Leftovers

Some of my most favourite meals on the Island are staff meals, when the guests are gone. We don’t ever serve guests leftovers, only our very best. But all the leftovers are kept and we serve them at our staff meals. There is a very real sense that we are eating what others wouldn’t or couldn’t eat. Both houses also eat together. We serve ourselves buffet style, in usually random order. Typically meat dishes are in short supply, and often go first, but the group is good enough to take only a little so that all may have some. Even those with special dietary needs, have enough. God provides. And staff meals are one of the few times we get to carry on a continuous conversation. When we dine with guests there are so many new people that you want to meet that rarely do you dine with the same person or couple. Each meal seems to be a mini-interrogation, where are you from, what do you do, how did you hear about Iona? At staff meals you can develop a sense of family and we can have conversations that are longer than 20 minutes. So at staff meals we enjoy our left overs and no one is left out. This is a thin place.