"May I Introduce . . . ?"

It's been edifying, milking present-day life lessons out of my Easter experience on the island of Iona nineteen years ago. Gives me something to ruminate over while I dig my vegetable garden.

One big piece of mental cud I'm chewing is how things coulda-shoulda-mighta been different between the young man I'm calling Lukas Renzberger* and myself that Maundy Thursday night during the tea break at the abbey. He confessed to me later that he thought I expected him to integrate me into the group spending Holy Week at the abbey, and due to the concealed conflict among those people, he couldn't deal with the prospect.

"Integrate," hmm? When I was doing an entirely different program in another building and only encountered the abbey group during worship services and evening tea times? Hey, guy, whatever happened to a simple introduction? Something like, "Blogwen, this is Malcolm. He's here from Edinburgh. Malcolm, this is Blogwen. We know each other from Oxford and she's from the United States." Straightforward, gracious, and leaving each introduced party free to pursue the acquaintance or not, as they wish.

The simple introduction: whatever happened to it, indeed? I've observed the past twenty-five years or more that the routine introduction seems to be moribund or dead. I recall in 1985 or so, standing with a friend in a recital hall lobby after a performance, when a young man came through the outer door and greeted the man I was with. The two began to talk, and I gathered that the newcomer had been the piano soloist with the city symphony at their concert the same night, and had come over to the other hall when he was done in hopes of meeting up with my friend, his old buddy from music school. All very interesting, but I was left standing there, irrelevant as a third wheel on a bicycle. Finally the pianist grew embarrassed at my friend's neglect, and introduced himself. If he hadn't, my friend would have chatted on and on and left me out entirely.

You see it all the time. People are together in a public place or maybe in a social setting, someone else joins them and greets someone of the original group, and the two focus entirely on each other and give the rest of the group no way to participate. Or it's the newcomer who gets left out.

The extreme version of this is the person who takes cell phone calls when she's in company. Not that anyone expects the recipient to introduce the caller to her friends who are with her physically. Which is a good reason why the cell phone should be put away on such occasions!

Then there's the larger impact of the decline of introductions. Used to be, thoughtful people would systematically introduce others to people it would be advantageous for them to know-- for marriage, for professional advancement, for social networking. Now we have to depend on Internet matchmaking sites and resume services.

Why do we not do this? Why has the introduction gone by the boards?

Some would claim it's because they don't want to meddle in other people's business. "After all, if he wanted to meet that big executive in his field, he'd introduce himself!" "I wouldn't think of introducing my niece to my friend's son who's just moved back into town! If she wanted to meet men, she wouldn't put in so much overtime at work!"

But I think it's just another sign of American individualism. Or, considering my experience on Iona, Western individualism. We focus moment by moment on who we are and what we want to do, with whom and when we want to do it. It's just too much trouble to expand our notice to include others, even others we've been with up to then.

American individualism can be a good thing-- if we spread it around and intermingle it so we all benefit. Making a point of introducing people would be a good place to start. At work. At parties. At church. Where you hang out. If you're concerned about protocol, it's the respectful thing to introduce the younger person to the elder. And, at the risk of being politically incorrect, the less experienced/less powerful/more junior person to the experienced/powerful/senior individual. And the man to the woman. But if you get it turned around, that's better than leaving a fellow human being dangling while you create your own private world with a third party!

Besides, if you introduce, you may find you get introduced-- to some people it'd be really valuable to know.

However-- however-- there is one place where the introduction is not dead. And that's in blogdom. It's called the link. It's the chaining blog awards given out by bloggers like Sandy and her colleague Daryl before her. It's cogent and thoughtful comments left on each other's posts.

No, we haven't met in the flesh; we don't necessarily know each other's real or full names. But in the virtual world we've been introduced, and that's been a benefit and a pleasure to us all.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: Postlude

In the TV series Heroes there's a character named Hiro Nakamura. His heroic gift is to be able to teleport himself through time and space. Often he meets up with and interacts with a younger or older version of himself.

