Brot und Rosen

Oh, let all who thirst

Let them come to the water.

And let all who have nothing

Let them come to the Lord.

Without money, without price; 

Why should you spend your life

Except for the Lord?”

Isaiah 55, paraphrased in John Foley’s song, Come to the Water

Describing Brot und Rosen is hard, and I am not sure that I quite understand everything that is going on here.  And that is OK!

 When I first got here I was asked my expectations.   I said, truthfully, that I didn’t have many expectations.   I had been looking for a service components for my sabbatical, I had asked my friend Cornelia from the Westphalian church, and she had immediately suggested this.    I like Cornelia and trust both her and God working in her, so I wrote to them and applied. 

I knew they provided housing to refugees, and I knew I they were related to Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker movement, but my concern was giving back during part of my sabbatical. 

But this is much more, and much different from a typical service opportunity.  This is a community that differs from the community in the world as we know it.   It is a community like we find in Acts 3; “ The whole congregation of believers was united as one—one heart, one mind! They didn’t even claim ownership of their own possessions. No one said, “That’s mine; you can’t have it.” They shared everything.”(The Message)

Four people who live here all the time: Birke, Birgit, Sarah, and Dietrich (I think:   I am really struggling to connect names here) some of whom work elsewhere, most part time, put all of their salaries into the common purse.  Each person, including the ones who live here for a season or for a time, takes what they need: food, clothing when it is available, some pocket money, etc.   Each person contributes to the running of the house.  Because many of the people here are unemployed and in transition, they are the recipients of a certain amount of charity; food pantries, groceries with dated goods, etc. and the community strives to use these things as well as they  can.   For example a food truck came Monday with a whole load of red bell peppers in excellent condition, and last night we had delicious roasted red pepper soup!

So part of the work is helping to keep up the house, cooking, etc.  yesterday one of the permanent residents came in with a bag of plums and suggested I make a plum cake.   With the help of others (finding ingredients, prepping the plums) I did, and it was pronounced “lecker” (delicious).   Monday I made coleslaw for the barbecue and went to buy the charcoal.  Every day I have done some dishes and Friday I will fashion a meal for everyone out of what we have.   I am considering veggie chili if there are enough tomatoes.

It is less work and more community here, and while simple, this community seems to be on a solid footing.   I have much to learn from them.

One note: one thing I don’t have is readily available internet: I am heavily using my cellular internet, which is limited.   So I may not blog as often these three weeks.

Germany and uncertainty

So finally I am in Germany, winging my way on a super fast ICE train to Hamburg.   I’ll spend a long weekend hanging with my brother, then three weeks as a volunteer with Brot und Rosen, a church based philanthropic organization that works with refugees.   With all the talk of Afghan refugees, this is something that I think will be as valuable to me as to them.   Maybe more so.   Then . . . . 

The truth is, I don’t know. 

Israel was set to start accepting tourists in early August, but they have not started it yet, and I don’t know if it will even be possible to travel there as an individual traveler.    If it is, it is not possible to come from Greece, which is on Israel’s list of no-no departure points. 

Currently, my itinerary has me traveling to  Thessaloniki on September 29, and traveling Athens to Tel Aviv on October 7.  One of those places is not going to happen, and I don’t know which.  I keep putting it off, but I do know that 7 days out, September 22, I will need to do SOMETHING to plan my way forward.

Israel is my priority, but if it is not possible, there is little I can do about it. 

If you are a praying person, keep me in your prayers. 

Ulrich Zwingli’s Zurich, and more boat rides.

There are three steeples here in this photo looking from the Zurich See (Lake) toward the river running into it.  On the left the Grossmuenster, and on the right the Frauenkirche and St. Peter’s Kirche.  These are the primary Reformed churches of Zurich, with two other churches of renown worth looking at. 

To be fair, the Frauenkirche has less to do with the Reformation than the stunningly beautiful set of 5 windows by Marc Chagall.    

The churches really don’t have much to say about the Reformation - to me, Calvin’s story is more interesting than Zwingli’s, but there is more about it in the  Landesmuseum, which I spent three hours contemplating Swiss history and the place of the reformation in it.   Some interesting facts. 

Zwingli beat Luther to translating the Bible into German.  At least according to the Landesmuseum Zurich.  

It was a really difficult and violent time, marked by profound intolerance of anyone who believed differently than you.  Hence clear annoyance between Zwingli and Luther, with the Scottish reformers complaining that Luther wasn’t answering their letters, and Luther, of course, exhibiting a bit of passive resistance. It really sounds like they didn’t like each other. 

And the profound fact that there is today in Switzerland, a great deal of tolerance for other people’s ways of worshipping.   Churches where protestant and Catholic congregations sometimes meet, tolerance for other non-Christian religion

Intolerance as caused so much pain.  Why can’t we get past it? 

And, Zurich also has water busses.  For an extra CHF 4.40 and a daily transit pass, you can take a 1.5 hour cruise around this side of the lake.    So I did it after I’d seen all the sights.  

John Calvin’s Geneva, and boat rides.

When I got to the top of the hill that houses Saint Pierre cathedral in Geneva, and discovered that the museum of the Reformation is closed for “transformation” and that Calvin’s auditorium was also closed, I was thinking , well this will be a short pilgrimage in Geneva!  Not so fast!

After I went to church at the Cathedral, toured the archeological excavations under it, which show the development of at least six different churches on the top of this hill between the first century and today, toured the cathedral and walked down to the Reformation Wall, it was only about two o clock in the afternoon, and I’d done everything on my list. 

Now before I go on, let me talk about Reformer’s Wall.  It is a huge memorial dedicate to the Reformers (primarily the reformed ones) starting with Calvin, Knox and a couple of their cronies.  But there are also options of it reflecting some of the more implicated history.  Jan Hus is mentioned, Luther and Zwingli have their own memorials right next to the walls.   Important events from the Reformed saga of the Reformation, including our Pilgrims are included.   

But it is big an a little bit cold, kid of like the memorials in socialist countries, like the ones in Havana and Berlin. Even though it is not propaganda, it has a little bit of the feel of that  kind of thing.  It also lines a park, and I saw it on a Sunday afternoon while children plate in the playground, the outdoor restaurant served brunch, people rented lawn chairs to sit in the sun, and both young and old people played chess with the huge lawn size chess pieces.     In this context the wall certainly loses some of it’s institutional quality.  And it is mighty impressive.   I went back Monday. 

So I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in the Park by the lake, taking pictures, writing in my journal, talking with a guy from Côte d’Ivoire who happened by, to the extent we could as we kept our distance and contended with not having a common language.

