Iona: The Tucked-Away

One cannot get to Iona by happen-stance; it requires intention and patience. One must fly to Glasgow, Scotland, an interesting and rough-shaggy place in its own rite. I found Glasgow (pictured to the left) to be eerily similar to Edinburgh, but with more warnings of "don't cut through the park (by the - stunningly beautiful! - university) at night", and more...nitty-gritty realness. After that 13+ hour flight (for those of us coming from the West Coast of America), you must take a ten or so minute nervous-feeling bus ride (could just be that I'm STILL not used to the 'wrong' side of the road) to a train station where you must hop a train to Oban (pictured in a previous entry), being selective of which train car you park it for the 3 hour journey up the northern coast of Scotland; the first two cars continue to Oban and the last 4 or so split off and go to another Scottish city further inland. The journey is beautiful, taking you through sighing hills of green, thrashing trees of strength and beauty like Switzerland (with more rain). Once in Oban, you'll find the 45 minute ferry ride to the Island of Mull a rather peaceable relief from the churning of train tracks, only to be met with yet another arduous albeit scenic toss-and-jolt: the bus ride across the Island of Mull is an hour long on a narrow-even-for-a-single-lane road with passing" sections" (big enough only for cars - not buses - to pull into). The pictures are abundant for the taking, though, and the windows even created some cool glare into the shots. It was on this ride across Mull to Iona that I wrote a poem called "Beauty"; I was bold enough (apparently) to share it during "circle time" with the group of 8 wonderful women I had the privilege of sharing this past 9 days with. After my reading of it, three approached me and asked if I would read it again so they could write it down! (I started to cry).
Anyway, after the Mull bus, you take a short (10 minute) ferry across the Sound of Iona to the Island of Iona. You'll see the Iona Abbey up to the right, small crofts, shops and cute houses lining the (west) coast, and the ruins of the Nunnery more centered, as the rocking ferry slides into its dock to let you off to begin your at-least-one-mile trek to wherever you're staying. Only some locals are allowed to have cars on the island (and even then, the permits are hard to obtain) because the 150 (11 of them children) inhabitants on this 3-mile-by-1-mile island understand the delicate and, these days somewhat precarious balance their "thin" (in terms of the "already-not-yet" veil between divine and earthen) place is in. Here it is; the place of longing. The place I'd set my heart out for nearly 8 months ago, the place that sparked this summer's trip: Iona.

Iona

We are here on the island. Things are windy, rainy, beautiful and awesome. The showers are an adjustment. My group is great but I struggle a lot with wanting things my way, which I need to get over. I can't post any pictures because the only place one can get the internet is the Columba Hotel (50p per 15 minutes) and that is about a mile walk from the hostel. Plus, I don't have a lot of time. Despite the ''openness of the schedule,'' there are a lot of optional trips and tours and things to see and do here that I'll probably be participating in.
Oh, and the storm that soaked my friends in Philly and delayed their plane for about 4 hours apparently has a name - Hurricane Bill (heehee). It's supposed to be over Iona tomorrow but I think it's been here for a while now.
I will be back in Seattle a week from tomorrow and probably won't be able to update till then. Just know that I am exploring beautiful beaches, participating in circle time and community dinners with 8 other lovely women, taking little boat tours out to sea, doing some intense hiking, and taking a LOT of pictures. I am attending a worship service at least once a day in a building that has been used for worship for 1500 years, and am trying to finish reading the letters you all wrote me (6 to go). I also pretty much have to cook for myself since I don't eat anything anyone else eats (not that it's real healthy for anyone to be eating most of what they're eating anyway...) and I've discovered that they don't have any bread I can eat here (it's either healthy but has sunflower seeds in it - and I will NOT go through THAT reaction again, I was one big hive for three days last December - or it's unacceptably unhealthy). Time to be creative.

Today

Today marks one month I've been away from Seattle, three years since I've started becoming Christian and one month (about) till I get to Iona, Scotland. It was storming all day outside (until about just now - 6pm), so I spent a cozy day indoors with God. I found out there was a rather intense storm (tornado?) in Colorado (though I'm not sure where) last night so I hope everyone (especially those I love there!) are ok - I heard some trees got thrashed pretty badly, and a friend reported that her dog almost blew away...
I received the package from my "parents" back home that I'd been told about a week or so ago (part of it I'm supposed to save until Iona, but I think it's more than co-incidental that I got it today! The part I could open was two purple pens*! "Parents" - thank you! God, you ROCK!). I listened to an amazing sermon (seriously, I've NEVER heard the "wives submit to your husbands" verse in the Bible talked about in this way before!), had two rather intense prayer times that gave me a headache (but were both really, really good), did some intercessory dance (something I'd not done before), stumbled upon a really interesting blog, and discovered that most of my pens are out of ink*. Perhaps you can see why...
(they're not even done yet! And these are just the ones I brought (or bought - the one with the purple bird sewn beautifully onto the front is from London) on this trip!)