Well, if I had the fictional Mr. Nakamura's ability, I would teleport myself to my room in Coverdale* College, Oxford, on a Saturday in late April 1989, and knock my younger self up-side the head for being an ass and a blind fool. And I'd give one Lukas Renzberger* what-for for being a being such a self-centered turkey.

The precise account of what happened that day is in my regular journal, not in my travel diary, and won't be transcribed here. But a week after Lukas* and I had both returned to Coverdale*, I was still avoiding him, unable equally to make nice as if nothing wrong had happened between us on Iona or to confront him with it, either one.

Finally after lunch that Saturday, where I'd spoken to everyone at the table except him (though he'd attempted repeatedly to catch my eye), he'd followed me up to my room.

He said: "You've been avoiding me. Something's wrong between us and I want you to tell me what it is."

Yes, really. He did. And-I-Quote.

For a long stretch I could say nothing. But at last I blurted out, "I think that if somebody asked me if I'd seen you in Iona, I would have to say, No, at least not the Lukas* I know at Coverdale.*"

We had a long, long talk. It lasted till the bell rang for dinner. And if I in my 2008 self were there listening, I wouldn't fault either party for much of what was said and concluded. It's true that I needed to get over the idea that everyone else (especially big hunky good-looking guys) was always stronger and more capable and more secure than I. It's true that I needed to understand that I was as capable of hurting his feelings as he was of hurting mine. It's true that I needed to allow him to be weak and vulnerable, too.

But oy vey! After all was said and done I sure hope my 2008 self would say, "Pardon me, Lukas*, but you say you held back from being friendly to Blogwen at Iona because you were convinced she expected you to 'integrate'-- that was your word, 'integrate'-- her into the Abbey group, and you just couldn't, because you knew that real conflict underlay the ostentatious cameradie of that crowd. Where, pray tell, did you get the idea she wanted in? You say you were confirmed in that conviction when you observed her inability to get deep into conversation with anyone at tea after the Maundy Thursday stripping of the church. Did it never occur to you that she might have been exhausted from travel and the weather? That your own failure to give her a friendly word at the tea table might have put her off, just a little? That your swings that weekend from cold aloofness to ceremonial intimacy and back again might have been distressing and alienating, considering your usual relations at Coverdale*?

"And Lukas,*" I'd go on, "you say your coldness and distance at the train station in Oban was mere lack of sleep and exhaustion, that you hadn't even wanted to deal with the Abbey group people you were chatting to on the bus, let alone Blogwen after the tensions of the previous four days. Did it never occur to you to say something civil to her like, 'I'm really tired right now, I didn't get to bed at all last night, please forgive me if I'm not up to talking. I need to get my train to Inverness and I'll see you back at Coverdale*'? Something that acknowledged this vulnerability you want her to allow you?"

"What it sounds like to me, " I'd continue, "is that you, Lukas*, want your weaknesses to be understood, overlooked and excused, while Blogwen's are to be repented and punished and done penance for. Sounds a little unequal to me, doesn't it to you, hmmm?"

And to my 1989 self I would say, "Hey, you! He's said some things you needed to hear. But enough already! You've told him that you found no comfort in the amateur theatricals that passed for worship service content. You told him you were starved for the clear reading and preaching of the word of God. You don't need to apologise for that. You're letting him make it out that that means you're living too much in your head and need to work instead from your heart. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is heart food! It's the only genuine heart food there is!

"What's more, young Blogwen, you're letting him sit there analysing you! You're submitting to playing the patient or parishioner to his pastoral counsellor! Remember, he's as weak and frail as you are. Don't flop like that! Grow a backbone!

Then, "Oh my God, child, he's just asked you to tell him what you can do to become more extroverted! Yes, it'd be a good thing, but after Iona, Lukas* is the last person who has the right to coach and correct you on that! I mean, where was all his extroversion that god-awful weekend? Stop trawling for his approval! He's got his role in your life, but that ain't it!"