I ate a salad in the park - big, meal type salads are rare in Italy, at least without having some kind of meat on them, so the salads I had Sunday night (with cheese and falafel on it and Monday afternoon wtih olives, artichoke hearts and sun dried tomatoes) were a real treat.   I took the ferry boats all over this end of the lake, as they are included in the travel pass that the hostel gave me.   At the end of the day I played pinochle online with my sibs, four of us in three countries.   

After pinochle I researched walking tours in Geneva.   I knew there was a Reformation walking tour, but my notes said to get the brochure from the Reformation museum, and it was closed. Online I found a walking tour of seven historic churches in Geneva, and I used that to find out a little more about the development of church, and especially of freedom of religion, in Geneva.   

And I scored the Reformation walk brochure from the main TI in the English Garden, near the floral clock, although in German.  That works, I could read it (looking up a good Number of words) and followed it to a number of other sites including the local Lutheran Church and the site of the original Reformation School - because of course teaching children to read is essential if they are going to read the Bible. 

By the time i was finished, it was after 4, and I still had laundry and packing to do for tomorrow.   Off to Zurich and the story of Zwingli!

A day off

This morning I visited Santa Maria della Angelo, above, which is where Francis lived for a good part of his life.   Then I came back to Assisi, ate a piece of pizza and drank a lemon soda, came back to the Convent, took a shower.

And now I am cross stitching.

Even when you are taking a sabbath, you need times of rest.

Someone down the hill is playing a harp down the hill and I am listening in a sitting room while I stitch.

This afternoon later I’ll head down the hill for evening prayer at San Francesco and dinner (likely in the opposite order.)

A whirlwind visit to Milan’s Duomo

My travel plans did not end up as smooth as I like today.   There were no trains between Milan and Geneva, more specifically, no seats on trains on this Friday.  So I ended up taking a bus, and the early bus I wanted was also full. 

This meant I had to take the late bus, that leaves at 17:00 (it was a half hour late in addition.).  And since the train from Florence was on time at just ahea of 1 PM, I had four hours.  

So I went online and booked tickets to the Duomo, or Cathedral.   I booked the full package, the church, archeological site underneath, and the roof.   Pics above. 

There are a couple important church history things here.   It’s a connection with St. Augustine.  Augustine was baptized in this. Cathedral, in fact the archeological site above IS of the baptistery in which both St Ambrose (the bishop who baptized Augustine) and Augustine were baptized.   Yes. That is a picture of it right there.   

Milan’s Christian community is quite ok.  A list of bishops of this Cathedral in the church lists bishops all the way back to AD 51.  Yes, that is before Peter and Paul were martyred, before any church in Rome, indeed while Paul was beginning to write letters to people like the Thessalonians and Galatians, and some were still dealing with the loss of Jesus. 

Construction on this church started in 1386 and finished in 1965. Almost 6 full centuries.   An think about its start!  1386 was 21 years before the monk Luther would nail his 95 theses to the famous door in Wittenberg, and start the Protestant reformation.  As this church grew, so did the conversation about how to be church, in the contentious and sometimes bloody transformation of the Christian Church into something other than it was (and the reformation and the responding counter-reformation changed both the Potestand and Catholic Church.). 

It was very cool to be where Augustine was baptized.   It was also cool to see this church again and do the walk on the roof again. 

Tomorrow:  Reformed Church of John Calvin in Geneva. 

Staying Active

So, the rules of self- isolating in Scotland mean that I need to stay at the residence where I am for the self-isolation period.   The only exception seems to be to post my Covid tests on day 2 and 10.staying active is a challenge.  

Which is why I walk around the garden, over and over and over again.   Hence my GPS map above (it’s also a real illustration of the limits of GPS: this was 40 laps of the same track).

On the positive side, I booked a night in Fort William to replace my first night in Oban, which was canceled.   Hope to do some hiking in Glencoe that morning.  

Travel in a time of Covid

The photo above is my Covid stuff.   Yes, Covid requires packing (and carrying) lots of extra stuff.  This is particularly true in Scotland, which is being very conservative about how they approach the issue.   The contents of my Covid shelf are, from left to right.

1.  My 7 lateral flow tests.   To visit the Scottish Isles (I’ll be on Iona two weeks from tomorrow) the Scottish government is requesting (not mandating, though the Iona Community is also asking for it) Lateral flow tests 3 days before and on the day of travel.   These are tests you can do yourself, and which are self-evaluated.   These 7 tests are free, and we are encouraged to do them every 3-4 days.   I’ll start them after:

2. My remaining PCR test: scheduled for Day 8, or next Wednesday.   That gets mailed in to the National Health service. 

3. Travel kits.  They had these at the Ace Hardware near me, and they are for flights. They have wipes, masks, even a cover for your headrest to keep the germs away. 

4. Hand sanitizer, and behind it

5. Many, many masks.  I have both cloth ones and paper N95 masks (required for train travel on the continent.)

6. LOTS of antiseptic wipes.  

Yes, I carry all this stuff around with me.  And yes, I’ll use it, all but one lateral flow test, in fact!

Choosing to travel at this time means putting up with all this.  But I think it will be worth it!   What do you think?  Would you travel with all this testing and precautions and such?   Let me know in the comments!

Nomad Life

I fried my eggs today in olive oil.   That is because for a 10 day stay I did not want to buy more than one fat.   How exactly I ended up on olive oil is moot, though it was the smallest bottle I could order, and I guess I imagined myself frying something in it?   Or making salad dressing?  Though I bought no vinegar.  Butter might have been a better choice since the only thing I can imagine frying is eggs and possibly cheese sandwiches, and butter would have been a better choice for both. 

Nevertheless, having only one fat, an needing for it to make do, brought me back to my decade or so as a consultant for ILOG and IBM.    When I took the job, I knew it required a LOT of travel, and there were years when I traveled more than my friend Bruce, who was a renowned traveler (an even featured once on the cover of American Airlines’ magazine!).   I got to enjoy preferred status at some point in my career from each of our major American Airlines, and years and years of elite status with Marriott. 

Which brings me to living on the road, which I actually enjoy.  While there were times that I really did not want to go on a trip, and certainly many times when I missed my loved ones at home, the Nomad life rather suits me.  The forced minimalism (I’m definitely NOT a minimalist at home) and reduction of much of life to basic tasks is pleasant to me.   While no one would call me an introvert, I do enjoy my own company, and times for silence and solitude.   I am, for example, not going crazy with loneliness, though I am very glad to have an ongoing social media connection with my husband and my family (and tomorrow I have an appointment to call my granddaughter!). 

