After the vollies left it seemed that winter struck properly.
Firstly, we all went a bit feral. Table manners went out of the window and we all spent half the week wandering around not quite understanding what was going on. There was a total shift in mood and pattern, and when our whole season is based upon pattern, that can be a bit disarming.
The main changes for the winter:
- We worship in the Michael chapel, a beautiful small chapel ‘behind’ the main abbey buildings. It has a glorious acoustic, and is nice and cosy (at least compared to the abbey church).
- We worship at 9.30 in morning, not 9am. Which means an extra 30 minutes in bed – horray!
- We only do evening services on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. And we do those at 7.30pm not 9pm. That means we have a reasonable portion of evening free to do what we want – a new luxury.
- The ferry timetable has changed – only runs once an hour at best.
- Most small shops on the island have shut. The only places remaining being our shop, the Spar and Finlay Ross. The hotels have also shut – except for the Columba doing fish & chips each Friday night.
- The Mac is all closed down – it’s strange going up to the craft room or our office – it’s very cold and there’s nobody around.
- Two full days off per week.
Most of that lot I was expecting to some extent – what I wasn’t expecting was how quickly the weather would be awful. For the best part of a week we were lashed by rain and wind. The ferry stopped running altogether and it was pretty difficult to go outside. I found myself unable to open the doors of the van I was in. Surprisingly, the ferry ran to bring us our first lot of winter quiet week guests (although it looked a bit ‘bumpy’).
Winter quiet week – a restricted number of guests (so they all get a private room) and a more relaxed programme. I felt a bit detached from it, as we had our two days off near the beginning of the week. Without the requisit amount of daylight to do a full pilgrimage we did a shorter walk just to Columba’s bay at the south of the island. In the wind and the rain it was more than long enough (although we did wait a day for it to get a bit les extreme). I was wet through to my very bottom layers of clothing.
What next? A few days breathing space, then another quiet week, then a couple of weeks before the adventure that is Christmas.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Having arrived back from our two week jaunt around the country, the place had a different feel to it. A bit ‘end-of-term’.
Other staff around the place were exhausted and were pleased to see us back so we could take up a bit of slack. It was nice to feel wanted, but also daunting that there was still so much to be done with so little energy. Still, we ploughed on through a gathering place and autumn community week.
Community week, although tiring in a different way to normal, was actually a pleasure. It seems that all the nice, interesting, inspiring, low-maintenance community members choose to come in the autumn rather than the summer. Perhaps it was also bearable because there was only one centre of them. The Abbey was half full with ‘normal’ guests, including a few interesting characters. We thought we were settled in for a nice end-of-week when we heard a bad forecast for Friday morning so had to pack everyone off on Thursday after lunch. Thursday evening and Friday were the weirdest days yet on the island.
The last week of guests here was work week. Just 20 people staying in the abbey and working hard. I had one afternoon of work out of them in the pouring rain before my garden helpers got stolen for scrubbing floors, but I’m actually pretty pleased with what they achieved during that time. New rhubarb beds dug (to plant roots dug up and divided during community week by members), Willow cut back and bulbs planted. It makes the rest of my winter tasks look doable.
And then, after the work week guests left at 7am last Friday, it was just us and the vollies.
So we tried to celebrate a little. We had a social evening, followed by a gorgeous dinner the next evening (with wine!), followed by a ceilidh in the cloisters, and the next day a special leaving service for the vollies. For me I was too exhausted to really take it all in. There was however, a sense of unwinding.
On Tuesday morning, at 9am we waved off the vollies from the jetty, just as we have done for hundreds of guests throughout the season. It was at the end, a lot easier than I expected. I am secretly relieved that we are small in number once again.
We’re currently down south for a couple of weeks – escape from the island and a chance to catch up with lots of people we haven’t seen for ages.
A couple of folk have mentioned that they looked at this blog (to my surprise) which reminded me that I was going to post something about last weekend.
Our guests left as normal on Friday morning, but overnight we were hit by gales approaching force 9 or 10. The wind lasted most of Saturday which meant that there were no ferries for our new set of guests to arrive on the island. In fact, there weren’t even any ferries from Oban (‘The big ferry’). Annoyingly the ferry company wouldn’t commit to canceling their ferries for the whole day so we just had to wait around all day until they decided each possible crossing. In the end, all were canceled – just as I’d predicted.
So I ended up leading a’gathering space’ i.e welcome service, with only one guest (someone who’d stayed over from the previous week)! Our Sunday morning service was also deserted, and we didn’t really have guests until 7pm on Sunday – a full 24hours after they should be all safely allowed. Incidentally – Sunday was a gorgeous, almost entirely still, day.
Filed under: Uncategorized
So it’s been a while since I’ve updated here. What’s been going on in my world?
- Greenbelt.
- An exciting trip back to Iona from Greenbelt including missing a vital train link.
- I’ve led several sessions, including one which started about 10 minutes after getting back home from Greenbelt.
- A few staff crises – one resident staff member asked to leave, one resident signed off sick for a month, one resident sent out of the country to get a new visa and another resident hanging in here by the skin of her teeth to get a new visa.
- H was in charge of the whole place as sole remaining management team person.
- Bedbugs – but they’ve gone now.
- Some awful weather.
- Some glorious weather.
- Lots of weeding – particularly getting grass out of one particular flower bed.
- Two weeks of mainly German guests in the Mac.
- Both H & I had stinking colds for a while.
- Folk from Wesley Memorial (our old church) came to stay in the Abbey.
