THIS book, The Gift of Stillness, is useful for a particular purpose: as a resource for visitors to Iona who wish to share in the experience of pilgrimage but (like the author) have limited mobility — or just want to slow down.

Recognising that “Pilgrimage is a state of mind expressed through the body,” Rosemary Power offers several alternatives to the customary seven-mile hike around the island.

There are meditations around a sequence of medieval monuments, underlining the spiritual importance of a sense of place and of history; and a different kind of journey through the origins of well-known prayers associated with Iona.

We are taken systematically around the modern carvings in the cloister, highlighting the significance of the plants depicted, with generous botanical detail.

A pilgrimage around the island by boat, drawing thoughts from coastal locations, is an ingenious option — though only, we are warned, with “an experienced local boatman”.

Alongside, there are biblical passages and a good number of poems, largely by the author. These have an eloquent simplicity that makes them attractive for the general reader and suitable as aids to reflection.

Power makes much of Iona as “a place where people have prayed deeply and left an imprint on the atmosphere”, but this is not the New Age Shangri-la of some accounts. She writes as a member of the Iona Community about “a place where people meet a love large enough to hold their questioning and grief”, and knows that the island, since its destruction by the Vikings, has lived through change in a violent world.

Its Community continues to hold together the Columban heritage of prayer with action for a just and sustainable world, and the meditations make repeated reference to the impact of climate change. Unspecific comments on “unjust structures” and “oppressive regimes” feel more routine.

This is very much a book to use in situ, though with incidental benefits for others. Those who find the popular — ostensibly ancient — prayer “Deep peace of the running wave” overblown will be happy to learn of its origin as part of a charm invented by the late-Victorian occultist William Sharp, who passed off his writings under the name of Fiona Macleod. The poet W. B. Yeats admired Macleod, detested Sharp, and never realised that they were the same person.

The Revd Philip Welsh is a retired priest in the diocese of London.

The Gift of Stillness: Iona pilgrim ways
Rosemary Power
Wild Goose Publications £10.99
(978-1-80432-314-4)
Church Times Bookshop £9.89