Back to the olive oil.  As a consultant, for that decade or so (2002 to 2018) I became a real aficionado of the Residence Inns by Marriott.  They were affordable (especially with the ILOG, later IBM corporate rates) and they had a full kitchen, and a defined living area, table to eat at, and cookware.    I would cook most of my dinners there (breakfast was included, and available via a really nice buffet).  It helped me control my calorie intake (eating out all the time really can pack on the pounds) and my diet (as a vegetarian it can be challenging in some areas to find healthy things to eat.) 

I discovered that there are a myriad of dishes you can make from ingredients from the salad bar, and I’d regularly get my veggies there.   Think veggie pastas, stir fries, even, sometimes, salads!  At one time I contemplated writing a cookbook of my Residence Inn recipes.   If I was managing a long term job, I’d often throw a dinner party for my colleagues.   I made gnocchi from scratch for Alessandro Campioli when he was my boss, and lots of oven barbecued chicken.   People were always impressed, and I often had room to entertain, because I had that Marriott gold status and when I would check in, I’d tell the desk clerk, asking for extra plates and chairs for my entertaining night, and they would often upgrade me to a larger unit.  

Which is to say that I’ve fallen into many of those habits as I spend this time in Scotland in self-isolation.   My larder is a little more stocked (after all, it’s 10 nights, rather than 3, and breakfasts and lunches as well as dinners) but the idea of having limited ingredients and making do is still there.  

And I’m not feeling anxiety about being away from home.  Just a little bit of missing the ones I love.  

Dear God, bless the minimalist tendencies in me.  Bless my instinct to improvise with what I have.  Bless my wandering soul, and bring it back safe home, because that is a place I love just as well as the road.  Amen. 

Not much to say

  

I fear that there will be little to say over the next ten days.  The big event yesterday was getting groceries, which was an adventure!    The eggs are free range and they are a nice golden brown.   Sizes were sometimes a bit of a surprise: the bottle of salad dressing and bags of salad greens are tiny, which is fine as I’ll make do, but the bag of fusilli is huge.  I did not realize I was ordering a kilogram! A quarter kilo would have been plenty!   

For dinner last night I ate a “Gregg’s Vegan Steak Bake”. Which is made by the Quorn folks exclusively for Gregg’s and features tasty little protein/mushroom particles in a brown sauce covered in a puff like pastry, a half a plate salad of colorful lettuce mix with a very tasty fat-free dressing and a couple of slices of wholemeal bread, plus an apple for dessert.   This morning it was plain yogurt, fresh British strawberries and some granola I packed from home.   Plus coffee with Scottish milk.   The coffee is instant, which is basically the only choice, and surprisingly good, though not by any means the coffee I am used to.   

The big event today is taking and posting my first Covid test, though first I will wander down to the post box to find out what it’s hours are.

And clean the pan that was left in the oven and created a smoke cloud when I turned it on yesterday.

DO YOU SEE HOW BORING THIS COULD GET?

I think I might not post daily for the next 10 (now 9?) days.

Love you all!

(Yes the breakfast picture is sideways.  I’m trying to fix it)

Undone stuff

My negative Covid test is now on my phone.  I’m packed and my daughter will drive me and her daughter first to daycare then to the train station n the morning.

While I got a lot accomplished in the last few days, there are still some things left to do.   

A wise mentor of mine, Verne Arens, included a line in the Christmas Eve Candle lighting ritual that has always gotten me through moments like this: “What has not been done will have to be left undone.”  There are yet undone things.

But they will be left undone.

This was written before I left - but for some reason did not publish till mid August

I love Assisi

I remember that I loved Assisi before:   I love it again after a morning of churches, an order of the best meals of my life. 

This morning I traced (with the Rick Steves Auio tour) Francis and Clare.   And checked out Roman amphitheater space, medieval city gates and an extra church.   I’ll skip the scenic views and back alleys, and focus on the churches. 

The first was the cathedral of SanRuffino, the patron saint of Assisi.  This is where Francis and Clare were baptized, grew up, ha their first Holy Communion and Confirmation, where Francis share with the bishop his developing sense of call and what that might mean for his life as a wealthy merchant’s son, in other words, it was the church that formed them 

Sara Chiara is the pilgrimage church, and location of the tomb of St. Clare.  A super important point here is that it is the location of the original San Damiano crucifix, the one that spoke to Francis and told him to restore the church.   In his humility, Francis assumed that Jesus was talking about the physical church, breaking down, where the crucifix was locate.  And he repaired that church!  It was a wonderful to see that crucifix, and to wait in line to get into the church for it.

Thirdly walking downhill (an ultimately back uphill) to San Damiano, the church that Francis restored, and Clare and her followers stayed in.   The church is tiny, maybe a third of the size of either of my St. Peter’s churches, but it goes to show that it is not the building, or the size of the congregation, it is the people who really make the church.  And these communities rocked the world.    

I will have lots of photos when I get home. 

Lastly, I’d seen signs for a restaurant claiming a vegetarian menu: once back at Sana Chiara (to finish he Rick Steves walk) I saw the sign again an decided to have a heavy lunch there.   This was partly because I had not had eggs and the menu touted scramble eggs with ruffles 

So this was just an amazing lunch, all vegetarian.   First course, handmade pasta with Umbrian pesto, second course the aforementioned eggs plus pancetta salad, dessert pans cotta with blueberries, water, wine, an espresso to top the meal (we will see if it interferes with my sleep tonight).  And bread, which I only ate 2 slices of.   It was amazingly delicious.   If you ever go to Assisi, especiallly if you are a vegetarian (they do have meat options) ping me and I’ll give you the info- I took a card so that I woul have it.   

Now it is almost 2:30 and I’mplanning to finish the Rick Steves tour, head down the hill, visit the Basilica of SanFrancisco again, maybe stay for Vespers.

Assisi

I arrived mid afternoon in Assisi.  I am staying in a convent, the St. Anthony Guest House.   It is basic, but it has everything one needs.   And the heat is sort of breaking with lows in the 60s expected the next couple of nights. 

I walked down to the Basilica of St. Francis, and I attended a mass at 6 PM for pilgrims.   It was a Catholic mass, so I was of course a little bit out of the mainstream, and it was in Italian so I understood very little except the basic structure, but it was praying together with other people, so it was great.   And it was for pilgrims, and the place was packed.  Of course they are at about 60% capacity (people a meter apart, so half the people in the pews and they have added a bunch of separate seats a bit further out for people who don’t fit.   

I really feel like a pilgrim today.   My time in Rome, focused just on church history stuff, has taught me new ways of understanding what the early and medieval Christians were going through, reading more about Francis’ life helps this Protestant see how he was trying to change what was wrong in the church in his time, and more of what his life meant, as well as some of what it was to be a Christian in this day.   

