Hello again!
Just making the most of a longer stint back in Durham to process some reflections, write and podcast (as you may have noticed by the flood of emails š¬. I will be quieter over the next few days!!).
What pure bliss it has been to re-find my muddy, winding root-strewn paths and woodlands, lined by vibrant green hawthorn leaves just starting to unfurl, and to smell the humid air imbued with the scent of blossom whilst the bells of Durham cathedral sound from afarā¦ for all the beauty of Rome and Iona, thereās nothing quite like my Durham woods (or Cambridge fields)1!
That said, WOW, is the west coast of Scotland special. On a clear day (which I was blessed with on my day of arrival and departure) the horizon is littered with little isles, seemingly calling out and re-awakening the curious instinct to exploreā¦
However, I must admit, that in crossing over to Mull I was feeling somewhat emotionally subdued with the primary emerging reflection being āI long to be in a situation where I can bless and be blessedā. Itās slightly ironic that my tour of communities had actually been quite a āsolitudinalā (as I like to say!) experience to date: just dipping in and out of communitiesā lives, travelling solo on multi-day journeys, and feeling detached from the communities of people which give me such life (colleagues at Rose, friends in Cambridge, family in Durhamā¦).
I need time and space to rest in contemplative silence, but too much and I start feeling like a dismembered member of the body of Christ, yearning to be surrounded by people to enable God to be made manifest in the dance of blessing and being blessed through others. (Perhaps this is partly how I would define community?)
So when I saw Iona Abbey on the horizon, I noticed a joyful lift in my heart at the promise of a faithful community and fully sharing in communal life for a week!
Starting from March 11th, I spent 6 nights with the Iona Community, joining them for their āWork Weekā; a week of ~20 guests (like myself), joining forces with Iona Community volunteers and staff to get the Abbey ready for the guest season. I had a wonderful time cleaning windows2, collecting seaweed from the beach to fertilise the raspberry canes (I felt like such a crofter!), sieving soil, planting crocuses3 and having fun with poster paint decorating bits of cardboard to serve as black-out-blinds! I was very glad to have been put on such outdoorsy jobs (!), and above all, I deeply appreciated the camaraderie which arose from working together in small teams on manual tasks.
And all this work was so beautifully held within the wider rhythms of the day:
8am Breakfast
9am Morning Service
(Work)
1pm Lunch
(Work)
6pm Dinner
(Rest)
9pm Evening Service
And I really do mean beautifully held! There is such a warmth, openness, gentleness, wisdom and joy with which the Iona Community operates. I share some of the key things which positively struck me and which I hope we can all learn from below:
Warmth of welcome: The Iona Community is truly gifted and seemingly natural in extending deep welcome; so much so that you donāt really feel like a guest at all, but one of the family. On reflection, I think this is in part due to a wholehearted and genuine friendliness, alongside very clear guidance about the whats, wheres, whens and hows of the community. Combined, these two things ensure you never feel lost, and always feel welcomed, no matter what! (You know that feeling of slight treading on eggshells when you are a guest, or new to a place? Well, thereās none of that at Iona!).
Clear welcome at services: Despite the vast majority of service attendees being Iona Community members, each service is impeccably clearly introduced and walked through; a welcome is explicitly extended, the service is briefly introduced with what one can expect, and the service is walked through very clearly with all hymn and service books and numbers being clearly announced. Rather than fumbling to join a service which you know most people know inside out, a generously clear welcome is extended so all can participate as fully as they wish.
Inclusivity: Alongside Greenbelt, the Iona Community are at the top of my inclusivity chart! Microphones are always used in larger spaces (refectory and Abbey church), large print copies of service books and hymnals are offered, and, alongside queer members of the community, they have developed beautifully sensitive ways of being inclusive of queer folk. (I was particularly impressed by their introducing of why they invite the sharing of pronouns).
Sharing of Leadership: Each meal was introduced, and each service was led, but always by a different person! It would be easy to allocate someone to always introduce the meals, or for a small group to always lead the services, but instead, the Iona Community staff rotate these responsibilities. The result is a very cohesive community, where all are empowered to take up positions of leadership.
