The Journey to the Isle of Iona, Part 2

 

Last August, I went on a pilgrimage of seven days on the Isle of Iona. This was a rare privilage for me. When I attended the Five Day Academies for Spiritual Formation i n  Florida, I heard some of the attendees talk about Iona as the pinnacle of their spiritual lives. I said, "Some day I will visit Iona. 

My first visit was in October of 2024, but we were only 3 days on the island. Being with a group was a distraction. Since then I said, "I've got to return,  but this time, alone, and for a longer period." 

I made my decision to go in March of this year. I had my doubts. I'm 78 years old. Can I stand the rigors of travel and hiking all over the island? Can I figure out how to get there, especially the complication to get a visa to enter the UK and pulling together the reservations for four changes of transportation and having them coordinate at just the right time?

I made my plane reservations; got my new passport in three weeks; no problem, and my UK visa in a week. My confidence that I was really going to Iona rose.

But figuring out the reservations for ScotRail from Edinburgh to Oban on the Scottish mainland; then the first ferry crossing to Craignure on the Isle of Mull; then the bus ride across Mull to the Fionnphort ferry landing, and finally landing on Iona, was a challenge. Whew!

But getting to Iona was part of the challenge. 

I scheduled led my flights for two days in Edinburgh before Iona and two days after, a wise decision because my outbound flight from Philadelphia to Edinburgh was delayed for 24 hours. 

How all that happened became a synchronistic experience. Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology  coined the word, which means, "a meaningful coincidence between two or more events that appear to be connected in significance, even though no direct cause-and-effect relationship can be established." 

When I was waiting line to board the plane, I began chatting with a couple as we entered the plane. After finding my seat, I met a young woman sitting across the aisle. She was going to Scotland to meet her Australian boyfriend, who played the bag pipes. The captain announced that there was a minor mechanical problem that we would be on our way in half an hour. Four hours later we deplaned.

It was about 11:00 PM when we disembarked. The young woman took off ahead of me. Then I ran with the friendly couple.

 The staff  dumped us, saying we were to make our own hotel reservations and the airline would reimburse us for the hotel. 

After several calls we realized that all the hotels in the area were booked... except for Travel Lodge with two rooms. As we walked towards the exit, I saw the young woman sitting on a bench looking dejected. I motioned to her to join us. "We have two rooms," I said. We became a foursome. Together we would make it through.

We arrived at a Travel Lodge. It was a dump, but we had no choice. The Mrs. with the young woman in one room and the Mr. and me in the other. At least the sheets were clean.

The next morning at the terminal we were told that our flight was a special one carrying the stranded passengers.

There would be many more synchronistic experiences when I got to Iona. 

It was great to back in Edinburgh. Being out of my country for ten days was like taking an ideological vacation- away from the anger, hate and dictatorial diatribes from the top.

It was refreshing to be surrounded by an old culture- the buildings, the parks, the traditions, and the Scottish accent (much I didn't understand, no matter), and Tennent lager beer.

I stayed at "the Hostel" hostel, right across the Haymarket train station. That too was an adventure. Most of the guests were young adults from all over the world. The beds were three tier bunks. I got the lowest one. I kept hitting my head on the frame.

About 18 people shared a room, men and women. Everyone was cordial and kept their belongings on their beds with no concern of being robbed. There was a communal bathroom and showers with doors with locks. A sitting room brought people together. And communal kitchen. I was given a code to enter the hostel and the room. I felt very safe. 

The next day I ventured out on my self-tour of Edinburgh taking the train from Haymarket to the Waverley station (my street at home is Waverly). Haymaket got its name in the late 18th century because of the buying and selling hay for the animals, and the name stuck.

First I had to figure out how to buy the train tickets. People noticed that I was an American and helped me out getting my tickets. 

From the Waverley station I walked a few blocks to the Royal Mile. It is a mile long stone paved pedestrian street. All along the Royal Mile there are dozens of shops and pubs.  The mile rises towards the Edinburgh Castle, a massive stone structure that protected Edinburgh from invasions. Now it houses a series of military museums.

In October 2024, Trudy and I visited Iona with a group. During our last visit in 2024, our flight home was delayed for a day. Another serendipity, because if we had left earlier, we would have missed the highlight of my visit to Scotland. A friend called telling us about the Waverley bar. It served over 100 varieties of Scottish whiskey. At long table Scots men and women sang old Gaelic songs- woeful ballads of love won and lost. Musicians accompanied the singers, including a small bag pipe that could be played indoors.