I’ll admit that I really feel that this sabbatical IS doing exactly what we talked about it doing, giving me a new kind of view into the things that I already knew, new connections, new context - a context that is experiential and that is kinesthetic, a walking through this time, with prayer and scripture and readings, and lots more. 

Oh, and I have calluses on the bottom of my feet that are bothering me at night.   Not as much during the day.  I think I have a problem when I wear my sandals, so I’m going to stick to the boots when I have a lot of walking to do, like tomorrow. 

Old places and memories

I started the day yesterday at the Catacombs of Domitilla.   These (and the Catacombs of Callistus, which I visited afterwards, are places I have been before,  back in 2004.   From the middle of the second century through the fifth century, Christians buried their loved ones in the tufa, the built up, soft, volcanic ash found in the Rome area.  Catacombs permit no photography so except for maybe sneaking one pic, I don’t have any interior pics.  

These were not secret, and they were not limited to Christians, or to Romans, but they are best known in this context because the Christian context, with it’s emphasis on eternal life and resurrection, meant that these kinds of burials were preferred.   If you are going to be raised on the last day, how much better to do it together with your family, in a family crypt,or with your community, or with the martyrs (Domatilla) or Popes (Callixus) that were with you. (Or St Cecelia, originally buried in Callixus.  More on her below.)

I remember this very vividly from the 2004 trip, because one of my favorite memories from that trip was our communion service in the catacombs, a service that my husband snapped a secret photo of.  Domatilla is the only one of the catacombs that permits this to even Protestant pastors.  It was very, very nice. 

After finishing up with the catecombs, I made my way back to the hostel, took a brief siesta, and then at 3 headed out for Trastevere to visit the churches of St. Cecelia and Santa Maria in Trastevere.  Both of these places have a history that goes back to the time of the catecombs, and both were originally the houses of wealthy members of the community, which were given to the church for people to gather in and worship in.   Since there were intermittent persecutions, and significant persecutions under Diocletian in the mid to late 3rd century, Christians had to stay secret.   

When Cecelia was executed, she was originally interred in the Catacombs of Callixus (Callixus was a deacon of the church who was put in charge of the maintenance and the administration of this particular set of catacombs.   He must have done a good job - because he eventually became a pope!). But when the church of St. Cecelia was actually built she was moved to that church, and her remains are in the altar there.   

There is a beautiful statue in the church of the beheaded Cecelia ( note beheading was the kind of execution you got if you were privileged and lucky ) in the church, and there is a copy of that statue in the catacombs, AND in the copy of the catacombs in Washington DC at the Franciscan monastery.     The story goes that when her coffin was opened (presumably when she was moved) her body was intact, in this position, for a few seconds before turning to dust.  The sculptor, who witnessed this (along with others) then sculpted from her memory.   

You are able to visit the Scavi (archeological area) under the church and walk through the actual house of St. Callista.  I didn’t realize I had been there before, but there is a beautiful little chapel underground that I remembered from 2004.   I will have to go back and look at my photos from that time and remember.  

So I started in the catacombs, visited the underground house churches, then the lovely Medieval churches above today.  On my Facebook page for the Sabbatical, check out the video I did when I visited the place where events made it possible for these early Christians, in the beginning of the forth century, to come up out of their catacombs, and to leave their houses, and build the churches we have today!

Church day part 2!

For the next one I went out to the San Giovanni station, which is where the new C line comes in right now.  Since I came in from the C line three days ago it was somewhere I had been already!   

My target was the church that the station is named after:  St. John Lateran.   This church is the Episcopal seat of the diocese of Rome and the Bishop of Rome is, of course, the pope!!!!  I found myself thinking about the busy-ness of bishops and cannot imagine that pressure on rope of the pressure of being pope!

Obviously this is a pilgrimage church and it is huge; the second largest church in Rome after St. Peter’s.   It’s also where the heads of both Peter and Paul are kept, above the main altar in silver busts of the Saints.  The art here is spectacular and surprisingly restrained for a baroque church.  Across the street on the piazza is one of the Egyptian obelisks, this one with lots of hieroglyphs.

The next church would be the most plain of the churches I was to visit; also just a church, not a basilica: Santa Maria del Popolo, or, “of the people.  The real pull here is a couple of paintings by Caravaggio, which I could not get good photos of because of the time of day and the way they were in the dark with just a little bit of Sunlight.  

There was less art here than many of the other places I’d been,  but a beautiful nativity and a really fascinating sculpture of Jesus really were real standouts.

Finally, back on the B line, one stop for San Pietro in Vincoli, or St. Peter in chains.   This church claims to have the chains that held St. Peter when he was in prison, and it definitely has a Michelangelo statue of Moses.  It has an elaborately frescoes half dome in front, but it looks like the frescoes have come off part of the dome.  This w as a church that looks like they really need help keeping up the art they have.  It is also on a piazza on a steep hill with lots of steps to get up.  I definitely remember this church from our visit in 2004!

So that was my day:  6 churches, 1.5 masses, prayer in every church and more than 10 miles of walking!  

Tomorrow:  the catacombs!

Church Day/Sono pellegrina!

It did not occur to me until this morning that the morning that the Sunday I was to be in Rome was also the feast of the Assumption.  It should have (for years our family vacation schedule revolved around the feast of the Assumption and the Cascade picnic.) but it didn’t.

I knew that I wanted to do some of the churches that were on my itinerary, mostly pilgrimage churches, but I wasn’t sure how many would fit into the day, or if I’d end up in Mass at any of them.   But I mapped eight churches, and decided to check it out 

Church 1. Santa Maria Maggiore.   This church is actually within walking distance of the train station, indeed, it is about as far from the train station on the other side as my hostel is on this side.  So after stopping for a light breakfast, I walked there.   

This church was built in the fifth century and it is a major, papal basilica, and one of the seven pilgrimage churches.   I caught the end of worship here.  The church supposedly has a piece of the Holy crib in it (the manger) and is also the resting place of St. Jerome who translated the Bible into the Latin vulgate (at that time,, the language of the people!).   Ignatius of Loyola celebrated his first mass in this church.   There is also a statue of a priest kneeling in the Nativity chapel, which is amazingly detailed, particularly his tapestry stole and his lace cuffs!

Next, off to St. Paul Outside the Walls (the church where St Paul is buried, also a major papal basilica and a pilgrimage church).  I had indeed scheduled things to be here for the 10 AM mass.  There was a couple of inserts in Italian, but I was able to use Google Translate on my phone to auto-magically translate them, though the scripture I looked up and bookmarks and read along.   I wish there was a way that I could have heard the sermon for the day, but that I could not translate.  The rest either I could translate, or figure out most of.   Mass was long, some 1 hour 20 minutes, and then I took some pictures. 

