“And a cloud hid Him from their sight.”  Acts 1

“When you are in a certain place, great love or kindness happens; it imprints itself on the ether of the place. When we pass there, hungry and needy in spirit, that loving imprint shines on us like an icon.”  John O’Donohue

“Iona is a thin place, where only tissue separates the material from the spiritual.” George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community

The month of May is full of holidays.   Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, and in The Church Pentecost.  But there is one holiday that used to be one of the most important that these days is forgotten, overlooked or essentially ignored.  Do you know what that holiday is?  Hint:  It occurred this past Thursday.   Ascension Day. 

Ascension Day marks the occasion of Jesus’ last appearance to the disciples in a temporal body before He was translated back into his eternal being which fills the universe.  The word that describes Jesus’ ascension doesn’t indicate that Jesus shot up into the outer atmosphere, like a rocket or a comet, but rather that he was slightly lifted, kind of like levitating.  And then they couldn’t see him.  That place of Christ’s Ascension must’ve held special significance forever thereafter for the disciples. Just like the Mount of Transfiguration.  Where is that place for you?  That place where you feel most intimately connected with God?

The month of May marks another important occasion for me.  It was eleven years ago this month that I left my career and life as I had formerly known it to go to Iona for ten weeks.   It may not have been an ascension, but it certainly was a transformation.  Among other things it required that I die to the life I had been living, and be raised to a new life.  Iona did that for me.  Just as it has done for so many others throughout the centuries. 

The reason that Iona is transformative is because it is awash with the Presence of God.  It is what is called a thin place, where heaven and earth intersect.  The Lord is present there in a very immediate and intimate way.  Not only among the stones of the ancient Abbey, not only in the people who live and work as part of the Iona Community, but also in the fields and paths and rocks and beaches.  God is woven into the very fabric of the place.  Like the ongoing Presence of Jesus after His ascension, the sacred elements and impact of Iona are difficult to describe.  But they are real.  It is a place where you go to feel, and to heal.

Iona serves as a microcosm for life.  It is a place for pilgrimage, and that is what life is.  Always journeying, always following God, always seeking yet never fully arriving until finally we arrive fully in the Presence of God.  O’Donohue’s words perfectly describe Iona. 

“When you are in a certain place, great love or kindness happens; it imprints itself on the ether of the place. When we pass there, hungry and needy in spirit, that loving imprint shines on us like an icon.”  

Iona imprinted herself on me.  It was a journey into the very heart of God.  It is where I found my heart.  And it remains forever in my heart.  Even now as I sit writing this I am overwhelmed with the peace and serenity saturating me like the soft rain that soaks into the verdant landscape of that holy Isle.

I long to return.  And Lord willing I will.  In fact, I am putting together another group trip for September, 2027.  I would like to invite you first, oh faithful reader of these blogs, to accompany me and experience this thin place for yourself.  If you are interested please reach out to me at [email protected].  The details are being finalized, but at this point we will spend a week at Iona, participating in a program that I will facilitate with my dear friend Ali Marshall, and simply sitting with and in The Presence of the mystery and magic called Iona.  We will also spend time visiting other places that are more familiar in Scotland.  The itinerary will be finalized soon.  It sounds cliché, but space will be limited, and I already have seven people who have expressed interest.  So please let me know if you want to go.  It may not have the same effect on you that it did on me—but it will be memorable.  And you will experience God there in a way you haven’t ever before.  I promise you that.