AS I cross the Isle of Mull on a mostly empty coach on a cold March day, the Dr Seuss story Oh, the Places You’ll Go! plays out in my head. I wonder if the places you go as a teenager — which for most of us provides that first taste of freedom — are those that call to us throughout our following decades.
If so, it explains why I’m on my way back to Iona, three decades after I volunteered for a season with other young adults from around the world.
I know much has changed on this tiny island known as the cradle of Christianity in Scotland. The MacLeod Centre, where I lived and worked in dormitory accommodation, has fallen into disrepair. A huge renovation project has transformed accommodation in the Abbey. These days, in the summer season, cruise ships send out small boats carrying hundreds of tourists who wander up the single-track road for a couple of hours and, importantly for the island community, spend money in the hotels, cafés, and the few gift shops in the village.
I’ve come back with some trepidation. Will it have as much impact this time? Will I be disappointed?
I’ve been prompted both by my son, who repeated my stay himself last spring as a 19-year-old and declared Iona to be the highlight of a year filled with global encounters and travels; and also by the writer Lamorna Ash, whose exploration of faith took her to Iona for a work week.
Participants on the work week
Her moving description of her week has played a part in drawing me back, and I’m here for the same week. A work week costs half the price of a normal stay and, as such, it is more popular with younger people, Abbey staff say. But the ages of the members of our group range from 26 to 70-plus. Some have been before, others never. Among them is a group of curates and ordinands from the Virginia Theological Seminary, drawn together by a professor who was a volunteer here just a few years before me in the 1990s.
People are drawn to Iona for the much-talked about “thin space” it provides: the founder of the present-day Iona Community, George MacLeod, wrote that Iona was “a thin place, where only tissue paper separates the material from the spiritual”.
After long journeys of bus, train, ferry, and then bus again to get to this tiny Hebridean island, I wonder if it’s the usual boundaries of each visitor that thin with every mile, so that they arrive more receptive and open to others. But I’m assured by one of Iona’s staff that many people talk about feeling something special in the island’s atmosphere. Even on that first night, some are willing to share personal experiences that they might have taken long hours to build up to speaking about in normal life. Conversations that start at “What drew you here?” quickly get deeper.
AFTER a day to get to know each other and recover from the journey, we are put to work. I’m in the kitchen team, working with the amazing head chef Anja, who came from Germany to Iona more than two decades ago and never left.
As a teenager, I also worked in the MacLeod kitchen, preparing porridge, cheese scones, and soups, so it’s a familiar place. The porridge is still — wonderfully — a daily offering, as is the soup, but evening meals are a mixture of the recipes brought and adapted by volunteers around the world.
The two Celtic high crosses outside the Abbey
Work week allows us to get under the skin of the working community of the Abbey as participants rather than observers. It’s humbling to realise how few skills I have to offer. Those that have stood me well in 25 years of working life don’t go far in community living.
Chopping vegetables with other volunteers is a fast way to break down barriers and get to know each other. The kitchen is a warm space, particularly compared to the chilly Abbey, where we worship twice a day, morning and evening. The wind whistles through holes in the Abbey walls and roof — pushing past the ferns that grow luxuriantly inside the stone walls — and brings a rawness to each act of worship.
One of the US ordinands can’t get over the changing weather. On his daily 45-minute run along the island’s only road, he experiences every type of weather, from sun, to rain, to hail, and back again. The wind is the only constant.
Each day brings a different sense of community dynamics. The group is growing together, unevenly at first — but by day six the sense of cohesion is easily apparent. The US group are perhaps readier for it, since most already live in a theological community. Others of us take a little longer.
One of the US clergy speaks of the trauma felt by Episcopalian clergy and congregations as they seek to stand alongside migrants who live in fear of deportation raids. One day, one appears in a “Be a Budde” T-shirt, and tells me how the impact of Bishop Budde’s resistance to the Trump narrative — exemplified in her post-inauguration sermon — has encouraged many to explore their vocation in the Episcopal Church.
IN CONVERSATION with some of the younger volunteers, two mention that they have also read Lamorna Ash’s book, and one now attends the same church in London. One of these is called Iona. Aged 26, she grew up in church settings — her mother is ordained — but she is now exploring her own faith as an adult.
Coming to her namesake island was “a way of continuing the exploration of faith, as well as an adventure”, she said. She started attending her church in London “for the peacefulness, as a place where there were people of different ages and different backgrounds — and also to put down my phone for an hour”.
She lives in a house-share in London, and many of her friends are exploring what a fulfilling life outside the boundaries of work might look like. Some are envious of her developing faith and are looking for similar connections with a community. One of the highlights of her week was joining the gardening team and learning new skills under the wise tutelage of Terry, a regular volunteer.
Sabrina, 37, is new to Christianity and found her way to a Unitarian church after feeling God’s presence while looking round a cathedral. Her family and friendship group are not religious, and “living for a week with Christians was appealing”, she said.
The cloisters inside the Abbey
“As I’m new to Christianity, I felt like I needed some time figuring out what I need from a church community and worship, and I read about Iona and the spring work week in Lamorna Ash’s book.
“It’s an immense privilege to live in community for a week and eat, work, and pray together. The services have left me feeling fully nourished, and I’ve been even grateful for the few times I’ve been bored. It feels like a gift to experience that here.”
THERE is a real sense of sadness as our time together ends. One of the last songs we sing in the Abbey is “Gathered and Scattered”, and, as we catch ferries, then buses, then trains and flights, our group dwindles, as people scatter across countries, seas, and continents. A month later, a WhatsApp group is still active and holds us together in a continuing community.
The “thin-place” narrative seems to me to lie as much in what happens between people as in the landscape itself. For a few days, the usual distances and boundaries fall away.
It’s a timely reminder amid the fragmentation all around us that community and connection can be built in just a few days, and that transience brings not fragility but a new depth and hope — if we are willing to offer ourselves up to it.