St. Paul Outside the Walls actually has an Assumption chapel, so I lit a candle there, and then I went out.   On the way out, I happened to notice a cafeteria, which sells wine and beer. It was open, but I chose not to get wine or beer.    Also outside was an amazing sculpture that I had seen at the Vatican, only a smaller version. I was able to get the inspiration and the artist name from this version of it, which was slightly different. For more info on that, check out my slideshows when I get home!!!

My next church, and I have to say the hardest to get to was the church of St. Paul at the three fountains.   The church is at the very end of the Metro line, and alas I did not get any photos on my phone of this one - though I have many on my camera.  You take the B metro all the way to Laurentina, and then walk.  The walk is probably about a kilometer, or .6 miles.  Possibly a little longer. 

It’s confusing because Tre Fontane is the name of a LOT of stuff, and a lot of churches around here, but this is actually the grounds of a Trappist Monastery, which in addition to maintaining this holy site, sells and makes Trappist goods to support themselves.  They have a cafe, but their sales stuff was closed this weekend, though the churches were not.

This is the location of where St. Paul was executed.  Because he was a Roman citizen, Paul could not be crucified as Peter and Jesus were, so he got to be decapitated.   The legend says that when Paul was decapitated, his head bounced three times, and at each place, a spring of water came out of the ground.    You can see this in the art in one of the churches. 

First, at the Metro, there is a sculpture of three heads.  It’s fairly modern and pretty interesting.   

There are two churches.   The first one is a small chapel where clearly the monks do their daily offices (this was enforced by the timing of the offices listed in the tiny Narthex.  This church was small, similar to my churches.    

In the bottom of this church is a rough cell where supposedly Paul was held before his execution.   People leave little slips of paper in the cell with their prayers on them.   

Leaving that little church, you walk up a little path.   This is the path that Paul walked to his execution, and part of the path still has the original stones, and is roped off.   

The second church has a Roman-style mosaic floor, altars with reliefs of Paul’s head on them, where the head supposedly bounced, with the spring underneath.  There is also an ancient column here, which was what Paul was executed against.  Some of the imagery in that chapel was a little grisly for my taste, but the surroundings were so beautiful and peaceful that this was my favorite spiritual site so far. 

At this point I went back to the Train station and for a switch from the B line of the Rome metro to the A line (Mostly) for the next few churches.  I’ll follow this post up with Church Day part 2!!!!

The Vatican

 The first time I visited Rome, in 2004, I think, I was so excited to go to the Vatican museums.   There is so much truly amazing art that I really wanted to see!   I was particularly interested in Raphael, who I had just read a book about and was really psyched to see his work, maybe even more than Michaelangelo.  

Well our tour was speedy and relatively brief. To be honest I had no idea that the museums there were so vast, or that we had relatively limited time.   I grudgingly accepted that I was not going to see the things I wanted to see, and as we headed at a fast clip for an overcrowded Sistine Chapel that we had 15 minutes for, I promised myself, that I would be back. 

Today, I was back.  And I planned only the Vatican for this day.   For my Protestant friends and family who may be more critical about the place that the Vatican has in the world, and that the Catholic Church has in the world, let us be reminded that this church has been the way to God for so many people over time, that indeed our churches grew out of it, and there was only one Church for the 12 centuries between the real unity of the Catholic Church after Constantine and the reformation in the 16th century.   

The art in the museums is amazing.  The Christian art, which comes from all ages of the church from the ancient to the modern, reminds us that for most of history, the common person could not read, and the task of the artists was to bring that common person to God, which they do in a way that still resonates with us today.  In addition, through a number of special collections, the Vatican includes cultures, including non-Christian cultures, from around the world in the wealth of beauty that they showcase and care for.    I am grateful for the art that the Catholic Church has maintained over the ages, and I was glad to spend some time here. 

Some of it (Laacoon, the Belvedere torso) I remembered from my first visit, and I was glad to see these old friends.  It was fabulous to linger over the hall of tapestries, find Naples and my ancestral town of Solofra in the map room, and to really linger in the Rafael rooms, which had been skipped on my first trip through.  The School of Athens was just amazing.   I also have to say, going through the Borgia apartments, that had I been Pope Julius, I think I would have found these rooms just fine, and might not have insisted on a redecorate of the other set of rooms.  But then we would not have had these amazing artworks in the Raphael rooms.   

I spent a good half hour in the Sistine chapel, until I had heard the audio guide and indeed had really drunk in everything.  By the time I was finished, I then made my leisurely way out checking out the contemporary exhibition and some of the exhibits, newly refreshed, from the South Pacific.

I’d spent three and a half hours here, and it was almost time for lunch.   I’d gone ahead and arranged for a full menu lunch (it will be my big meal of the day) in the pine court, reasoning that if I had not had my fill of the Vatican Museums, I could duck back in.   I could have, but I was getting a tad tired, and I still had St. Peter’s to visit!

I’ll spare you a blow by blow on St. Peter’s, except to say that it is mostly BIG, with a bunch of amazing art, including Michelangelo’s Pieta, which was a favorite of my mother’s, and Raphael’s Transfiguration, which is one of mine.  There is also a moving statue of Juliana Falconieri, a Florentine saint for whom I am named.   And it gave me a chance to pray. 

By the time I was done with everything, it was after 3 and I was tired!   So I headed right back to my hostel for a nap and a shower, and now, at almost 7, I’m headed out for a little bit of pizza for a light dinner.  

Old old old Christianity

I 

Yesterday, after checking in, I went to visit the Pantheon.  Today I visited San Clemente, the Mamartine Prison, and Constantine’s arch.  It has me meditating on the very early church.

San Clemente brings this out most clearly.   There are three levels:  the 12th century church, just beautiful, then you go down to the Scavi (archeological dig) level below the church where you find the basilica of the third century and its frescoes .   Then you continue one more level to a first century Roman street and Mithraium (temple to Mithras, a Persian God).  This area included a house, a large house.   It may be that this house is the first century church.  For the first three centuries, Christian churches would have been house churches, because they were persecuted and hence had to hide. So the community, the ekklesia in Greek, would gather in larger houses, or in the Catacombs that I hope to visit on Monday.  They would meet away from the Roman authority or eye.

It makes sense that when Constantine legalized Christianity after the battle of the Milvan Bridge, that the people would build their church where they had already been worshiping, filling in that area and building on top of it.  

