“Go in peace, your faith has healed you.”  Jesus

“You cannot heal what you don’t first acknowledge.”  Richard Rohr in “Breathing Underwater

Iona is a place of healing.  Deep healing. It was founded as such.

St. Columba arrived on its shores in 563 desperately in need of healing.  He had been banished from his native Ireland either for killing a man or starting a war in which many were killed—or maybe both.  This did not occur before he was a holy monk, but afterwards.  One can only imagine what he was experiencing in his conscience when he took sail with twelve other monks in his little coracle.

Actually, we don’t have to imagine too hard, because in a sense we’ve all been there, in that place where we are in need of healing.  If we think we haven’t, then we need healing from our deep denial.  I was there when I washed up on the shores of Iona seven years ago.  I needed healing from too much time spent doing time as a pastor, healing from the death of my mother, healing from divorce, healing from the unhealthy use of alcohol in trying to not feel the pain, or perhaps in trying to feel something other than pain. 

Have you been in that place?  Are you there now?  To be human is to hurt.  To be hurting is to need help.  To receive help is to heal.  Iona is a place to heal.

It wasn’t just Columba who received healing there.  Pilgrims throughout the centuries journeyed there to be healed.  There is a well in front of the Abbey whose waters were said to have healing properties.  Miracles are said to have happened.  I don’t doubt it, for I both experienced and witnessed the miracle of healing while there.

My healing was not instantaneous, but certainly began there.  It started, as Rohr says, by acknowledging that I needed to acknowledge the hurt and seek the help.  And then to take the hand of God as it was offered in so many ways.  There were people there, just like me, who knew what it was to experience pain, and rather than hiding it or covering it up, like is done so often among Christian people, they admitted it.  There was a weekly service of healing in which people were prayed with and had hands placed upon our heads so that we could feel that tender touch of Christ’s pierced hands.  By his wounds we were healed.

The healing saturated the soul, soaking into the deepest of wounds like the rain that saturates that island. The healing happened in the gentle words of the worship services where one heard the very whisper of God.  The healing took place in the compassionate prayers of others, the empathetic conversations that contained no criticism or judgment, no advice being given, but just another lovingly listening.  Iona is a place of healing.  When I left there, I was not fully healed (not sure if there is such a thing in this life), but I was well on my way.   

This time I went back not for healing, but to give thanks for what I had experienced there.  Not surprisingly I encountered others who needed healing.  Some were my fellow guests who stayed for the week at the Abbey.  Some were workers there.  Some were strangers who would briefly cross my path.  So many people in need of healing.  I will tell you about a couple of those occasions in a future blog.  For now, I would simply ask you to consider the healing that perhaps you might need.  Is it spiritual, emotional, physical?  Perhaps all three?  Are you acknowledging it?  What balm are you using to be healed?  Do you have someone who cares?  Who listens?  Who embraces?  Sometimes what we need most is someone to tenderly touch us with the love of Christ.  I would invite you to consider who that person is for you and reach out to them.  And if you don’t have anyone, feel free to reach out to me.