I was also touched by the number of people involved in guiding Sunday Eucharist, with one person leading the first part/the liturgy of the word, some people invited to read, a small group of people acting out the Gospel, and another person leading the second part/the liturgy of the Eucharist. Only the latter was an ordained minister, and I found it beautiful to see the laity so involved - it really did contribute to a sense of genuine communion and us all being equally significant members of the body of Christ.Empowerment of Youth: Building on the above, the sharing of leadership very much includes the youth! I was particularly touched by two of the services being led by under-23s - and how beautifully they were led! It filled me with joy to see young adults being given the opportunity to grow in their ability and gifting to guide people in prayer, and as a young adult myself, it was empowering to witness young leadership.
Robust and shareable worship/leadership resources: Part of the reason I believe the Iona Community can share leadership so effectively, is due to its very clear and shared resources. There are very clearly scripts/guidelines which the staff use to introduce meals and lead services (the red folders!), making it easy for these responsibilities to be shared, whilst also providing a level of consistency. And then based on their style and level of experience, Iona Community staff members make the script their own (e.g. adding a joke or setting up the Abbey church a certain way).
In summary, thereās a beautiful clear, framework which brings consistency to how the community is led, whilst enabling leadership to be adopted by all and providing the space for individualsā gifts and charisms as leaders to be grown and shared.Diversity and familiarity of worship: The Iona Community operates on a one-week cycle of services, with each day of the week having a slightly different style of evening service. These different styles open up a variety of spaces in which people can encounter and relate to God, whilst being united in a certain āIona styleā way of sharing in worship.
Praying with the Psalms: I deeply appreciated Ionaās incorporation and way of praying with the Psalms as part of their liturgies. The Psalms in their worship book are in easier/more relatable English translations and have been thoughtfully broken down into A, B and chorus parts which really bring a new life to the Psalms (or at least it did for me!) .
Integrity of values: The Iona Community is deeply concerned with matters of environmental and social justice (same thing?) and they certainly live out what they preach with deep care being taken to buy food ethically. There are no bananas on site, and I donāt think Iāve ever seen such a large selection of fairtrade organic teas!
Guest day book: Each room has a notebook in which previous guests have written reflections, prayers, poemsā¦ from their stay on Iona. Just a little idea that I likedā¦ !
Fun and celebrating gifts: One of the returning guests took it upon herself to coordinate an open mic night which she did with such joy and energy (Jane - you are truly wonderful!)! The fact that it was an āextraā to the schedule added a certain excitement to it all tooā¦ So on Wednesday evenings, guests, volunteers and staff all crammed into the common room to witness, amongst other things: twareg singing, waggle dancing, poetry readings, guitar playing, a short comedy sketch, singingā¦ it was a truly special evening of shared laughter and celebration.
Many people were performing in front of a crowd for a first time (including myself), but so warm was the invitation, and so safe did the community feel, that people stepped out of their shells for us to glimpse a bit more of them. That evening emphasised to me the binding strength which comes from laughing together, and the important role communities can play in nurturing gifts.
Further reflectionsā¦
In addition to these things which were such a gift to observe and receive, my time with the Iona Community also prompted some further reflections, rooted in noticing how their particular model of community made me feel.Transience and stability: One of the primary observations I took from my time with the Iona Community is just how transient a community they are. Resident staff are employed on 3-year contracts, other staff on 1-year contracts (I think?), volunteers seem to stay for ~6 months (with international volunteers being limited by visas š„) and then thereās a weekly turnover of guests.
Having benefited from the stability of the Lynās House community (a good chunk of people having been there for 10 years!), it was interesting to experience such a transient model of community4. It comes with the benefits of perhaps being more sustainable over time, but in the absence of a certain stability, it made me realise how tiring I can find transience and how important stability is to me.
In all of this, what is remarkable, is that despite the transcience there is a strong and seemingly infectious āessence of Ionaā which seems to communicate itself through the many people who pass through its doors - the mark of beautiful, impactful community and lived out faith I believeā¦Shared prayer and private contemplation: Whilst overly simplistic labels, I find it interesting to observe communities from the perspective of how introverted or extroverted they are; Iona definitely leans heavily on the extroverted side! Staff and volunteers share every lunch and dinner together, attend two services each day, and many of the jobs are carried out in teams too. Thereās an abundance of readily available, remarkably friendly and fascinating people!