I sometimes wonder if becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire was the best thing for Christianity.  Yes it ended the oppression and the persecution which had been an ongoing tragedy for the new religion.   But it also conferred a privileged status to this religion and enforced it across the Empire.  Christianity became and remained, until the 16th century, the ONLY spiritual choice.  Despite corruption I the church, despite church politics.

It is no surprise that there were indeed reformers in the 16th century and before.

The church was pulled back to its roots in the Gospel again and again.   The church was divided at times between the self-interested and the common, illiterate and uneducated people.  The Medici popes, for example!  There was much sun in the name of God.   But for many the message got through!

Planning Rome

My time here in quarantine is coming to an end.   It’s been boring, but not as bad as Scotland.   This apartment, while nice, and with rest coffee (Moka pots) is nonetheless quite small and basic, and has no place for me to walk, so I’ve been very sedentary.   I’ve continued cross stitching bookmarks, listened to NPR (Morning Edition comes on about 11 AM) and talked with family on the phone and on WhatsApp a bit. 

I’ve also planned a bit what I plan to do in Rome.   Here are my plans:

Thursday:   Leave here just ahead of noon (after Covid test) and head to Alessandro hostel, to drop my big bag, then visit a couple of churches (San Ignacio, Santa Maria in Travastere, St. Cecelia are likely). Evening, do Rick’s Heart of Rome Walk.

Friday:  Early morning visit Ostia Antica.  On return St. Paul Outside the Walls.  Possibly one or more other church if time permits. 

Saturday:  Entire day devoted to the Vatican.  9:00 AM ticket for Vatican Museums, Lunch pre-booked, St. Peter’s Basilica, if possible stay for Saturday evening Mass in St. Peter’s.

Sunday:  Churches.   Some of the ones on my list, are:

• The Pantheon
• The Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains)
• Basilica di San Clemente 
• Basilica diSanta Maria del Poplo
• Chisea di Santa Maria in Aracoli (?) 
• Basilica di San Marco the Evangelist
• Chisea di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola

In addition to St. Paul outside the Walls, Santa Maria in Travastere and St. Cecelia, which were mentioned earlier.  

Monday:  Morning Appian Way and Catacombs, Afternoon Milvan Bridge and Constantine Arch.

Tuesday: TBD, but likely will include the Mamartine Prison, where both Peter and Paul were imprisoned.  

I am looking forward to the tourism, though temps are predicted to be around 100 or so most of these days.   I will carry a lot of water and take it very easy, especially in the middle of the day.  

Laundry Day

Laundry on the road is always a fun challenge for me.   I love figuring out how to wash, how to dry, where to put the detergent, and all that.

Giuseppe, the owner of the little “casa” I am staying in, has a washing machine on the porch, and this line and drying rack, and I have been spending the day getting pretty much all my clothes clean (If you are wondering what I am wearing, the answer is my bathing suit).   I did use Google translate, which does a amazing job on signs, on the washing machine, but the cycle is very long (like 2hours.). 

This is a far cry from doing my laundry in my brother’s washer and dryer.  But it is clean, and tomorrow I will be able to wear clean clothes that are not my bathing suit, and tomorrow night I will be able to sleep in pajamas again (which is the LuLaRoe outfit - chosen specifically for flexibility.)

I am still working through changing plans - the Vatican tickets are particularly complicated.  But I have a couple more days to do this.   

P.S.  I washed 7 masks as well:

Some short observations

• I now understand why it is so important that your medications are in your carryon.   I have a bunch of them, and they are in big bottles due to the choice of my online pharmacy and the fact that they say to make sure you have the original bottles.  But I have them. 
• When you are in quarantine you cannot go out and buy a new shirt or toothbrush.  Or soap or shampoo.  My teeth feel fuzzy.  And I don’t like the way I smell.   I will shower today using the hand soap in the bathroom, but I will have to put on the same clothes I had on three days ago when I left Iona (although I had layered two shirts, and the long sleeved shirt is going on despite the temps here!)
• I am deeply thankful that years ago, my daughter Catherine taught me how to use a moka pot.   Thanks to grocery delivery, I have coffee this morning. 
• I have a jacket, a sweater, and a fleece vest.  This is definitely overkill in a city where temps are supposed to hit 102 on Thursday. 
• I also packed my cords and chargers in my carryon. Less because I thought about it, and more because I wanted to charge till the very last minute.    It was a good idea.  It’s why I can connect during this very lonely time, with friends and family (hello, pinochle!) Elsewhere.

No, my luggage did not arrive yesterday. I am praying that it will today.   In the meantime, I’m going to go take that shower with the hand soap, and put on the long sleeved shirt.  

P.S.  do you remember that scene in “The Little Mermaid” where she combs her hair with a fork?   Today I am grateful for that idea.   

The bright side of yesterday

So if you read my blog yesterday, you know that it was not the best day of my life.   Pretty much everything that could go wrong did, from documentation being missing, to flight delayed and baggage lost. 

I use a spiritual practice called the “Examen.”  It’s a practice that goes back to Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuits, and, put simply, at the end of each day I ask myself, what has been my greatest consolation today, and what has been my greatest desolation.   Or, put another way, what has brought me closer to God’s Love, and what has pushed me further from it (or in the direction of needing it and leaning on it just to stay going.).   I even do this with Audrey, when I tuck her in at night, when I am sitting with her.  I ask what is the best thing in the day and the worst.

Yesterday was a real desolation kind of day. The worst part was missing precious time with my brother, Patrick, whom I don’t get to see very often, because he lives in Germany.   That crushed me!   

But there was a consolation at the end.   It was meeting and finding Giuseppe.   Giuseppe owns La Casa di Peppe, the little house pictured above, in a back courtyard off a residential street in Rome, about 2 km from the city center.   Not a fabulous location, but a basic, relatively cheap self-catering apartment.  And Giuseppe has been overwhelmingly gracious and helpful.   He met me, at 1:30 in the morning, when I got here, he texted me all the the while I was going through things to let me know know it would all work out and the Casa was ready for me.   

This morning I discovered that he had tea bags in the apartment!   Since my instant coffee is in the luggage that was lost, I was looking forward to a caffeine headache this morning, but instead I got tea.   

Not everything in yesterday was bad.  The woman who helped me find the locator form for Germany was also very nice and helpful.   

The people around me were my consolation yesterday, and the people online who commiserate with me, prayed for me and just loved me.   Even the guy who took my lost luggage report.  

