Today was our day of pilgrimage. It is not a long one but it was slow, prayerful, filled with pauses and sometimes conversation. Led by the Abbey staff we departed about 1045 am (not early by any stretch of the imagination) and began our walk around Iona.
Pause one
St. Martin of Tours Cross
Standing in this place for 1200 years. Surviving Viking raids and rough weather. It is weather worn, begins with depictions of the Nativity, Daniel in the Lion's den, Abraham and Isaac, and David playing the harp. Here we began our journey with a saint who began as a soldier, encountered a homeless person wearing nothing but rags in very cold weather and was so moved by the person's condition that he took his soldier's cloak which was lamb fleece lined, cut it in half and shared it with the person. That night he had a vision of Jesus with angels, I was naked and you clothed me... Martin found he was unable to continue in the military and became a soldier for Christ.
The Journey is long, we travel on together.
Pause two
The Nunnery
Despite having served in the community for 300 years very little is known about the work that they did. The sad story of a church that valued the work of women less. At the end only the Abbess' and two others remained. They had to flee to Mull where they hid in a cave. As we stood here with the partial walls, the sky above with the vast openness all around us our leader prayerfully read the Abbess' Farewell. And quietly sang
Bless the Lord my soul, And bless God's Holy name
Bless the Lord my soul, Who leads me into life
Pause three
Martyr's Bay
The landing point. The place of arrival for funeral cortages of Kings and Lords as Iona was considered a special place for burial.
Also the landing place of the Vikings who slaughtered all in their way including in the year 806 sixty eight monks whose life mission was to welcome and offer hospitality.
It is also the site of the island's war Memorial. For an island with the population of 200 this memorial carries an extensive list of names.
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me rose in my heart as we stood on this ground that has seen and absorbed so much death and violence.
Pause four
Erratic Rock
One of these things is not like the others! And that large granite boulder, firmly placed here is not native to Iona. It is approximately 800 million years old but not as old as Iona's native rocks which are over 1200 million years old. They are so old there are no fossils.
Our lives are small and brief in comparison
Here we listened to excerpts of Psalm 90
Pause five
The Cross Roads
It is the only crossroads on the island
Rough boggy track
Or the gentler track
Crossroads hang over us at various places and stages of our lives. We listened to a reading of the Robert Frost poem athe Road not Taken
Robert Frost 1874 –1963
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
Pause Six
The Raised Beach-- (Mackers) Common ground
Here we let the stones speak, picked one up to throw in the North Atlantic as a symbol of what we wanted to let go of or leave behind.
Pause seven
Bay at the back of the beach
If you set sail you'd land in Newfoundland
It symbolizes a turning point in our own lives, what is holding us back what do we want to let go of or leave behind. Here we selected a rock to release as a symbol of the letting go
To let go... By Robert Paul Gillies
To let go does not mean to stop caring,
It means I can't do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off,
It's the realization I can't control another.
To let go is not to enable,
But to allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means
The outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
It's to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for,
But to care about.
To let go is not to fix,
But to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge,
But to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
But to allow others to affect their destinies.
To let go is not to be protective,
It's to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny,
But to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,
But instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
But to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody,
But to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past,
But to grow and live for the future.
To let go is to fear less and love more...
Remember: The time to love is short...
Pause Eight
Catholic house of prayer
Hospitality offered in a variety of places on the island this one opened 1997 and is the first RC presence in nearly 500 years.
Iona's focus is on ecumenism so this hospitality is welcomed along with a newer Orthodox presence that came to the island in 2022.
God of peace, God of love
Hear our prayer