The Two Pilgrimages to Iona, Part 3

You go on two pilgrimages to the Isle of Iona: one is spiritual and the other is physical. 

The spiritual journey begins when you walk off the plank of the ferry. You feel a presence that is hard to describe, but it is there.`I'm trying not to be Woo Woo about it, but you feel it. Many others who have been on the island experience the same thing.

What follows in my narrative of my journey, I can't begin to fully describe what I experienced, felt, and saw. One must go to Iona to have their experiences. However, I will try.

The focus of the spiritual journey is the abbey. But there is more. As you walk along the road, you pass about five ruins that used to be a nunnery. It its prime, the nunnery had wealthy residents that provided the resources for an active nunnery. 

You continue on the road, and the abbey comes into view; a cruciform structure wth a square bell tower. You arrive at an ancient cemetery which is alongside of St.Oran's chapel. 

Most of inscriptions on the tombstones are ilegible. The cemetary's residents include medieval Scottish, Norse, and Danish kings. It is said that two of its residents made famous from Shakespeare's MacBeth are the real Kings MacBeth and Duncan I. Shakespeare writes that his character, King Duncan was taken to Colmekill (Iona) to be buried.

St. Oran's chapel is the only structure on the island that has survived, built by the Benedictines at around 1200. Legend says that St Oran was a companion of Columba, who requested that he be buried alive, so that the walls of the chapel would not collapse. 

Finally, you arrive at the abbey. You enter through the main door, and the first thing you see is a four sided courtyard or cloister. This is where the monks would pray as they entered the sanctuary. There is no conference center, no gift shop (that is located along the road). You turn right, then turn left at the corner and you enter the sanctuary through two wooden,double doors. The first thing you see is a massive square batismal font.

You turn left and behold, you see the nave and the chancel with stone arches on eather side. The chancel is divided by a large arch. Then you see at the other end, the altar with a table made from a single block of Iona quarried green marble. When the abbey was restored in the 1930's the stone mason built upon the ruins. If you look carefully, you can see where the old and the new stone merge.

The most important place where I spent alot of time on my spiritual journey was on the choir seat, mid-point in the sanctuiary. The choir consists of a series of wooden chairs, connected in rows, facing each other across the aisle. This arrangment is common in medieval churches and cathedrals to this day. The choir is where the monks sit and chant during worship.

When I first attended the evening prayer in the abbey, members of the Iona community led the service, while the worhippers sat in the choir and in chairs located towards the narthex. Youth read the scriptures. Two women sang the theme song from the TV series, the "Outlander." 

Thats when I experienced my first epipahny. I was surrounded by the Celtic, Christian spirituality. The language of the liturgy and the prayers expressed the love of nature and humankind. The music had a Celtic ring. I was smitten.

For the rest of week, I kept coming back to the abbey. Early before the morning prayers, and before the evening prayers. Most often, I was the only person in the abbey. The abbey never closes. It is a place of silence, prayer, and meditation. It was suffused with Spirit. I inhaled and drank it in. 

Why Are the Poor, Poor?

“While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 4 But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? 5 For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6 But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 7 For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish, but you will not always have me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” Mark 14:3-9

Simon the Leper, a wealthy man invited Jesus to his table. Simon is rich because he could afford to invite his rich friends to eat with him- and only those he knew who were of the same class as him. No woman were present. 

An unknown and an accompanied woman “crashes” the party where Jesus was, carrying an alabaster jar filled with a year’s worth of nard, an ointment.

It was apparent that she bought with all the money she had. She gave everything she had as a devotion to Jesus, as a preparation of Jesus' body for burial.

She was scolded for wasting the nard. Instead she should have sold it and donated the to money to the poor. 

Jesus praised the woman for sacrifice. “For you always have the poor with you, and you can be kind whenever you wish, but you will not always have me.”

Jesus confronts the hypocrisy of the angry men. If they really cared for the poor, they would have many opportunities to show kindness to them, but there will be fewer opportunities to show kindness to Jesus, as this woman has done. Mark places this event in chapter 14, when Jesus’ fate will soon be settled on the Cross, (Mark 15:21). Jesus knew what was about to happen to him. And apparently so did the woman. We don't know her name. "Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her” Mark 14:9.

Jesus teaches that poor people aren’t poor because they have sinned or because they deserve it, or that it is God’s will (John 9:1-3). The poor are often considered poor because they lack mental and physical capacities. Many prosperous people consider themselves "good” because God has blessed them with wealth; and because they have "pulled themselves up by their own boot straps." 

