Sabbath Day.

Today I felt like a pilgrim several times. Travel was not all easy. Instead I felt tested in the sense of finding calm while filled with resolve to get to today's destination.

Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh, shadows of the evening steal across the sky.

Oban, Argyll, Scotland.

Guide us waking Lord, and guard us sleeping........

Ferry Ride

After spending the night in Oban, we boarded the ferry for the 45 minute ride to Craignure.  It was cold and raining and we wonder if this is what our weather will be like for the next 10 days.

Nighttime across the pond

7 1/2 hours. Economy comfort. Worth the extra bucks. 2 meals. Time to read guidebooks and rest. Now I'm Amsterdam with a GREAT need for espresso.

Ready to board

Atlanta Hartsfield Airport.
New International Terminal F.  Six terminals at the busiest airport in the country.  And now only Terminal F has a Starbucks.  The rest have vanished. It's a mystery.

Beth flew in from Houston and we are now awaiting our flight to Amsterdam.  We arrive 6 am, then 3 1/2 hrs later on to Glasgow. We will be met at Starbucks by our car rental person who will walk us out to our car and we'll be on our way to Oban- hoping to remember to drive on the left.  Jill has been updated with Scotland maps, so we should be cruising to Oban.  Stay tuned.......

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” 
― Leonardoda Vinci

Packed for the Journey

I'm traveling light, at least as light as possible.  As Iona is a car-less destination, my load must be light.  Aside from a change of clothes, the essentials are my walking stick, walking boots, rain jacket, binoculars, and camera.  I will also have with me "Around a Thin Place- an Iona piigrimage guide", "Walking on Mull and Iona"; and a backpack.  I'm prepared.  I think.

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before-- "
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
                            May Sarton

Around a Thin Place

Kierkegaard says "travel, like life, is best understood backward but must be experienced forward."

I've been contemplating the idea of thin places.  The past several months I have seen a number of references to thin places, in travel articles, essays written by candidates for bishop, and books which have caught my attention and piqued my interest.

Thin places are locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and one is able to catch glimpses of the divine.

It is thought that the words "thin places" were first heard in the Celtic world- Ireland, Scotland.  They were used to describe the wind-swept isle of Iona.  Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter.  Thin places can transform one.

                                           Iona Abbey  


To get to Iona--
     
     By plane,by  car, and by ferry

    Atlanta to Amsterdam to Glasgow, by plane;
    Glasgow to Oban, driving on the "wrong" side of the road;
    Oban to Craignure, by ferry;
    Craignure across the Isle of Mull to Fionphort, by car
    Fionphort to Iona by ferry.

Going on a Pilgrimage

A pilgrimage is defined as a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance.  It often entails traveling a great distance.  It carries with it the expectation of enlightenment, change, transformation. 

"Pilgrims do not bring decisions with them.  They come to seek prayerfully the decisions God wants them to make.:  The Rt. Rev. Sueheil Salman Dawan, Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem.

I am soon to embark on a pilgrimage, but as I do not feel I have the depth of spirituality that is often associated with one who becomes a pilgrim, my journey will include play. I DO, however, expect my spirituality to significantly deepen as I trek Iona.  I confess that my Kindle, along with books and films associated with religion and spirituality, also contains novels and movies.  

I'm off to pilgrimage and play on the Isle of Iona, Scotland.

Iona (Scottish Gaelic: Ì Chaluim Chille) is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland.  It was a center of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty.  With its approximate size of one mile by one and one-half mile, it is a walking island.  No cars allowed on Iona.  

We shall park the car in the town of Fionnphort, and take the 5-minute ferry across to Iona, where we shall stay for a week.