The second leg on our pilgrimage arc in the UK takes us to the Iona Community on the Isle of Iona.  Erik first heard about the Iona Community in the late 1980’s and the music, worship life, and approach to Christian practices struck a deep and sympathetic chord within.  (Five hymns composed or arranged by Iona’s John Bell are included in our Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, including three of Erik’s favorites: 721, 798 & 814.)

The opportunity to spend this sacred time with the Iona Community during Holy Week and Easter is a dream come true.  We are on the island for nine days, from the Saturday prior to Palm Sunday to the Monday after Easter.  We are staying at the Macleod Centre, a spacious and light-filled building especially suited to families, which has a well-stocked craft room. In 563AD the Irish monk Columba (Colum Cille) established a monastic settlement that evangelized large parts of Scotland and the north of England and became an important center of European Christianity. In the Middle Ages it became the site of a Benedictine abbey, and over the centuries it has attracted many thousands of people on their own pilgrim journeys.

The current Iona Community was founded in Glasgow and Iona in 1938 by George MacLeod, minister, visionary and prophetic witness for peace, in the context of the poverty and despair of the Depression.  From a dockland parish in Govan, Glasgow, he took unemployed skilled craftsmen and young trainee clergy to Iona to rebuild both the monastic quarters of the mediaeval abbey and the common life by working and living together, sharing skills and effort as well as joys and achievement. That original task became a sign of hopeful rebuilding of community in Scotland and beyond. The experience shaped – and continues to shape – the practice and principles of the Iona Community.