Much of my ministry has been among the poor in Latin America. I know by experience that the poor are struggling to have a roof over their heads, food, health, and an education. They are motivated to do so, but the cards are against them. The economic systems and the powerful “ keep them in their place.” However given the opportunity, they grasp it and move upward. They don’t want charity, they just want to be given the chance to get ahead.

Case in point: the Redlands Christian Migrant Association's Mulberry Community Academy in Mulberry, Florida, educates children of migrant agricultural workers who eventuality acquire the skills to lift up their families to a higher quality of life.

Playing Between the Notes

A letter to Miss Hailey, my English Teacher at Lakeland Senior High School

 Fall, 1995

 I hope that this letter finds you healthy and full of energy. Please do not assume that, just because I’m in college, I punctuate every sentences correctly, and that all my sentences have direction.  Give me a few more years of college to become an eloquent writer.

 UF is fabulous!  I’m learning so much in so little time.  This past summer I was a camp counselor at the Methodist camp in Leesburg and since then, I have done a lot of soul-searching.  College is a wonderful place to get to know yourself better.  It has been a time for me, to set up my own personal schedule.  I have found that I work constantly.  I wake up an hour and a half before my first class to practice.  Then I practice between classes.  I eat only two meals a day and I sleep seven hours a night.  I work on book homework late into the night and then relax for about an hour in front of the TV before I go to sleep.  My body has become extremely efficient because I love all that I am doing.  

 I’m taking English 1101 here at Gainesville.  I was blessed again with a wonderful teacher.  I love a lot of the things about his teaching, but one thing in particular is that he does not limit our expression of words.  For example, if we feel inclined to emphasize a point, we are told to use any word necessary to prove that point, whether it be a cuss word or whatever.  He is a fiction writer, and he has interesting, legitimate opinions on things.  We just finished reading Slaugtherhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, and I loved it.  The aspect of time did not play a role in the book at all.  Everything was relatively told in little sections, so that by the end, the reader would see the whole picture in its entirety.  The structure of the novel was different, and it was interesting to find the repeated words throughout the novel.  At the beginning of the semester, we were asked to write a journal entry and mine was mainly about my soul searching this past summer.  This soul-searching was not particularly linked to religion, politics, or even self.  It was directly linked to my music-making.  At this summer camp, I was unable to practice much, but every night I would play hymn music in chapel for prayer time.  This prayer time for the congregation quickly turned into a devotion time for me.  I had memorized all the hymns that I was playing and put them all in C major so that it would be easy to go from one hymn to the other.  Having them memorized, appeared, oddly enough, like I was playing music inspired by God or something.  This really hit home with me because I felt like this is how all the music that I played should be like.  All the traditional Bach suites, concertos, sonatas, etc., I felt should feel the same way.  

 Let me insert part of my journal entry here because I think I explained it pretty well. I promise not to write much more.

 “…. Here, at camp, I found a sort of peace with my cello playing that I had never experienced before.  When I played in chapel, it was about my own personal prayer and bible devotion.  I felt the spiritual side of music and when I returned to my classical music practice time, I saw the music so much more differently.  I think I finally saw the music apart from the notes.  This is hard for me to explain, but I knew something was totally different.  When I discovered this other side, I quickly picked up my cello and began to play Bach’s 2nd cello suite, something that I had played over and over again, but this time it sounded a little different.  Yes, it sounded a little differently than all the other times that I had played it before, but then suddenly as I was playing it I felt something.  Not something from the outside but something from the inside.  I felt something inside of me that I had never felt before.  As I was playing these notes that I had studied many times, I felt an understanding of not just the notes one by one, but the musical line or lines as a whole.  As I was playing I began to make these lines come together and intertwine with each other to produce something as a one whole unit.  When I finished the prelude, I sat back and let the distant sounds echo in my mind.  As I was experiencing this feeling of completeness, I remembered how it felt to be playing the phrases and experiencing the notes not from diligent practice but from my own interpretation of the music.  I quickly started the Allemande, the next movement, and I experienced the feeling once again.  After playing the whole second suite, I realized that music was not the notes.  Music is the stuff in which is in between the notes.  I was just blown away by this sense of understanding that I immediately wanted to share my discovery with someone else. …”

November 30th, I fly with my mother to Indiana for my audition into the school of music at Indiana University.  I am practicing a lot for my audition because I really need to transfer to Indiana University.  I cannot see myself here at the University of Florida for four years.  

