Iona, the thin space. I felt it my first visit here twenty years ago, and I felt it today at the same spot along to road to the Machair, among the same family of sheep.
Here’s what I wrote in 1996.
     I walk along, the wind gently breathing upon a hovering medley of clouds. Stopping along the gravel road, lined on either side by sheep, I startle myself by saying out loud, perhaps to those sheep or to myself, perhaps to the universe or to God, “Life is simple; all we need to do is to love each other.” For the moment I am standing in the ‘thin place’, that liminal space between heaven and earth, between time and eternity. I am in the presence of God.
 
I knew I had come again to that liminal space, that thin space between heaven and earth. I knew by the silence that was God, who was and is and always will be beyond words. I couldn’t think of a thing; I knew there was nothing worth saying other than to love everyone. God was in my heart where love is, where all is simple.

Very grateful to be on Iona. I spent an hour in the quiet corner of the abbey this afternoon. At five o’clock the tourists are on their way to the ferry and those preparing for the evening service have not yet appeared. Very grateful for this time.

A poem sent to me by dear friends in England. Friends I first met on Iona.

I Have Seen the Lord
Where the mist rises from the sea
Where the waves creep upon the shore
Where the wrack lifts upon the strand,
            I have seen the Lord.

Where the sun awakens the day
Where the road winds on its way
Where the fields are sweet with hay
           I have seen the Lord.

Where the stars shine in the sky
Where the streets so peaceful lie
Where the darkness is so nigh
          I have seen the Lord.

The Lord is here
The Lord is there
The Lord is everywhere
The lord is high
The lord is low
The Lord is on the path I go.

In the past week two Scottish friends have asked me the same question, using the same words: “How are you going to celebrate the publication of your book about your mother?”

     “Oh, I’m not going to,” has been my quick response. Then, “Hum, maybe I should.”

     Why this resistance? The easy answer is that celebrating implies celebrating myself and my accomplishment, whereas the book is about celebrating Mom, and that is celebration enough.

     There’s another celebration, however, going on inside of me that perhaps I don’t want to publicize. I sense that with the book’s publication, my grieving will be over. That’s important to me, but how widely do I want to expose this personal truth? More to the point, do I want to admit to myself that my job of making Mom happy is complete? If so, and I know that it is, what is my next job? I'm hearing that I am being called to pray for people and be with God—to wander with God-- and THAT is where the fear lies. Is that what a doer like me is supposed to be doing now? Is my next job just to BE?  

     You may wonder why I am blurting this out. I believe human beings need to confess their truths out loud to other human beings and this feel like a safe place for me to do so. With the exception of a few of you, I have no idea who reads this blog. I do know, however, that you are safe.

I’ve blogged about the Iona Prayer Circle before. I suppose I could look back and read what I had written, and thus be certain that I was saying something new this time. But blogging doesn’t work that way. We write at the moment and for the moment, which makes new whatever we say.

    I’ve been a member of the Iona Prayer Circle for years, at least ten. Every two months I receive an email list of people to pray for. The list gives updates and additions. We intercessors are asked to pray once a week, preferably on Tuesday, to coincide with the Service of Healing conducted at the Iona Abbey on the day. My habit has been to ‘pray the list’ every morning. In doing so, I feel I begin to know the people. Not the details of their lives, but we make some connection, soul to soul. Mysterious and inexplicable.

    By the time I have lifted up each of the fifteen names, I have prayed for most of the conditions that people face in the world. I’ve prayed for people who are bio-polar, depressed, grieving the loss of loved ones, and facing all kinds of medical conditions. I’ve prayed for single moms, alcoholics, and for those who are lonely and feeling purposeless. I’ve prayed for the myriad losses that the elderly face. 

     I’ve painted a rather bleak picture, you might say. Well, yes. The human condition is like that. Just ask Jesus. That’s why the list exist. But the list is also full of hope. The sponsors write of the gratitude and uplifting that their personal friends feel knowing that their nameless friends around the world are praying for them. Jesus offered that, too.

In the past two days I have had conversations with several women. Some staying at my hotel, others after services at the Abbey, and a few on my walks about the island. On Iona, because it is assumed that we are all Christian, it is acceptable to talk openly about our faith. This is rare to me; I like it, and I am sad that I don’t have more extensive faith conversations with Christians in my life.

     Why not, I ask myself? Much of it has to do with the fact that I live in New England, where people rarely talk about their faith and hardly ever in spiritual language. After all, we are an intellectual, liberal group. I believe this shuts us down and shuts us up. We don’t want to be misinterpreted or, worse still, be thought of as stupid. We New Englanders, after all, and have been acculturated since birth to keep our faith in church on Sunday and to give God no credit for leading us in good works. We do not dare open our faith-filled mouths for fear that we will be considered ‘one of those’ who are not members of the regional educated, liberal club of the northeast.

     I don’t know how to break this description, this persona that we Christians and non-church goes have created and continue to shared together?

I tried Laurence Freeman’s suggestion on my walk today (see yesterday’s post). A prayer walk with less thinking, more being. I was able to let go of most of my questions to God and pleas to Jesus. In summary,  I prayed the Jesus Prayer and enjoyed the scenery. Um, simple and practical.

In the Quiet Corner of Iona Abbey is a book of daily readings, compiled by Peter Millar, a long-time member of the Iona Community, in a little booklet entitled “Notes for a Pilgrim”. The page for the thirteenth day of the month includes the following by Laurence Freeman, Catholic priest and a Benedictine monk. I offer this for your mediation.

     Meditation is simple and practical. It is about experience rather than theory: a way of being rather than merely a way of thinking. Indeed, because of the profound change meditation can work in one’s life, it is even more than a way of prayer: it is a way of life, a way of living from the deep center of one’s being. Meditation is focused on Christ. This means that it is centered on the prayer of Christ, which is continuously poured forth in the Holy Spirit in the depth of each human being. Thus, in this way of ‘pure prayer’ we leave all thoughts, words and images behind in order to ‘set our minds on the kingdom of God before all else’. We leave our egotistical self behind to die and rise to our true self in Christ.

     Meditation does not exclude other types of prayer and indeed deepens one’s reverence for the sacraments and one’s reading of scriptures.