Out of Iona

Sutch Pickard Jan

Description

Poems, readings and reflections which capture not only the wildness and beauty of the island of Iona but also the pressures and gifts of living in a community on an island of pilgrimage.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Wild Goose Publications
• Date de parution: 11 mai 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849521468
• Langue: English

Extrait

Out of Iona
Words from a crossroads of the world
Jan Sutch Pickard
Copyright © Jan Sutch Pickard, 2003
First published 2003, reprinted 2005 by Wild Goose Publications Fourth Floor, Savoy House, 140 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3DH, UK www.ionabooks.com Wild Goose Publications is the publishing division of the Iona Community. Scottish Charity No. SC003794. Limited Company Reg. No. SC096243.
ePub:ISBN 978-1-84952-146-8 Mobipocket:ISBN 978-1-84952-147-5 PDF:ISBN 978-1-84952-148-2
Cover batik illustration © Anna Pickard
All rights reserved. Apart from reasonable personal use on the purchaser’s own system and related devices, no part of this document or file(s) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher
Non-commercial use: The material in this book may be used non-commercially for worship and group work without written permission from the publisher. Please make full acknowledgement of the source, e.g. ‘© Jan Sutch Pickard from Out of Iona published by Wild Goose Publications, 4th Floor, Savoy House, 140 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3DH, UK.’ Where a large number of copies are made, a donation may be made to the Iona Community via Wild Goose Publications, but this is not obligatory.
For any commercial use of the contents of this book, permission must be obtained in writing from the publisher in advance.
Jan Sutch Pickard has asserted her right in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Contents
Foreword by Norman Shanks
Introduction
Words from a small island – poems
Iona weaving
The curve
Anemones
Tooth
Riddle
Ruben
Mary Magdalene
Being there
Dun Bhuirg
Gary
Genesis 1 & 2: Iona
Winter wings
Midwinter poems
Millennium
Another day
Story
The bird window
Kingfisher
Rainbows do not come cheap
Work gloves
A thin place
The work of worship – biblical reflections
The Word (Genesis 1 and John 1)
Women at the riverside (Exodus 2:1–11)
Encounter (I Kings 17:8–16) 52
Angels and shepherds (Luke 2:8–20)
The Tempter (Matt 4:1–4)
Four friends (Mark 2:1–12)
The wind and the waves (Mark 4:35–41)
A man (Matt 7:9)
A child speaks (Luke 8:40–42, 49–55)
In the presence of all the people (Luke 8:40, 42b–48)
Two voices ( Luke 8:40–56)
Salt ((Matt 5:13–16)
A voice in the street (Matt 15:21–28)
Some went up the mountain (Matt 1:1–8, 14–16)
Woman with ointment (John 12:1–11)
Why this waste? (Mark 14:1–9)
Words from the cross (John 19:30b)
This is the day:
Here and now (Luke 4:16–21)
The disciples (Luke 6:1–5)
Body language (Luke 13:10–17)
This is the day (Luke 13:10–17)
A man in the crowd (Mark 3:1–6)
Holy Saturday (Mark 15:40–16:2)
Leaping and singing (Acts 3:1–10)
The river and the trees (Rev 22:1–2 and Psalm 1)
The Word in the world – three sequences from beyond Iona
Hospital poems
Faslane 2002
Thembi’s house
Using the biblical reflections
The Abbey – a prayer
Foreword
These last nine years or so we in the Iona Community, and many others, have been richly blessed by three successive Iona Wardens whose experience, insights and creativity have been expressed, and thus shared more widely, through their writing. Peter Millar (Warden from 1995–98) produced Iona – a pilgrim guide in 1997 and An Iona prayer book in 1998, which he has followed up with further books – Waymarks (2000) and Finding Hope Again (2003). Brian Woodcock (Warden 1998–2001), together with members of the resident staff group who were working at the Community’s islands centres at the time, compiled the latest edition (2001) of the Iona Abbey Worship Book and wrote, with Jan Sutch Pickard, Advent Readings from Iona . And now Jan herself, who has been Warden since 2001, has collected some of her recent poems, reflections and worship material in Out of Iona .
As the Community’s Leader from 1995 until 2002 it was my privilege and joy to work with these gifted people, my friends – to accompany, learn from, and try to support them – and, ever so occasionally, ‘manage’ them! The Warden’s task is immensely demanding: the Community’s islands work is our ‘shop window’: along with the activities of the Wild Goose Resource Group in the field of worship and all the material that Wild Goose Publications produces, it is our major ‘public face’. Many people are surprised to discover that the Community’s administrative headquarters are in Glasgow, where almost as many staff are based as on Iona, and that the Community’s members do not live on Iona but are dispersed throughout Britain, and a few beyond, living out their commitment to the Community’s purpose and concerns in a wide variety of local situations.