One more bright spot.   I had eaten almost nothing.  A muffin and coffee in the morning, a half a sandwich at noontime (but my guts were so worked up, I could barely stand it so I stopped) and an orange.   Knowing it could be a couple of days before I was able to get a food delivery, I was resigned to some fasting, when the flight attendant on my flight to Rome brought me a very delicious sandwich, on brown bread, with a curry mayo, carrots and shredded zucchini.   I had no idea I would get a snack, and being finally on the final plane, I ha managed to relax and actually feel that I was hungry!!!!   It seemed like an amazing treat. 

Stressful travel, much?

I cried in public in an airport this morning.   Some folks will wonder exactly what went down, especially my family, and my brother who I was not supposed to visit. 

So Germany wanted a Personal Locater form.  This requirement is not actually spelled out on any of their travel sites, anywhere, and may just apply if you are coming from the UK (Note to fellow travelers, check requirements for your home country AND where you have been the last 14 days.  That said, I did, and kept getting stuff that said that that was true UNLESS you had a vaccination card. 

Nope, I needed one.   It took me 45 minutes to find it and fill it out (that last part was not actually that difficult, as I had all the info I needed.  By that time I had missed my flight.   The next one Ryan Air could put me on was on Tuesday.

I was leaving Hamburg for Rome on Wednesday.  That along with a new requirement in Italy for quarantine if you have been in the UK, meant there was no way in the world I could make it to Hamburg.  This was when I cried.  By the way, I was not alone.   At least 15 other people while I was there were doing the same thing I was, and someone actually gave me the link; I would NEVER have found it on my own.  It wasn’t on RyanAir’s pages, and the German travel pages say that it doesn’t apply if you have vaccines, but it actually does, at least traveling from Edinburgh.

So I booked new tickets to Rome.  And proceeded to work on fulfilling all the requirements for Rome.   I needed an address, so I booked an apartment.  As I was working on that, the apartment canceled on me, telling me that they had no availability until August 24 (despite it coming up on the booking.com website.  And they charged me a 40 pound cancellation fee.  

I booked another apartment in Rome.   I sent a customer service request to Booking.com (which, by the way, they handled very quickly, beginning the process of a refund of the 40 pound fee right away!)

I got a Covid test, since it is required for Italy.   I filled out the locater form (which requires the Covid test AND the address where I will be quarantining (5 days this time, not 10, at least.) )

I cannot tell you the stress with which I approached the check in desk for my first Air France flight.   I can’t remember being so tied up in knots.   Or the sense of relief when she printed off my boarding passes and said, “You’re good to go!” 

This is not, by far, the worst day of my life.   I WILL see my brother just not for as long, and not at the same time I planned.  And now I know where the German locator form is (https://www.einreiseanmeldung.de/#/)

And I get to spend 5 days releasing all this stress in an apartment in Rome. Don’t yet know how I will do food, though.  

Goodbye to Iona, a long day of travel, and the most unusual accommodation of the trip.

Last night, as pictured above, we had a Ceilidh Communion service, which is one that, like a Ceilidh, invites the telling of stories and the sharing of song.   Around a single table we hear stories of the week, stories from scripture, and the story of Jesus feeding us all.   We shared a loaf of Abbey bread (and, by the way, I got the recipe) although people brought our piece to us, and placed it in our hands with gloved hands and masked faces.  At the end of the service, everybody went outside and stood in the deepening twilight for a few minutes before heading to bed.   Because the night service at the Abbey is at 9 PM, when we are done we are ready for bed, especially when we need to be packed and ready for breakfast at 7:30 in the morning. 

LIkewise with the morning service.  After wishing each other well in our travel, or in our preparation for the next group of residents during our morning prayer, we all exited, with our hand luggage, from the main entrance of the church, and continued on, all of us, to the ferry dock. We said our goodbyes to the program team and the team of volunteers and staff who fed us, prepared for us, helped us worship, and enabled our time in community (and whom we occasionally worked beside.). The we piled on the ferry and as the ferry left the staff, volunteers, musicians, everyone, waved and did waves, bowed and basically with incredible enthusiasm, sent us on our way.

The ferry left at 8:50 AM, actually it left 20 minutes late, which meant that the train from Oban that most of us wanted to take, left without us, which is resulting in a very long - very long - travel day.   Ferry from Oban to Fionnphort only about 15 minutes.  Bus, Fionnphort to Craignature - 1 hour 45 minutes.   Ferry from Craignature (on the Isle of Mull) - 45 minutes.   Then a two hour break since I was going to be taking the 2:41 PM train insetead of the 12:15 train (I made this when I got my main meal for the day, since travel will be tight when dinner time comes.). Then ScotRail to Glasgow (3 hours), another train to Haymarket (1 hour) and finally a bus to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Camping area.  

Because, yes, the Fringe Festival is on and the price of hotel rooms is through the roof.  When this accommodation came up on Booking.com, with furnished tents at a quarter the cost of a hotel, within spitting distance of the airport (and Ihave a 7 AM flight), I said Heck Yes!   Particularly since bedding was included.

Except it isn’t.  I got an email on Thursday letting me know that because of Covid, they were not providing sleeping bags and would I please bring my own. 

Oops.

Needless to say this stressed me out a little bit, but thanks to the peace of Iona, I was able to trust that I would work this out.   And during that 2 hour break in Oban, I found an outfitting warehouse store that had a kids sleeping bag on clearance, cheap, and the largest size should be big enough for 5’ 4” me.   

So my brothers’ kids will likely get an extra sleeping bag purple with butterflies, and I will sleep cozy tonight with it, and a pillow of dirty clothes.   

Traveling is always about figuring things out, dealing with the bumps in the road, and making it all happen.    

Now, THIS train is running 10 minutes late, and I have only 25 minutes between trains, so I need to fold up my keyboard, pack my stuff up, and be ready to jump off the train the minute we get to the Glasgow station.  So I can get to the campground before 9.

Pilgrimage

Yesterday was evicted to the Iona pilgrimage, a walk around the island visiting the sights of the early church here.  They included the abandoned nunnery, St. Columba’s bay where Columba first came to Iona, “the hermitage” which is likely something with more agricultural roots, and a number of places on the island of interest. 

I have detailed the walk elsewhere, look at my Facebook page for more photos and more detail on the places involved.  Here I’d like to talk about pilgrimage. What is it to me, why pilgrimage.  Just some thoughts. 

Pilgrimage is travel.  That is to say it involves a place that you do’t know and which you need to accept on its own terms.  Our pilgrimage yesterday was a seven mile journey to landscapes that we don’t know, and to places where we need to attend to the way of the place.  At one point we were told, we are going to go to a place where there are two paths, one looks smooth and grassy.   The other is rocky.   We will take the rocky path, because the smooth one is boggy, and actually more dangerous. 

