After two and a half weeks I am back on U.S. soil and trying desperately to make a re-entry into ‘normal’ life……whatever that is. I have to admit that my mind wanders and I find myself reliving the sweetness and kindness of the people of Scotland. From beginning to end my experience was one of gentleness, hospitality, welcome, and awe. It seemed each person I met went out of their way to be helpful, to assist me in finding my way. And my experience of the landscape from the Lowlands to the Highlands to the Islands was one of beauty and spectacle that was often too immense to take in. So, while my body is here, for the moment I am living in two worlds.

So it was with laughter that I found myself driving into the office yesterday flanked by two cars; one with a bumper sticker that read:Tree-Hugging Dirt Worshiper; the other: My boss is a Jewish Carpenter. Of course, the tree-hugger was driving a Prius and the employee of the Carpenter, a Chevrolet truck. I laughed out loud. I laughed because, in some ways, my experience in Scotland, particularly at Iona Abbey, was that the community there embodied both these statements. As a community of people who have worshiped in this place for centuries, they have done so under the banner that they are people of Creation, gifted by the beauty and rhythm of the seasons, grounded in the earth beneath their feet.  In fact, they say there are two sacred texts: the Book of scripture and the Book of Creation. They are also deeply grounded in what it means to be people who fashion a life after the example of Jesus, the Carpenter. The liturgy we experienced was rich with images of sun, rain, soil, wind, sea. It was also full of challenges to be people of love, justice and service, prayer and grace.

So many times, at least for me, I have had the sense that somehow the church has told us we had to choose one or the other, soil or Shepherd. And that has always felt false to me, something I could not fully do. On Iona, it was with a sense of ‘arriving’ that I was swept up in the winds and force of the meeting of Prius and Chevrolet. While this theological perspective is one I believe is found in the worship in which I am most often present,somehow knowing that this is the way of naming the movement of the Holy over the centuries in this place, filled me with such joy, such a sense of coming home to myself, such an affirmation of faith.

Over the next few days and weeks, I will slowly arrive back here in the place that is truly home. But for now I am in-between. The thread that I hold in my hand, however, connects me to that place where I was reminded that I don’t have to choose. It was, indeed, an affirmation that I could have it all: tree, soil, wind, sea……Creator, Teacher,Healer,Light of the World. And that the Holy’s presence cannot be confined.

“Now may God who gives seed to the sower and corn to the reaper, give to us all that is needed to produce a good harvest. May God make us fertile in faith, love and goodness, and take us out with joy, and lead us on in peace, as signs of the fruitfulness of heaven. Amen” ~ The Iona Community