 I am glad that I feel that I can write you and I’ll be sure to come to school to see you some time. 

 Love, 

Corry A. Rankin

“Can I Have some Ice Cream?”

When I was six or seven, Pinson School in Camagüey, Cuba opened a one room school for the American, English speaking students in a house across the street from the campus.  The school hired Mrs. Martha Tucker as the teacher in a multi-grade classroom.  Each grade sat in clusters working on their lessons, while Mrs. Tucker moved about offering encouragement and correction.  At noon, we ate our lunches, while Mrs. Tucker read to us from the great books, such as Robert Lewis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.”  Not too long after that, we could hear the jingle of the ice cream man coming down the street, on his three wheeled tri-cycle with an ice box on the front, with the Guarina brand ice cream on the side.  He had vanilla and chocolate on popsicle sticks, and my favorite, coco glassé, coconut ice cream in a real coconut shell.  I sat right in front of Mrs. Tucker, and I would look her in the eye as she read, and in best sheepish voice, I would whine, “Can I have some ice cream?” She would look up, having been interrupted in her reading, and would stare back at me with her gruff gaze. Than she would smile, as we all filed out of the classroom for an ice cream break.  To this day that is why I love ice cream.

 Years later, Martha Tucker and her husband, Ted, retired in West Palm Beach.  As a young pastor, I visited her several times.  As I was leaving, she always reminded me, “Now remember, Larry, I want you to do my funeral.” “I will, Martha, but you have to give a date, so that I can put it on my schedule.”  We always had a big laugh over that.  My dad, I had the distinct honor to co-celebrate Mrs. Tucker’s homecoming as she wished.

 Before and after the Spanish American War, (the war for Cuban Independence) in 1898, many Americans owned small farms in Cuba.  Small American colonies sprang up.  Two of them were located northwest of Camaguey: Sola and La Gloria.  The farmers needed an English teacher to teach their children, so they hired a young Martha to come from the United States and organize a school.  Not too long after that, she met and married, citrus farmer, Ted Tucker. They raised their children on the farm, until Martha was hired as the teacher for the American students at Pinson School. 

 

In those days, La Gloria and Sola, were large enough to support a Methodist church, which held English language services.  Now a part of the Camagüey district of the Methodist Church in Cuba, the church is still active to this day.  In the ‘50’s the La Gloria church held services in both languages.  Electricity had not arrived in the communities yet, so the night services were lip up with several Coleman lanterns held up by long hooks hanging from the rafters.  I still remember the hissing sound they made as my dad preached, as I lulled myself to sleep on my mother’s lap. 

I Set My Eyes on that Pretty, Tall Girl Across the Room

In the fall of my sophomore year at Emory, Bob Stroud, a Methodist missionary met with me and invited me to take a mission team from the US down to southern Argentina where he and his wife, Betty Lou were pioneering a new ministry in the Patagonia city of Neuquen.  

    That would be a life changing experience for me at several levels. I had experienced a lonely year on campus. I set my sights to meeting the team in June, 1967.  The year went by quickly as anticipation of the meeting built.  I hoped that perhaps these young people would become life long friends, my community.  Perhaps I would meet a special someone. 

    I flew to Miami from Atlanta and arrived at a Miami Beach hotel where the team was gathering for orientation with veteran missionaries, Lloyd and Edith Knox. They were from South Dakota, Texas, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina.  I remember entering the hotel, inquiring as to where they were meeting. 

    I entered a room where the team was getting acquainted. I looked across it. Then I set my eyes on a pretty, tall, brown haired young woman with a gorgeous smile.  Her name was Trudy, and she was with the South Dakota group, from Watertown. I was smitten. I knew right then and there that I would marry her some day. It was June 8, 1967. 

It Was the Most Terrible Year; It Was the Most Hopeful Year

In the year 1968, my 20th year, was the worst year in US policy and politics (except now) that I can ever remember.  It started when the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive in January. Even with the numbers of US troops bloated at a half a million, the US nearly lost Vietnam.  In April, Dr. Martin Luther King is assassinated by a lone assassin with a rifle in Memphis, Tennessee.  King’s death sparks violent and destructive riots in a number of cities across the country, with the exception of Atlanta, King’s hometown.  In June, while running for President, Bobby Kennedy is shot while moving through a hotel in California.