To be fair to us both, after dinner I went to his room and made it clear that we still both needed openly to repent, receive forgiveness, and be reconciled for what we had done to each other "through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault." I forgave him and received his pardon in return. And in case I ever should forget that, I wrote it down in the back of my Bible the next day during a slow period in the sermon.

But even after that, my 2008 self still would have private business with the 1989 me. It'd go like this:

"Kid, you keep talking about your weakness, weakness, weakness in all this. It's high time you recognised that all your depression and alienation and near-hopelessness at Iona and at times throughout that entire tour wasn't really about weakness, it was about Control.

"Yes, young Blogwen, control. You wanted to feel you were in charge of your life, even if it meant being in charge of bad things happening in it. After the first few days, it never occurred to you once to take into account how vulnerable you were physically, mentally, and emotionally to the stresses of the journey. Getting lost on the road almost daily. Pushing yourself too hard driving and walking and sightseeing. Dealing with severe, even dangerous, weather. Skipping meals or eating food that was unbalanced or inadequate. Not getting enough sleep. Did you think to yourself, 'Of course I'm a little cranky, I've been through a lot this past week, just taking this trip'? No. You didn't even consider it. You just assumed that your stamina was equal to anything, that you were in control.

"Then you got to Iona. You recognised that the lack of spiritual food was getting you down. Good. You griped some in your journal about the weather and the programming. But you didn't face how much they were wearing you down. Think how your straitened funds and the fact that you'd prepaid for the weekend kept you from even considering checking the ferry timetable and leaving, say, on Saturday--psychologically and financially, you were trapped! Think how the weather made it impossible to go outside safely alone after dark so physically you couldn't break free of the lockstep of the evening schedule. Hey, didn't you notice how a lot of the people at the MacLeod Centre were jumpy and emotional? Marie* with her schwarmerei about Seamus.* Karen* with her outrageous stories. Jeannie* irrationally blurting out that you must hate her. Did it never occur to you that you all were suffering from cabin fever, that you were going a little stir-crazy? No? Is that because you thought you were strong enough to deal with all that? That that part of things, you had under control?

"And the trouble with Lukas*, the part you're confessing as your weakness, as your lack of control: No, young Blogwen, that's where you sought to retain power most of all. Once or twice you played with the idea that the problem and therefore the responsibility might lie most of all with him. But most of the time you were saying to yourself, 'What have I done wrong? How did I make him treat me like this? What must I be to deserve this?' Sounded really humble, didn't it?

"But, young Blogwen, humble it was not. Because if you could put Lukas'* uncivil behaviour down to something you had been or done, you were still in control. You could fix it, or solve it, or atone for it, or change yourself from being it. But you can't fix, solve, atone for, change, or control him. Not Lukas Renzberger*, not any other person outside yourself.

"And, kid, you know what's funny: if you'd been awake to and willing to accept your true weaknesses and vulnerability, you would have achieved true control-- that is, over your own attitude. You could have confronted the stresses and storms raging in your life head-on like the adult you were supposed to be. What's more, you could have said, 'Lord, I've got a lot coming at me, I can't handle it on my own, but I trust You to help me focus on You and live in Your strength, not in my own weakness. Things aren't wonderful up here at Iona, they're not what I expected, but with Your help, Lord, I can make the best of them. And if my friend Lukas* of his own fault has a problem to do with me, You can help me make the best of that, too."

All this is what I'd say to Lukas* and to my 1989 self. But it's a good thing for me to say to my 2008 self, too.


One last thing, and we'll get on with the journey. In our conversation that April Saturday, I'd told Lukas* that I'd seen and feared his Easter behavior as a repeat and worsening of his sudden coldness to me at Christmas in Switzerland. He told me he'd had no idea he'd lapsed into nothing but Swiss German after Christmas dinner. Nor had he felt any constraint between us. The German, he said, had just been the result of his being at home and relaxing and going back to normal home habits. Nothing else.