Generally things are good. It’s helped to have a less than full centre up at the Mac – certainly taken the pressure off us. The rest of the staff have really stepped up to fill in gaps caused by those away for whatever reason. Hopefully we’ll last the rest of the season (end of Oct) without falling apart!
In a couple of weeks time we’ll gbe getting away from the place for a couple of weeks. It should be great to have a break – although a little tiring perhaps. We’re traveling all over the place and seeing lots of people. Look out London, Oxford, Isle of Wight and Milton Keynes!
Normally, our Thursday night communion services are led by one of our two ordained members of staff. For some reason this week they asked me to help out.
Planning was a bit last minute, and I ended up writing and delivering the ‘reflection’ which come in the service just before the magic happens. Here’s what I said:
In a world church today with a rich and broad variety of worship, why do we still do communion – the Eucharist – the lord’s supper? When we have the freedom to sing, to preach, to dance, to have multimedia presentations, conversation, dramatic reading or this and that symbolic action as parts of our churches’ worship – why to we still re-enact just one meal of Jesus’ life?
Of course it’s one of those things where many reasons come together to justify the whole.
One reason: We were told to by Jesus himself: “Do this in remembrance of me”. Christians can be an obedient lot – so we do as we’re told.
Another reason: We can literally grasp the elements of communion. It isa symbolic action that really works – as it’s appeal is beyond the cerebral – beyond words. It is a reminder of God in the broader creastion, not just withing scripture.
And one reason which appeals to me most – it is an action which we can do together – as community – seated around a table. Eating a meal with others is stil part of our culture – just as it was for Jesus.
So this is something we have in common with Jesus, his disciples, and now his followers around the world. That’s why we celebrate communion.
To put this into context, this service happened at the end of a week where the WGRG were with us, leading sessions and worship with the theme “Voices from the Edge”.
Community week successfully, over, so we disappeared for a couple of days over to Mull to recover. We went ‘wild’ camping in Calgary bay. It’s wild because it’s not a proper campsite, we were however sharing it with a bunch of other tents, and there was a public loo just across the road.
It was truly glorious to get away and not feel guilty about not doing anything. Also cooked some yummy grub for ourselves on the new Triangia. Saw some friends from Oxford days who were up here on honeymoon – shame we couldn’t have spent more time with them but we had to race back.
Now we’re back on the little island we’re into Youth Festival. 70 something 15-18 year olds are here. So far there has only been a limited amount of choas – but everyone is a bit apprehensive!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: coffee, hallowing, Iona Community, pavlova
This week is community week on Iona. It’s the one week of the year when members of the dispersed Iona Community come and meet together here on the island. We fill both of our centres, and then there’s other people staying all over the island in hotels, B&Bs and cottages.
This morning’s service was a special one to ‘hallow’ the new members of the community. This year was a special hallowing service, as not only the new members got hallowed, but also our new leader who is taking over as the previous leader’s 7 year term has come to an end.
Following the service, there was a rather extravagant hallowing meal. All the members who are here attend, their families, all the staff and half the islanders are all invited. Surprisingly enough we haven’t got enough space or chairs for them all so it was a posh buffet. Main course was served in the Abbey refectory, then puddings and coffee in the Macleod Centre. All the staff had some role or other, H & I were making and serving teas and coffees. I suspect I made over 20 litres of fresh coffee this afternoon.
This week has been a source of anxiety for a while, as the members of the community have a bit of a reputation for being a demanding lot. There’s a lot of older folk who’ve been coming to the island for longer that I’ve been alive – which can be a source of tension when we’ve changed the way things work! What I didn’t expect was just how LOUD they’d be. At the service of welcome yesterday it was quite difficult to get them to shut up. They obviously know each other very well, but have a lot of catching up to do. It was strange to be in the same room as them who know each other, without really knowing who any of them are. To be honest I was expecting them to a bit more interested in us as staff, but maybe that will come later in the week.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alternative Worship, creative space, worship, worship without words
Last Wednesday’s ‘Creative Space’ service:
Church services, including the ones here in the abbey, can often be very wordy. Except for the word of God from Matthew’s gospel, this will be worship without any words at all. For our first two hymns this evening you’re invited to hum instead of singing. Some clues to the order of our service can be found on your service sheet.
First rain today in weeks, but I’ve still managed to do some garden related ‘work’. Whilst researching about globe artichokes I have discovered something called Folia. It’s social networking for gardeners!
I have previously teased Hilary for being addicted to Ravelry, but may have to retract that as there are are a whole lot of similarities.
My profile: http://myfolia.com/gardener/ionagardener
Filed under: Uncategorized
Soo, the last post has a rather tired and jaded feel to it. Sorry about that.
Since then, we’ve been on holiday courtesy of my parents. We had a few days in a gorgeous cottage in Brampton, Cumbria. We had a wonderfully lazy time (well, it was very hot and humid) and came back to Iona re-invigorated.
Since then, the season has continued to roll by. Last week was Youth Clubs week, which was pretty much run by the youth team who are based in Glasgow. Thankfully that meant that I didn’t need to do anything in the way of programme work. I concentrated on being out and about in the garden, which was great.
Before I went away I was so tired that there were various jobs that I simply couldn’t face. They included large scale weeding of flowerbeds, and re-edging of lawns. Since I’ve been back I’ve started on both, and they now feel manageable. At our mid-season reflection there was various talk of elephants. I’m eating mine one bite at a time.
This week is ‘Holiday week’ so we’ve got a few families amongst the guests. Tomorrow’s programme session: competitive sand-castles.
