Another Iona

The disrupted journey to Iona was a warning that our second visit would be unlike the first.  Stepping off the bus in Oban we were pelted by slanting rain.  The stormy remains of hurricane Maria had followed the Gulf Stream to Scotland.  Both ferries going to Iona were shut down due to high winds so we were marooned in Oban. 

My first trip a year earlier, I had reveled in Iona’s legendary status as thin place, where heaven could easily be touched from earth.  My husband David and I traveled with other pilgrims to learn about the island home of St. Columba and Celtic Christianity.  During a Eucharist with those pilgrims, I played my recorder in the Michael Chapel.  The new tune I heard in my mind flowed out into breath and fingers to fill the cold dark space.  After the group left for home, we extended our visit.  During services at the Abbey I felt connected with other pilgrims visiting from around the globe.  There was a luxury of time to hike the sandy beach of Port Ban and the boggy moorland surrounding the Hermit’s Cell.  While there were a few rain soaked days that kept us inside, it was time to read and journal.

I remembered from my training as a spiritual director about having positive,  cataphatic spiritual experiences.  On Iona was a strong sense of knowing God in the natural beauty of the rocky hills and sandy beaches.  I felt the spirit flowing while creating my music and capturing photographs of sunlight making long shadows.  Most of all was the sense of spirit moving with those who I met. 

So, I was pleased when David announced that he wanted to return to Iona for a sabbatical retreat.  We found an old croft house available for four weeks in October.  Tighshee, as all the houses have names not addresses, is a short walk from where the Atlantic Ocean becomes the Bay at the Back of the Ocean.  We both needed the quiet refuge it offered with no television.

Delayed by the stormy rain on that second trip, and a day later than planned, we boarded the first ferry to the Island of Mull.  Still unsure if the second ferry was running, we rode the bus which resonated with the sound of rain.  It wasn’t until our arrival in Fionnphort, to see the ferry waiting at the pier, that we knew it was possible reach to Iona, visible across the water.  With prayers of gratefulness, we boarded the ferry and huddled inside the cramped cabin as it launched onto the white capped water, rocking side to side to arrive at Iona’s steep concrete pier.  Walking off the ramp with water swirling up to soak our boots, we began rolling our suitcases on the twenty-minute walk down the uneven road to Tighshee.

The storms and rain continued throughout those four weeks.  The first week it was fun to defy the rain. We turned our backs to the rain to wait for the squalls to blow through before moving on.  I wanted to renew myself in the cataphatic connections, but as the days went by, I felt worn down.  I tired of being constantly wet whenever I went outside, the damp chilling into my bones.  Walking to the Abbey for a half hour in the rain, then sitting in wet clothes in that unheated sanctuary, knowing there would be another walk back in more rain made it difficult to reach out to those sitting next to me.

Sensitized to lightening grey skies or the sun coming out, each day I would look out the window and wonder how long might it last?  Would there be enough time to hike before the rain would return?  I would check with David.  Should we take a chance?  Needing to believe in the light, we put on our waterproof boots and picked up our sticks to hike water-soaked trails.   Sometimes the sun would manage to stay visible, even if struggling through the clouds.  Other times we turned back minutes later as the wind and rain returned.  Either way, we would return with mud streaked clothes needing to be washed.

I spent more and more time in the shelter of the cottage.  Against my hopes, this trip was inviting me into the via negativa, the spirituality of not knowing, of apophatic spirituality.  There was much time spent in silence, empty of images, words or music.  Words were useless, unable to describe or express what was going on. 

I filled some of the time working on a needlepoint project.  The repetitive movement of my fingers with thread helped settle the urge to be doing something, to be productive.  That physical activity keeps parts of my mind busy, making it easier let go of distractions and listen for quieter feelings and thoughts.  Time went slowly as I settled into a growing awareness of a place with many more shades of grey and versions of clouds and rain. 

Letting go of my desire for a spiritual experience was hard.  I kept hoping for proof that God was still there on the other side of the veil.  Yet, it wasn’t like God had gone, slipping off to a much warmer and sunnier place.  I was not abandoned or alone, just waiting in the quiet. 

Returning home, I am aware that something has shifted.  Sitting on my own sun porch is also a place of quiet attention, moving into silence.  Did I bring the thin place back from Iona with me?  Maybe Maryland has been at thin place all along, but I kept looking for it somewhere else?  Or has something in me opened up the boundary between earth and heaven?