out of the tragedies of September 11 was gaining an understanding that life is fragile – ALL the time.  Every time you say good bye, could be the last time that you say goodbye.  But often we don’t treat them that way.  We simply shout out a vague good bye, and that’s that.  One thing I am learning is that saying goodbye is important.  We do that a lot here, and we do a very good job of it. 

During orientation here we were reminded that while our new colleagues will be happy to see us, they may be just a little sad because they have friends that just left.  You don’t realize it as a new volunteer, but the people who are greeting you will be leaving before you.  You will quickly bond with them and then say goodbye.  It begins in our Friday meeting, the new vollies will be introduced, and then those that are leaving will have an opportunity to say something.  They will also decide if they want to have a leaving service, attended only by staff, and if they want to have a special gathering, only for vollies.  Last week the three women leaving, two from Cul Shuna and one from the Mac, did not want a leaving service.  One had planned to lead Tuesday morning worship as her leaving service, and all three of them purchased special “Scottish” treats (crisps, Iron Bru a soft drink, and tea cakes) for a special dinner.  This week the four people leaving, three from the Mac and one from Cul Shuna, had a leaving service and then we had a bar-b-que on the North Beach.  The typical day for departing vollies is Wednesday morning. 

Guests depart on Friday morning.  Given the remote location we are in, if you don’t leave on the 9 a.m. ferry chances are you won’t make it to Glasgow on the same day.  Their entire schedule is bumped up on Friday to get them to the jetty on time.  Just as with the departing vollies, all members of the staff come down to the jetty to see the guests leave.  As they line up to board, we go down the line and say our goodbyes.  There are handshakes and hugs.  Then as they board the ferry, we all line up across the pier and do the “wave” (like in stadiums), and a couple of the younger ones will do “airplanes,” where they circle around the jetty with their arms outstretched.  While it is fun, and entertaining, it is also quite touching.  We realize, individually and as a group, we were brought together for this brief moment, a slightly longer moment as volunteers, and that moment has passed.  And we honor that by saying good bye, very well.

It is a thin place.