Pilgrimage is sacred.   It opens the soul and the heart.   We prayed, we heard poetry, and the poetry of the stories of the people who had been there so many years ago.   Columba’s insistence in getting beyond where he could see Ireland.   The mourning of the last three nuns leaving the nunnery.  And the surroundings.  The beautiful blooming heather. 

Lastly, Pilgrimage is church.  It is something that brings you out of yourself and into a community that transcends time.   Even if you do it alone, you walk in the steps of countless others before you, as we do in church as well.   It is timeless, bringing the old and the new together. 

And, to finish, a picture of the heather. 

(There are better ones on my camera.)

Transforming the spaces in between

When I signed up for this “Braving the Elements” retreat, in 2019, I thought I’d get some good education about new ways to worship from the Wild Goose Worship Group.   Originally, Graham Maule was going to lead it, and I was fascinated to meet him.   First he sadly passed away, and the retreat was delayed a year, and even though this is essentially the same retreat, it is very different from how I expected, and I expect a little different from what they originally imagined. 

It is, for me, experiential, not educational.  But that is good, because it is transformative.  It is changing my heart and my soul, not the collection of things in my head.  Don’t get me wrong, I am getting some very useful ideas for worship, none of which are going to be something anyone is used to.   But what is happening inside myself, is what is most interesting. 

In these liminal times between Covid and whatever succeeds Covid, we have looked at liminality an we have looked at spaces in between.   Yesterday we used art and worship to explore what lies between.   We started off with drum circles.   Yes, I do drum circles all the time, particularly with young people.  But I was able to sit back, to listen, not lead, to let myself be part of (and, most importantly, at times to NOT be part of) the rhythm, the conversation, the voice.   We were reminded that as much as striking the drum or other instrument makes the rhythm, the spaces between make the rhythm even more.   

We went on to art, and we drew abstract pictures, very large, pastel on paper, that represented our day so far, and then we did one that reflected one of our services.  I chose Sunday’s communion service, because communion is always so meaningful for me, and so important.  We drew our lines, and we looked at the spaces and we filled in the spaces in some cases to highlight them.   Where are the spaces in worship, that make our acts stand out?  Are we constantly trying to fill them?   This part of the day reminded me a lot of seminary, especially the work of Dr. Michael Willette Newheart, who required a creative response to pretty much everything he taught.   He was academically rigorous, but also tapped into something spiritual deep inside me.   I am forever grateful for both what I learned and the parts of me that are more creative that he helped me unlock.

Then we had the afternoon mostly off, and I spent part of it napping.  ILOVE an afternoon nap, and used to just hunker down on the loveseat in my office to take one a couple days a week.  Lately I have not and it is a luxury I have allowed myself this week a couple of times.   I also spent a good part of the afternoon journaling, as I was behind in keeping my journal.   

In the evening we had another beautiful, amazing session.  Indeed, this was the most transformative session by far.  We met outside, at the St. Martin’s cross, which is the original cross sitting outside the Abbey.   We were invite to experience the spaces of the Abbey, and we started out singing a simple chant:

Come, Holy Spirit

Come, Holy Spirit

Maranatha!

Come, Spirit, come.

We were invited, via gestures, to follow the leaders of the retreat into the Abbey. The sun, which is going down toward setting, was streaming through the west Abbey windows above the door we were entering via, and flooding the sanctuary with the light of evening.   It was so beautiful. We were invited, by gestures, into sitting in seats, into turning those seats to face one another, to greeting one another with gestures (we used the British Sign Language sign for “Peace be with You.”).  Then we were led into the choir, again invited to sit, and a very short poetic reading was read, which we responded to with our song:

Come, Holy Spirit

Come, Holy Spirit

Maranatha!

Come, Spirit, come

From here we were invited into the chancel where there were a number of ropes, and in gestures, led to pick up these ropes, and use them to connect ourselves.  We accepted ropes, offered ropes, creating a great web that included every one of us in ever-changing web of connection.   Some knelt, some just held on to a few ropes, but everyone was involved in their own way.   The next morning the reading would be from 1 Corinthians 12, and these connections kind of previewed that verbal story of the body of Christ that is in that powerful section of the book.   

Eventually we were invited to drop the ropes and our leader started a new song, one that I already knew. 

Come with me, for the journey is long

Come with me, for the journey is long

The journey, the journey, the journey is long

The journey, the journey, the journey is long.

Then walk with me, then sing with me, then dance with me, and dancing we exited the church and went to sit together in the chapter house, and debrief.

After we debriefed, we were invited to spend time in the sanctuary and explore it, without rules (although without touching things).   Already from the earlier experience Ihad found myself noticing things, but now I noticed more, the air of age, and some things that were cracked or worn or even broken, the ferns growing in some places in the walls, the steps up to the musician’s loft, the detail of the four stained glass windows, St. Columba, St. Brigid, St. Patrick (remember it was the Irish that brought Christianity to Scotland) and one other saint who remains a mystery.  Hopefully I will find out who that saint is - over on one side by themselves, and seeming fairly androgynous (if I had to say I’d say it was a woman, but I am not sure.)

We eventually brought that to a close (so they could prepare for the evening service for justice and peace) but I felt changed.  During the evening prayer I was thinking about the spaces in between, I was thinking about the space i my room in the evening, even this morning, as light streamed through all the windows during morning prayer, I was still drinking in the space between us.   

Iona and Abbey Life

The holy isle of Iona, where St. Columba first brought Christianity to Scotland (he would, if you remember from previous blog and FB Live posts go on to preach to the Picts and convert their king in Inverness, but he came here and founded the monastic community first) is reputed to be one of the “thin places,” where only a veil separates the world from eternity.   

Here some of the places and the rhythms feel the long time that they have been part of this place; things like the stone of the cloister or the church, the rhythm of communal meals and efforts, and of prayer in the morning together, prayer in the evening, the sound of chant bouncing off the abbey walls, the glow of firelight and the many candles burning while we pray.  

Other things are very much up to date, revised services with inclusive language, the rainbow flag with black and brown and trans colors on it laying on the table beneath the other symbols of justice that have been shared.   

We will have, starting in just a few minutes, plenary sessions addressing some of the most current thinking on worship, and exploring some of the most recent materials available for worship.   We also, this morning, celebrated a meal that goes back and joins us with Christians from almost 2000 years ago. 

There is both a feeling of a cutting edge contemporary-ness and a feeling of an ancient place that has long been blessed.   In all, there is an understanding that new or old, tradition or change, it is here for the glory of God and to extend the work of our God on this earth.  This is what surrounds me this week and blesses me every day.  Amen.