But it is to Iona that the Community continues to look for so much of our nourishment and inspiration; it is to Iona that we keep going back; and it is to Iona that countless others come whether as day visitors or holidaymakers, as guests to share for almost a week in the ‘common life’ experience at the Community’s islands centres (the restored Benedictine Abbey, and the MacLeod Centre built in 1998), or as resident staff members or volunteers (150 or so a year from all over the world) contributing to the ministry of hospitality through the work of the centres. And it is the Warden’s task somehow to hold this all together, to develop co-operative and participative ways of working, to be creative in exercising overall responsibility for daily worship and sensitive in responding to the pastoral demands, to be an ‘ambassador’ on Iona on behalf of the Community. It is something of a miracle that Jan, like Peter and Brian before her, in the face of all this, has found the time to write as well!
But, as Jan makes very clear, the writing comes out of the daily experience, much of it in moments snatched out of the hectic rush or added on at the start or end of the day. Indeed Iona, at least around the village and our centres, is not really such a peaceful place as some imagine. One of our staff members once said famously, ‘People come to Iona looking for peace and quiet and they go away looking for peace and justice!’ A former Deputy Leader of the Community, Ralph Morton, who worked with George MacLeod, the Community’s Founder and Leader, for many years, said, ‘The Iona experience is for export.’ Many of those who come to Iona are on a spiritual pilgrimage, seeking to make sense of life, looking for opportunities to explore, learn and grow, reflecting on the significance and relevance of faith to the challenges and pressures of life.
Within the Iona Community we believe that spirituality is about engagement not escape – engaging with God in the midst of life, in creation, in relationships, in the struggles and issues of today’s world. So, as George MacLeod said again and again in so many different ways, God is to be discovered and experienced in ‘every blessed thing’; and what really matters is what we do, once we get back home, with the insights and experiences we have had on Iona.
The wonderful breadth and depth of Jan’s writing here will come as no surprise to those who are familiar with Vice Versa , the collection of prayers, poems and reflections that she published after being Vice-President of the Methodist Conference of Great Britain in 1996–97, or, for example, with her contributions to Dandelions and Thistles (1998 – which she edited) and The One Loaf (2000 – edited by Joy Mead). Jan writes with verve and energy. She is a great ‘story-teller’ and has an enviable way with words: you can see the people, feel the emotions, so easily imagine yourself into the situations she is writing about. Her sharpness of insight and her own compassionate, cheerful, supportive personality are evident on every page. Shut your eyes and you can so easily hear her reading the poems, sharing the reflections, leading the prayers in the Abbey church or in a gathering in the chapter-house or MacLeod Centre community room. For the great thing is that these writings of Jan’s have not been composed in abstract detachment from where the action is: they are thoroughly grounded in the hurly-burly of life on Iona; every telling phrase and vivid image comes out of the experience of the daily round of demanding tasks in their amazing variety – from the mundane down-to-earth routine chores to the emergencies and challenges that stretch you to the limit of your resources; covering the whole gamut of emotions from deep pain, sadness and bitterness to the joy and laughter that soars and sings.
And through it all Jan’s own convictions and commitment shine ever so clearly – a faith that engages with everyday realities, explores, struggles, asks the hard questions, yet is ultimately unshakable. This is a book in which, with its evocation of life on Iona and its sheer artistry, I know that many will find inspiration and enjoyment.
Norman Shanks Govan Old Parish Church, Glasgow September 2003
Out of Iona
Take us outside, O Christ, outside holiness,
out to where soldiers curse and nations clash
at the crossroads of the world.
So shall this building continue to be justified.
(From a prayer by George MacLeod, used in the Iona Community daily Office)
Introduction
Iona is a place of paradoxes. You may well have bought this book because the name of a small Hebridean island appears in its title. It may have been a place of pilgrimage for you, as for many others. It is a place where many people come, and are moved by its beauty; but they are changed and challenged too. The first poem, Iona Weaving , attempts to describe this complexity. Make no mistake, that poem was not written (any more than this introduction) in a serene moment on the sea shore or at leisure in the Abbey library – but hammered out on a worn keyboard, at a desk piled with papers, late at night and between meetings, as a liturgy for use among folk living through a time of tiredness, change and lo