Metropolitan United Church

    Leaving something wonderful is tough. I've always been an early to middle guy. "Hello", and "nice getting to know you" are phrases with more appeal than "so long". Someone has rightly said that Iona is not a place you live. It is a place you pass through. Every staff member and volunteer in the Iona Community is passing through. Some few are on cycles of three years or more. Most others are one or two. Volunteers, like me, range from six weeks at the least to a whole season of six months. Consequently roommates are always being shuffled and areas of the residence, emptied, cleaned and made ready for newcomers.

    Here I am within a week of my departure. The time has flown, with every day's duties pressing without end. People I have come to enjoy are now stepping away to their other lives, taking with them their wit, work, music and sweet presence. My time will be upon me, with a part-day shift, then a day off to gather up my things and take one last look around, and then a ride to the ferry at 9:00 a.m, and off I go.

     How like life. No one can live in it forever. We meet, work, play, find meaning and ministry, than move on. The sadness of things lost leaves an particular after-taste even among all the sweet things that follow. The Abbey goes on bearing witness and offering its rich hospitality. The work of one group of sojourners leaves a footing for the next. So Iona is helping me both live and die.

    Three of us will leave at the same time and the community will offer us a "Leaving Service" in the small, stone Michael Chapel. We will light candles and follow the written liturgy used for all our travellers. Then we will rise, return to our last things, then step back into the world which brought us here. Iona remains the same. Old, worn, wet, windswept and present to many worlds. We, in turn, shall be different.