Iona Memories, Message for CCC

This is the reflection I brought home to my church after my time on Iona. It was given on Sunday August 10th, 2025

Good morning and a very warm welcome to Community Congregational Church of Tiburon. My name is Lisa and my pronouns are she her. I am the co-moderator of this congregation and I’ve just returned home from a pilgrimage to the Isle of Iona, a small island in Scotland.

I lived and volunteered there from April 28th to July 28th. Now I’m home and trying to share that expansive experience with all those in my world here. There is a lot to shift through, not to mention a lot of laundry to do. It is going to take a long time for all of it to sink in and become a part of me. But there are pieces I can share with you immediately. I could go on all morning but I’m going to try and compact the good stuff for you. Here we go.

On the screen you are seeing a smattering of photos of my three months on Iona, from the sublime to the mundane.

Where is Iona and what was I doing there? Iona is a small island, off and an island, off an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. It is where St Columba landed in 563 and established a monastery. It has been a working abbey for well over a thousand years.

Today it is home to the Iona Community. Every week from March through November the community welcomes paid guests, not to a retreat but to live in community with the staff and volunteers.

This means while guests do enjoy hours of programs and sessions with leaders on a weekly theme; they also are expected to help with all the things that keep the community running. Like chopping vegetables for meals, cleaning bathrooms, folding laundry, reading at services, pulling weeds, and many other tasks that need doing.

The staff are the paid people who live on the island fulltime and work for the Iona community. They are the ones who supervise the volunteers. The volunteers, or volleys as we are known, are on the island for anywhere from one week to four months. In exchange for our service, we are given room and board.

Each volley is assigned full time to one of several departments: housekeeping, shop, sacristy, maintenance or kitchen. I signed on to work in the kitchen.

The Abbey serves a vegetarian faire and one meal a week we have meat that is locally sourced and sustainably produced. There was always a vegetarian option though. The guests help chop vegetables for half an hour a day but I was there eight hours a day preparing meals and all that entails.

What exactly was that like? The kitchen itself was not very large, but the things in it were very large for this home cook. Getting used to the volume of what we did took a little time. One of the first things I made was orange cake. The first step of the recipe said: wash and zest 12 oranges! Ooof. I was making three very large orange cakes to feed 70 people.

I got to the point where, separating 36 eggs for pavlova or peeling 48 eggs for egg mayo or hard boiling 100 eggs for shri lankin stir fry was a normal thing to do. It was also normal to make a gallon or two of hummus, to grate 7 pounds of cheddar cheese, and to chop a couple dozen sweet potatoes.

In fact, it made me feel a little badass to be able to do these things. I knew what I was doing. And I didn’t need a lot of instruction. Let’s get on with it. We have 70 people to feed tonight.

Four deliveries came every week. One on Tuesdays and three on Fridays. Picture if you can 15 dozen eggs, or a dozen boxes of button mushrooms. How ‘bout bags of carrots weighing 10 kilograms each. Huge sacks of porridge oats, sugar, chickpeas and lentils. All of it had to be hauled in, sent up in the dumbwaiter, organized, and put into the walk-in fridge.

And then over the course of the week it all had to be chopped, sautéed, mixed, and made into meals. Then we would start all over again and again and again.

All this cooking created a mountain of dishes to clean. When we weren’t measuring, mixing or baking we were washing, scrubbing, and putting things aways. Usually so we could just pull things out again to make something else.

Again, I felt confident, I knew where things were stored, how to take care of tools, and what needed doing.

Yes, I’ll go empty the compost.

Sure, I can take the bread up to the shop.

I can make the porridge for tomorrow morning

I didn’t know all this overnight or even in one week. But over time I was shown what to do by the others in the kitchen and community.

Our leader was Anja who runs the kitchen and has been doing so for over 20 years. She has a great style very easy-going even as she expects high quality.

Of course I made mistakes. And Anja was able to fix them somehow. Nothing was hidden from her because there would be no reprimand. No one was afraid to say they’d made a mistake. We came clean so we could get the food out.

When something did go wrong and was not going to be quite as delicious as it could be Anja let it go. The cake was not as fluffy as it should be. The meat was not browned properly.

We all learned to do it right the next time. No shame, no blame. A very friendly place to work, standards were high but help was always available.

Cooking is a lot of work but doing it with a crew you enjoy makes it all easier. We teased each other and laughed a lot.

Kitchen was not an island to itself; housekeeping helped us get the meals out. They were the ones to set the table, made sure there were serving spoons and condiments. They also chaired the meal by reading the guests the menu, saying grace, making any announcements, and after the meal clearing and washing up.

We were in the kitchen putting away the leftovers and washing the big pots and pans. It was kinda fun actually. We’d blast show tunes or music of choice and all the work would get done with an air of camaraderie. Community really is a good way to live.

Kitchen work is very physical. I thought I was prepared. And I was, sort of. However, in my first week I fell and twisted my right ankle. It was very painful. I iced it and reported for duty the next day.

It took weeks before it was not stiff every morning. Just as my right ankle was better my left heel became super painful. I had been standing on hard surfaces for so long and walking so much that I developed plantar facilits. It made life rather miserable but it wasn’t enough to stop me from working.

