From July 6 to 22, 2012, Connie Wardle participated in a pilgrimage through countries touched by the Protestant Reformation—France, Switzerland and Scotland. This is the 10th of a series of reflections on the journey.
I felt like a real pilgrim. The morning was cold and heavy with fog. I wasn’t dressed warmly enough and I shivered as we waited for the ferry that would take us to the Isle of Iona.
For most of the pilgrims in our group, this was a high point of the journey. Iona, with its connection to St. Columba and the modern, ecumenical Iona Community, seemed like it should possess some kind of spiritual energy. It has been called a “thin place,” a place where heaven and earth come close together.
It felt strange to walk through that mist, down a road marked by crosses and ruins, past a cemetery full of kings, to the rebuilt abbey. We stood beneath St. Martin’s cross, which has stood since the eighth century. And we sang:
“At night, as I dreamt, God summoned the day; for God never sleeps, but patterns the morning with slithers of gold or glory in grey.”
After a few days in Scotland, it was easy to see where Rev. George MacLeod, the founder of the Iona Community and the author of the poem, found the image of glory in grey.
As the sun burned away the mist and the low clouds gave way to blue skies, we explored the abbey and the island.
This year marks the 1,450th anniversary of the arrival of St. Columba and his companions on the shore of Iona. The Irish monk founded an abbey and it became a centre for monasticism and education. The famous illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells, may have been created here. And Iona’s high crosses may have been the first of their kind.
Today’s Iona Community was founded in 1938, when MacLeod, a minister from a parish in Glasgow, gathered unemployed craftsmen and young clergymen to rebuild the abbey. They lived and worked together to create a place of hope in the midst of the Great Depression.
Members of the Iona Community live according to a rule that requires daily Bible reading and prayer, pursuit of peace and justice, and mutual accountability for how they use their time and money.
The community aims to hold together the need for retreat and personal spirituality, and the need to go out from places of sanctuary to care for those in need, Rev. Peter Macdonald, the community’s leader, explained to us.
It’s “about rebuilding this common life [which is lived on Iona] back in an urban setting,” he said. “The work of Iona then and now begins when you leave.”
Those words haunted me as I climbed hills and wandered by the shore. “It begins when you leave.”
I realized that is the case with any pilgrimage, or even any worship service. Going somewhere seeking God is the beginning of a journey. Sure, the road can be long and sometimes cold, shrouded by glory in grey. Other times it can be warm and bathed in sunlight. Yet the end of that journey is only ever a beginning. The real work begins when that road brings you home again.
In the late afternoon I stood on the deck of the ferry for a second time, watching the abbey retreat back toward the horizon. For most of us, Iona had been a longed – for destination. Now something new was beginning.
