Iona highlight

The big pilgrimage hike on Tuesday across the island was a big highlight. It took us off-road through bogs and bracken and over rocks and crannies amongst the beautiful purple heather. We stopped at significant spots and had times of reflection and song and sometimes prayer. For example, we stopped at the only road crossing on Iona and reflected how sometimes we come to crossroads in our lives. How do we know which road to continue you on? Where will it lead us? Who will we encounter on the way? How difficult will the path be?


Another spot was a stump they use as a signpost. This way they know they’re on the right track because it wouldn’t be hard to lose one’s way when things all look the same. We reflected on the signposts that we have on our journeys. What are they? Who are they? Do we know how to look for them? The lone evergreen (probably the only one on the island) as signpost we all missed because we didn’t know to look out for it. How often does God provide us with signposts and we miss them?

We stopped at St Columba Bay and had a picnic lunch there. It’s a beautiful rocky beach full of smooth colourful stones of all sizes. It is said that St Columba first landed here when he arrived from Ireland. He seemed to have left Ireland to get away from something there, to leave something behind. He came to Iona with twelve monks and started a monastery there, never looking back to the difficulties he had left behind. Here we were asked to pick up two stones. One that would represent something in our lives that we would like to leave behind and another to represent something we would like to take with us. The one stone we launched into the sea, the other we carried with us. It was cathartic. It wasn’t unlike the campfire Debbie and I burnt our worries in the time we went camping near Kenora, so long ago.

There were other spots of reflection along the way, but these three I think were the most significant for me. At least they’re the ones that stick out in my mind. There too was the hermit’s hut where we reflected on the need for solitude and reflection as it were.