The company was deeply nourishing and soul-lifting, however I did find myself craving space for quiet contemplative prayer, and was very grateful for the 10+hr journey back home to catch up on some silence! There were gaps in the day between work, meal times and services, but due to feeling like I always had to watch my watch to be back on time, I found it harder to freely rest in prayer on my walks5.
The Iona Community are very much a community of prayer, with the encouragement to experience work as prayer too. And as mentioned above, it was deeply nourishing to experience God through my fellow community members and through the truly beautiful services, but that didnāt remove my need (rightly or wrongly, my desire?) to experience God in alone and quiet (and outdoor) spaces. I was very thankful for the little patch of sycamores by the Heritage Centre and the oratory at the Catholic House of Prayer as places of prayerful stilling.
Anyhoo, it all got me reflecting on the balance of shared prayer and private personal prayer in Christian communityā¦Remoteness and social involvement: The residential Iona Community is incredibly remote. This is one of its many gifts, enabling community members and guests to live in a concentrated other-worldly time and space for a while, facilitating encounter with God, and creating a space in which people can be inspired and transformed by the gift of hospitality.
Whilst I do believe God works through people to create spaces of prayerful refuge and hospitality, and gift the āoutside worldā with a place to prayerfully recharge6 (e.g. the Benedictines), my time on Iona continued to emphasise my personal itching to be more physically and directly involved with people and places in need/on the margins as part of a community.
(N.B. The Iona Community is incredibly socially involved, through prayer, and also incredibly practically through its dispersed community. More below.)
More details and podcasts!
I have refrained from writing an overview of the Iona Communityās structure and mode of operation, and it is also important to note that I havenāt written anything about the dispersed community element, which is equally, if not more, significant than the residential element. However, this information (and more!) is all beautifully covered in conversation with the current warden Caro here, and makes a lot more sense to listen to than to write about!
You may also want to check out my conversations with Cameron reflecting on their experience of the Iona Community as a young adult, and Melanie sharing her passion and wisdom on community and how this relates to Church; thank you both for sharing such fascinating insights!
Iāve also just released an interview with Demarius on his extensive experience with the Episcopal Service Corp; a network of young adult communities in the US. Iām afraid the audio quality isnāt so good due to it having been recorded through Zoom, but Iām sure youāll agree that the wisdom shared more than makes up for it :)!
All podcasts available here. (Shout out to Shereetha, Demarius and Sofi for the podcast inspiration and help!)
To start closing offā¦
There are so many more things I could share on the Iona Community, from the addictive nature of the Iona shop, and rolling down hills in office chairs, to the gentleness of the liturgy, and reflections on praying in Iona weather and land, but I think Iāve shared enough as it is already! I do hope that some of what I have shared may be useful to youā¦
Iād like to leave you with the final verse of a hymn which particularly touched me during my time on Iona, and speaks powerfully to what Christian community is about for me:
Many the gifts, many the people,
many the hearts that yearn to belong.
Let us be servants to one another,
Making your kingdom come.
Au revoir!
Lakshmi šš»
P.S. For those specifically interested in intentional Christian community/new monasticism, I came across this book which you may be interested in :)
Ask me about wearing places down with prayer :)
With soapy water followed by 50:50 water:vinegar solution as a cheaper and more eco-friendly alternative to commercial window cleaner.
Gardening Tip: I learnt that big clumps of crocuses donāt flower due to overcrowding, so we dug and broke up a big clump of crocuses into smaller clumps, which we then replanted around the beds for a multitude of flowering crocuses! Thanks Terry for all the gardening tips!
Whilst there isnāt such a stable resident community, thereās a stability which is felt through the stability of worship. It is also worth noting that the Iona Community is also a dispersed community with a network of local family groups meeting monthly which seem very stable.
It emphasised to me how spoilt Iāve been with remote working which has granted me that prayerful flexibility, however, there is also something liberating about adhering to set communal rhythms.
Places of retreat are significant, and often help people re-connect with God in profound ways, but I struggle with the fact that they are seemingly mostly accessed by the middle class who can afford the expense and time off work. How do we provide places of deep respite for those who need it the most, regardless of class?