The meeting was addressed by a speaker, Maggie Evans, who was a personal friend of the President. The subject of her talk was her experience as a volunteer on the island of Iona in the Outer Hebrides. Maggie had leave of absence from her work and taken up a twelve week placement on Iona. This was as a result of hearing a brief talk on Radio 4 about the Iona Community. It had, she assured us, changed her life. The Iona Community is an ecumenical Christian community of men and women from different walks of life who are engaged in acting, reflecting and praying for justice and peace in the world. Worship is at the root of the community and there are twice daily services at the Abbey. Iona is a small island of only three square miles and apart from the Community there are 300 people living there. In 563 AD St Columba came to Iona and established a monastic settlement there. The island is home to one of the first Christian crosses which is engraved on stone and resembled more of a Maltese cross than the one that we see around us today. The present-day Christian Community was founded by the Rev George Macleod in 1938. He had worked amongst the poor in Glasgow and started summer camps for under-privileged children on the Isle of Mull and these are still in use today. His family had a house on Iona and his volunteers re-built the Abbey which had fallen into ruin. More accommodation was built and the Iona Community developed from that time. The island is, Maggie assured us, a “Paradise” with wonderful scenery under an ever-changing light. Many rainbows are a feature of the weather scene there. Iona has become a place of pilgrimage for people from all over the world and they welcome over a hundred visitors a month who come to take part in the various courses, which are of a spiritual nature, which are held there. There are also 25 volunteers who work five and a half days a week in catering, housekeeping, gardening etc. As she had just broken her wrist before taking up the post Maggie was assigned to work in the Community shop which sells local and Fair Trade products. The volunteers interact with the guests and all live together in fellowship and worship. There is some interaction with the people who live on the island and the Community organises a regular ceilidh for all to participate in. There are weekly entertainments organised at the Community which can include dolphin watching and even naked bathing!
There are also monks living at the Abbey one of whom, John Bell, is often heard on Radio Four’s “thought for the day.” Much of island life revolves around the ferry service to the mainland. A journey which can take up to three hours as it involves first a ferry ride to Mull and then another to Oban on the mainland. There is no doctor on the island and unfortunately Maggie broke her shoulder just before leaving but was dealt with competently by the Community. There was a minimal internet connection on the island, from one small room, and her mobile phone did not work there. Maggie had enjoyed her experience with the Iona Community which she regarded as life-changing. She would definitely return there, and from looking at the lovely photographs which she produced on her iPad we could see what attraction this remote Scottish island could hold for those who are looking for a new spiritual experience.
For web details of the Iona Community see here