Categories: uncategorized
Date: 01 January 2007 14:15:37
Happy New Year to all of you from this place that I call home - yes I'm finally back to the real world.
The Iona Community web site describes the Abbey centre in the following way:
"The Abbey provides neither a retreat house nor conference centre, but offers a unique opportunity to live with people from all over the world and all walks of life. Guests and staff of the community share all aspects of life - meals, daily worship, programme activities, chores and social events in a place which allows them to feel safe in exploring issues that challenge or concern them and to have space to reflect on their lives. Accommodation is mostly in bunk-bedded rooms for two, three, or four or five people. "
If I unpack that paragraph for you I think I might get past images of trees in winter and fields of dung leading to isolated beaches to give you a more practical picture of what my week was like.
The week involved a series of programmed sessions which you were free to attend / ignore as you wished. These varied from recognisable worship sessions, to creative writing sessions, to life exploration type creative sessions, to activist writing sessions, to singing sessions and more. I didn't do any of the "big" or "wee" sings, but did do a variety of the other stuff. The most meaningful being those which involved writing (be that for activism, pleasure or to reconnect with / explore the deeper emotions within).
The mix of people were great and it was refreshing to be united in such a richly diverse group of people. The nationalities who gathered around the tables for meals included: German, Dutch, Romanian, Welsh, Irish (northern and southern), Scottish, English, Austrailian, Canadian and American. The denominational backgrounds that I was aware of included: Quaker, Church of England, Methodist, Episcopalion, Baptist, Greek Orthodox and I think there may have been Catholic - although the great thing was that there was no compulsion to ask the denomination because we were all one together - community where categorisation became irrelevant. The ages ranged from toddlers to those in their 70's. There were family groups of varying sizes and mixes of generations, couples, never married singles, divorced singles and widowed singles.
The guests were split into three groups for chores and I was a puffin. This worked out ok as it meant that I had to help lay up for and wash up after lunch, probably the easiest meal of the day to be the team for. In terms of the other chores, these are light and only take up about 15 minutes per day - I was on cleaning showers, which I came to enjoy. There is something enjoyable about this sort of thing when you are doing it as part of a team, laughing and scrubbing together.
Whilst it was organised and the planning at every stage was careful and designed to make sure everything went smoothly it was not contrived and did not seek to intentionally manipulate the emotions into a questionable experience of God. This was helped by the sense of total equality of worth which came across in an environment which, whilst having the necessary and inevitable line management, was clearly non-hierarchical and clearly sought to ensure the widest and most diverse level of participation possible, particularly within worship.
It was a safe space in many ways ranging from being able to, without embarassment, be totally free about any dietry issues you may have onwards into a range of other issues. Also when "stuff" might come and bite you in the backside you were able to just go and be and work through it with God, literature, nature or whatever - without the intrusion of others; there truly was alot of space to just be. Also though, there tended to always be people about just chatting and sometimes this was where "stuff" could be discussed in a more general way, naturally through conversation. Also one evening a week the service is a healing service - which is designed to facilitate seeking healing in the widest sense; healing for individuals (mind, body or spirit - yes) but also healing for the environment, for political situations, for social situations and so it goes on. It was a service for community healing.
In terms of accomodation I was with two slightly older women and as such took the top bunk. The forth occupant didn't turn up - which whilst we were sorry for them did mean things were just a little less cramped in our tiny room. That said, it worked and it worked through communication, consideration and negotiation. So again it worked through learning just a little more about what building community involved.