I witnessed the public memorial for Dr. King.  I was a junior at Emory College.  Dr. King was the pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Street in the heart of the Atlanta black community.  His father, retired had been his predecessor.  His mother was the organist and choir leader.  Early on April 9, 1968, my friend and I put on dark suits and walked to Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Street.  This was the private service, so we watched from a knoll across Auburn Street as dignitaries arrived.  Some we recognized.  Harry Belafonte, Hubert Humphrey, US Vice-President, Sammy Davis, Jr., among others. We could hear the organ rumble, and the singing of the congregation.  We knew that there would be a march of the congregation and those waiting outside the church to Morehouse College, Dr. King’s alma mater in the West End.  We walked ahead of the march.  

The streets were deserted.  Racist, Axe handled, backwards cyclist Georgia Governor Lester Maddox refused to allow the lowering of the flag at half staff because he declared that Dr. King was “an enemy of the state.”  He surrounded the state capital with Georgia troopers assuming that there would be riots.  Atlanta did not go up in flames because of the wisdom of the last white mayor of Atlanta, Ivan Allen.  He had the foresight to be available to the formidable black leadership by meeting with them weekly over lunch to discuss issues and concerns of the community.  Allen was respected.  So when news came down from Memphis that Dr. King had been assassinated, some of the young toughs were shouting “burn baby burn.”  There’s a famous picture of Allen in the heart of the black community climbing up on a car and telling anyone who would hear to go home, “l

Let us not dishonor Dr. King’s memory by destroying his hometown.”  Everyone went home.  All was quiet without a national guard presence, and not even the state troopers.  

We walked block after block towards the Westside, with nary a person to be seen. It was peaceful.  We arrived at the quadrangle of Moorehouse college.  A low, brick fence paralleled the length of one side of the quad.  The sky was clear and weather was cool, but not for long.  

Few people were on the quad at the time.  Each of us picked out a tree to climb for a better view. 

shortly after, security called us down.  We look for another tree.  I found one at the side of a path that meandered midway down the side of the quad.  Little did I realize how strategic that spot was and how it would change my life an hour later.  Up I went.  It was as if I wrapped Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak on.  I never was discovered and there remained until the memorial was over.  Time passed, and it was getting warmer.  From my perch I could see the quad filling up with mourners.  The open stage was filling up with the Morehouse Men’s Glee club. I could feel the tension growing as more people from the march began to move into the quad.  Soon, there was nary an open space on the ground.  And it was getting warmer as tstood and sat on the grass. Finally the mule drawn farm wood wagon arrived with Dr. King’s casket in the back. Immediately behind walking were Coretta King, her children, and family and leaders of the civil rights movement.  Closely behind were Hubert Humphrey, and the Kennedy brothers, Ted, Bobby and other Kennedy family members. Even Richard Nixon was there.  

The casket was lifted from wagon, and carried up the steps into the quad and down the path right where my perch was.  Coretta, the children and all the dignitaries walked behind the casket.  You can imagine my emotion how I was just a few feet above this assembly and how I wasn’t discovered, how I held my breath.  The Moorehouse Glee Club was singing in crescendo, and the crowd pivoted like filings to a magent, all turned towards the casket and the family, as it slowing moved just below me.  I remember the color of the casket, a dark mahogany shining in the noon sun.  Coretta’s black, veiled hat, the children in black, slowing walking, wending their way to the front of the dais. 

The second memorial began with the singing of the choirs and prayers.  Two iconic speakers came forward.  Dr. Benjamin E Mays gave the eulogy. He waas an early civil rights leader, educator and speaker at the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial where Dr. King gave his iconic “I Have a Dream Speech.” Rabbi Abraham Heschel, a close friend and spiritual advisor, entoned the kaddesh, the prayer for the dead of the Hebrew people.

I weep every time I hear the powerful voice of Dr. King many years later, as he concludes his mighty speech at the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963:

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

The weeping is an acknowledgement that not only the dream has yet to become reality, it seems that even as there are advances in diversity, there are fallbacks to the old racism.

Then and there, I decided to be an activist rather than react to historical events.  I also returned to Christianity by responding to an invitation from a friend, to worship at Trinity United Methodist Church, in Atlanta GA, on the corner of Trinity and Washington Streets in the Atlanta inner city. Several blocks away is Capitol Homes, a large public housing project, where the church owned a parish house.  Trinity was declining with a white membership, with a history for mission across the world. The church was ingrown and on the defensive.  So when Charlie Spencer, an African-American teen-ager showed up at worship one Sunday, and pastor Ken Jones welcomed him, half of the remaining white membership left and took their money with them.