Two ginger cats, one playing with a shoe, the other watching. And waiting!
It’s inevitable.
Whenever I open the bathroom door, two ginger kitties impatiently enter before I can even get out the door.
Cue the song, Anticipation, by Carly Simon.
They’re not shy either because they’ll do that to anyone who enters the bathroom. Not just me. It’s a good thing they’re cute.
things going off the rails
This week I’ve noticed and talked with other people, about things lately going awry.
I had an event on Saturday. I stopped at my office first, to pick up some things, and didn’t notice until I arrived at the venue that I’d left my building key and office key in the office, all safely locked up!
A young friend was flying home from a week of work on Friday. Their flight was delayed by rainstorms and strong winds, giving them less than 24 hours to turn around and head to their next weeklong job.
One person lost their cellphone while they were on vacation.
Another person’s flight was the last plane to leave on the very last plowed lane.
Even the cats! They woke up from their nap scrapping and fighting. Now they sound like a herd of horses, chasing each other through the house and rolling over one another.
A new season ~ Crabapple
photo by Ravi Patel on Unsplash of an ice encased lamp post at Niagara Falls
Sister Monique Rysavy (School Sisters of Notre Dame), one of my spiritual mentors whom I met with in the 1990s and a consulting editor for The Joyful Newsletter, defined this time, which is also the season of Lent in Christianity, as a “crabapple” season.
We’re tired of the dark evenings, the snow, the cloudy days. This neutral color palette, which I love in November? Not so much in March.
In the upper Midwest, we also have ice patches that form from warm afternoon temps creating wet spots and puddles, which freeze at night. Not quite as dramatic as this photo taken at Niagara Falls. But it is difficult to be outdoors for an energizing walk.
Yet it’s March, the month that holds our Spring Equinox. Perhaps that’s why this time of year is difficult. Spring and warmth and color are just around the corner. We’re sooo close, yet So Far Away (a Carole King song now, although this song is about a person, not a season).
Ready for a vacation
I needed to renew my passport. Now I am…tentatively…ready to travel.
Tentative because I’ve not been in a plane since before Covid. Tentative because I haven’t been to Scotland for almost 10 years.
I’ll go to my usual spot, the Isle of Iona. My first time was 2003 when I stayed at the Abbey and attended the Wild Goose Resource Group’s (WGRG) programme week of Worship and Music, which is held annually.
No church hymns, mind you! Not exclusively. It was all about church songs for today’s world. Song writers John Bell and Graham Maule of WGRG were accompanied by pianist Stuart Muir that year.
We sang global chants from Africa, South America, and Asia. We sang old Scottish and English and Irish folk tunes and pub tunes with new words for singing in church. We sang with the piano. We sang with drums and other wind instruments. We sang with just our voices.
Over ninety clergy and lay people, and resident staff joining when they could, sang and harmonized confidently and boldly, filling the stone Abbey Church’s 30 foot (maybe more) high arches and vaulted ceilings. On the plane flight home, it felt like my whole body was still thrumming from all those voices.
In 2007, I become a resident staff, working a two-year post for the Iona Community as the Abbey programme worker.
Many people find Iona to be a thin place, where the veil between the material world and the spiritual world is thin.
Stepping into History
Since 563, there’s been a Christian religious community on Iona, when the Irish monk Columba and twelve followers landed their coracles on the southside of Iona on a rocky beach, now known as Columba’s Bay. In addition to building a monastery (not the current stone one), outdoor high crosses were also placed on the isle with carvings that told Bible stories. Columba and his followers established a Celtic Christianity.
In 795, Viking incursions started. Martyrs’ Bay, just south of the present jetty and the pub, is one of the places where monks were slaughtered.
In later centuries, that same Martyrs’ Bay received the bodies of kings and local clan chieftains of Scotland who were brought there to be buried in the graveyard of Reilig Odhrain.
In the 13th century, the son of Somerled, Gaelic Norwegian Lord of the Isles, invited the Roman Catholic Benedictines to establish a monastery. The current stone Abbey and an Augustinian Nunnery for women were built.
In 1536, Britain’s King Henry VIII closed down and confiscated lands and monies in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Iona’s monastery and nunnery became ruins.
In 1910, the Duke of Argyle encouraged Catholic trustees to rebuild the church on the south end of the Abbey, requesting that it be used for ecumenical worship.
In 1938, Rev. George MacLeod (Church of Scotland), led the rebuilding of the rest of the Abbey, its Cloisters, symbolic of rebuilding a common life as clergymen in training worked alongside tradesmen.
Looking forward to visiting?
The landscape is gorgeous as Iona is part of the western Highlands and Islands. It’s mountainous country with lochs, which refers to both landlocked lakes and to rivers that flow from the tides of the Atlantic Ocean, and castles—both skeletal (on Loch Awe) and well-kept, open to tours (Duart on the Isle of Mull)—and sheep and highland cattle.
Iona is a small isle, only 1.5 x 3 miles. It’s a walking place. Local residents and crofters do have cars. The closest surgery (clinic and doctor) is on Mull. Between November and February, the islands are quiet. Ferry schedules are less frequent. Gales on the Atlantic can rise up during those months and whip the waves. A couple times during my two years there, the ferry did come over to Iona but the waves did not allow it to stick a landing on the jetty and the ferry returned to Fionnphort to wait out the storm.
Getting to the Isle of Iona using public transportation, which I do recommend because you can give your attention either looking out the windows or visit with people sitting by you, involves:
A train or bus ride from Glasgow to Oban
The hour-long ferry ride from Oban to the Isle of Mull
The hour-long bus ride on the mostly single-track road to Fionnphort (with pullovers when you meet traffic).
The 10-minute ferry ride from Fionnphort to the Isle of Iona.
I have more information on the About Me page. Just scroll down.
Staying at the Abbey or the MacLeod center was not a retreat. It was a week to form community as much as a person could within the short span of time. We shared bedrooms and bathrooms. We were divided into three teams, each responsible for a meal—either setting up for and clearing after. We completed morning chores of chopping vegetables for our midday soup, hoovering (vacuum) and tidying the common areas, or even cleaning the bathroom.
Eager for a vacation
What do I look forward to the most when I go to Scotland?
Seeing friends again, catching up with them
Time away from work, from home upkeep and tasks.
The relaxation of being able to enjoy the beautiful scenery as I travel by rail, bus, and ferry.
photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash, a person walking in a snowstorm with an umbrella
Do you have any vacation dreams that you anticipate doing this year?
Where will you go?