What it did was curtail my wanderings. I no longer could walk to the end of the island and watch the sunset. I no longer could join a friend when they took off to find the marble quarry. I had to say no to dancing at the ceiliah. It was disappointing.

I worried that I might have caused permanent damage. Now that I am home and an average day of walking is no longer over 15,000 steps I feel my feet healing. All is well.

Working in the kitchen was my job. But there were many other hours in the week and lots of other good things to discover and enjoy on Iona.

One of the first joys I found on the island was massage. Even on an island, off an island, off an island there was a place to get a massage, In Balance Iona. One of the volunteers was singing the praises of Sandra the masseur. And they told us: Volleys get a discount!

Yes, please sign me up. I decided to check it out. My aching back thanked me so much I ended up having a weekly massage. What a necessary luxury.

And what a different experience from going to a spa here in the States. It was one small room, one very capable woman, and one restored body. Sandra and I hit it off and we even went out for tea one afternoon. That would never happen here.

I was seeing that community extended to all parts of the island. Sandra the masseur knew me, so did Hilary, the lady at the post office, Joyce, the woman minding the craft shop, the people working at the front gate of the abbey, and the people at the St Columba hotel. In a place so small, if you let yourself, you become a part of the fabric of life. And I dove in completely.

I am usually not good with names but I remembered them all with ease. I think it was a Spirit thing. Calling someone by name is so important. I knew the people I worked with, the people on the island where I lived. And I even remembered the weekly choppers and guests who visited the island. It was a surprise to me that felt very good.

Another surprise was that volunteers were encouraged to run services.

One rhythms of life at the Abbey that I came to love was twice daily worship. 9 AM and 9 PM every day except Friday evenings. With so many services to produce they needed volunteers to step up and lead things.

The morning services were completely scripted and you only had to write two short prayers, and even that was optional as there were many prewritten prayers to choose from.

The evening services however were left to the leader to create. You had to design the service, from picking the music and readings to writing a reflection on the given topic. There was a lot of lea way to be very creative. Sometimes it reminded me of CCC with music that was modern and readings that were poems or excerpts from articles.

Of course, there was a regular schedule to the services in the Abbey. Mondays were Peace and Justice services. Tuesday was a Prayer and Healing time. Wednesdays were for Creation. And Thursdays were Commitment services.

I heard lots of reflections of the big problems we are facing: genocide in Gaza, climate disasters the world over, immigration issues, ecology needs, human rights offenses. These are the concerns of the Iona Community.

I wasn’t sure I had a place in all this. However, I found every voice is needed. I offered my small take on these big things. My voice was welcomed, even appreciated. Every point of view was listened to and considered.

These services were a highlight of my time on Iona. Twice daily worship gave me so much. Sometimes I was enthralled by the music and the acoustics of the abbey. Sometimes I was convicted by the messages I heard, needing to change my ways. Other times I jotted down insights I wanted to ponder further. Somedays it was just nice to side down in the middle of my shift in the kitchen.

Once in a while I was merely reminded to see each person in my day (and life) as a child of God doing their best to love the world as I was. A reminder I still try to find daily. The services always gave me something of a holy break in the day.

Worship and kitchen were the biggest pieces of my time on Iona. Yet the island had even more to offer.

I took time to have sticky buns at the Rookery café.

I went on an off island overnight to Tobermory.

I hiked out to St Columba Bay twice. And brought home my share of stones.

I sang acapella every Wednesday afternoon in St Oran’s chapel with Kelly Ann and Jerry; singing for peace.

I sat on benches and watched the water.

I laughed at the lambs having zoomies in the twilight.

I bought cards and more cards. And mailed letters home to family.

I indulged in two sweater purchases.

I took many, many photos of different patterns and places I wanted to remember and use in my artwork.

I drew in the Abbey library. I thought about the monks who had created the Book of Kells on that very island.

I went to the pub on Thursday evenings after service and before last call at 11.

There the volleys played card games, word games, silly games. While they drank beer I sipped nonalcoholic pear cider.

I made deep friendships with people I will stay connected to.

My three months on Iona was full and complete. I ready was to come home and to rest.

Living in community on Iona gave me time to think of the communities I am a part of here at home and how community means working together.

CCC is my spiritual home and I love this place. It’s why I serve as co-moderator even if there are times it’s hard to deal with all the details that keep a community running and healthy. The benefits do outweigh the difficulties.

I get excited when I think about the directions we could head. We might not see a clear path at the moment. But I hope we are working toward being a place that truly reflects the radical welcome and the inclusive hospitality I think God wants us to offer.

I also think we are working our way through the grief of change. We are aging and we are tired. It’s hard to think of more work to be done.

We don’t have to be sad about this. We can love each other and our wider community even as we grapple with changes here in our CCC community.

It is hard to get a whole group of people moving in the same direction. We aren’t even agreed on the direction we’d like to go.

I learned from my time on Iona that change is the only constant. CCC is changing and growing in small and big ways. It is my sincere hope that we pull together in a direction of our choosing and we love the journey not just the destination.

We are good at community; we have been for decades.

May we model the future rather than lament the past. May we find our way forward with love and generosity of heart for each other and the place where we’ve been planted.