UK #6: Pilgrimage to Iona

From Glasgow, I really started my journey to the Isle of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland.  This small island has been a place to go on a pilgrimage for centuries.  People have described it as a "thin place" where only a tissue paper separates the material from the spiritual (Around a Thin Place, Jane Bentley and Neil Paynter, 2011).  In my original itinerary, I wasn't going to come to Iona, because it is January and many things are closed down.  But many people asked if Iona was on the itinerary.  A friend who lived in Scotland for a few years said go even though it'll be January.  I updated my itinerary and started thinking about this as the "adventure" portion of the trip.



I left Glasgow on the train to a port city called Oban.  The three hour trip is part of the West Highland Line, which has been voted the most scenic rail line in the world.  I didn't know that until I saw a sign at the train station--I was just taking it because it was where I needed to go.  But it was beautiful.  The most beautiful train ride I have taken in my life!  

View from the train to Oban

Welcome to Oban!

When I got off the train, in Oban, I walked the five minutes to the ferry terminal.  I got on a ferry to the island of Mull.  That ferry was about forty five minutes, and the sky was clearing up, so there were some beautiful interactions between grey clouds and sunlight.

View from the ferry

Me on the ferry

On Mull, I got on one of the waiting buses.  It took an hour long route across the island on a basically one lane road.  It was also beautiful.  

The one lane road part 

The beautiful part

And then, at the end of the bus ride, I got on another ferry.  This one was a short ten minute ride across the Iona Sound to the island of Iona.  I finally made it.  Once on Iona I've been doing a lot of walking.  It isn't a huge island (3 1/2 miles long by 1 mile wide), but you have to be more intentional about walking than driving.

In this place of pilgrimage, that still isn't exactly easy to get to I've been thinking about the idea of pilgrimage.  It isn't a common spiritual discipline these days like it was in years gone by.  But two things stand out to me.  First, space is important.  Second, the journey is important.

St. Columba in stained glass

Going somewhere is obviously an important part of pilgrimage.  You don't take a pilgrimage to no where.  People came to Iona because St. Columba, an Irish monk came here in 563AD.  He set up a monastery, which prospered.  Historians believe that the Book of the Kells, a richly illustrated New Testament was probably started at the abbey on Iona.  Iona became a place that tradition says royals, including Shakespeare's Macbeth, were brought here to be buried.  Around 1200, a Benedictine abbey replaced the Columbian one (on the same location).  Today, the Iona Community makes Iona their base.  This little island has seen generations of faithful Christians, worshiping and working in the world.  It is a special space.

The restored abbey from the road pilgrims took

And space and place are important for our Christian lives.  For one, it is part of being an embodied human.  God did jot create ethereal spirits to live in a spiritual world.  God created humans with bodies--male and female bodies--in a garden.  And he looked at all that he had made and said it is good.  And so special places matter.  Pilgrimage to those places is one way that we can connect with God and grow in faith.

But it isn't just the space.  The journey is important, too.  Since I've traveled a bit in life, the image of life as a journey resonates with me.  I don't always know what the next leg of the journey will be like.  Sometimes it is monotonous and you just want to get there already.  Sometimes you get lost and you really don't know where you are.  But the journey can also be beautiful.  The work of the journey can make you appreciate where you end up even more.  And the journey is important for itself--on it we develop patience and persistence.  It shapes who we are.  Sometimes I need a reminder, that it isn't just getting to the next landmark (milestone) in life, but the way I live on the journey to that landmark.

And so I have joined Christians from the past and present in making a pilgrimage here, and finding that God does seem nearer on this rocky slab in the sea.  I pray that I will take these reminders and images and allow them to inspire and strengthen me as I return to ordinary life of work and worship.