That's what he said in April. But in June, shortly before we both returned to our respective countries, a revelation emerged. Seems when I came to visit in December, his mother found out I could sew, cook, keep house, and I was good at picking up languages. So at Christmas and from time to time subsequently she'd been dropping little hints that I might make her son good wife material, hmm, ya know? And while he felt safe enough with me at college, when it was just us out in the world, he felt obliged to, well, discourage anything in me that he took to mean I was, um, agreeing with her. And in fact part of his problem at Iona was that he was sure I was there largely to make his mother's wishes come true.

Oh, good grief. The truth will out, whether it's in time to be useful or not!

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Eleven

Monday, 27 March, 1989
Iona to Helensburgh
Day Eleven, Easter Monday

My attempts to get to sleep last night looked for awhile to be quite in vain, as Therese* contracted a bad case of diarrhea of the mouth. She started rambling inanely on and on about her adventures in prep school till I had a terrible case of the giggles and Marie* nearly came over and killed her. Still, in a perverse way it was nice, because predominantly it seemed hilariously funny and not a cause for rancor at all.

Dragged myself out at 4:15 nonetheless and got everything packed up in the nick of time. Marie*, bless her, got up and dressed just to see me off, though I nearly had a heart attack at the jetty when my backpack, which she had carried out for me, was momentarily nowhere to be found. I’m afraid I didn’t impress anyone with my maturity for a minute or two . . . All the suppressed stress threatened to come out at this least opportune of moments. Thankfully, it was found and all was well with the luggage.

Raining again, of course, and pitch black, except for the lights, so no photos of the Sound of Iona again.

Not a hell of a lot to say about the trip to Oban, besides that I’m glad to have a reasonable set of sea legs. Makes boat trips much more enjoyable. As for my hope of talking to Lukas* on the Mull bus, forget it. He was still thoroughly occupied with one of the girls from the abbey program. If I did fancy him I could’ve felt jealous, but as it was I was merely disgusted at his incredibly rude behavior at not even greeting me this morning, especially after what happened in Communion yesterday. I don’t know what he did on the ferry to Oban; he retired to the boat’s cafeteria for some breakfast and I ascended to the observation deck.

There I was kept amused by the Tzubekis’* little girl Tumelo* and her friend, the little son of another African family that had been on Iona, and was able to be useful in taking a picture of the two families out on the boat’s deck.

A short time later we docked in Oban and I lugged my stuff to the Astra, which thankfully was still there in the BritRail parking lot, undisturbed. As I was stowing my things in the trunk I thought about Lukas* and wondered what Jesus would do in this situation.

My inclination was to bitterly say to hell with Mr. Renzberger* and drive off. The positive and mannerly thing would be to go back to the train station and wish him a good trip. Who knows what Lukas* would’ve preferred, but as far as I could tell, Jesus would do the positive thing.

So back I went, to wish him well and to inquire civilly after his further plans. Well, said he formally and distantly, he’d be up in Inverness for awhile and then after that, who knows; he didn’t have to be back at Coverdale* when the regular students did and he might not return till after the 20th. Charming, considering he’d said before the end of Hilary Term that he’d definitely be back the week of April 9th and had accepted my invitation to dinner . . .

Hell, what would Jesus do in a situation like that? Jesus has the advantage of knowing that it isn’t any sin He’s committed that’s making another give him the brush-off. But I can’t help but wonder what the hell is it I’ve done to offend Lukas*, that he should treat me so badly.

My tiredness and lack of sleep and the stress of driving on wet, narrow, twisty, rock wall lined roads added no good to my state and the only thing that prevented me from breaking down crying right there at the wheel was the knowledge that if I was blinded by tears a serious accident could ensue.

But as soon as I reached Inverary I stopped and bought a pastry and a bit of bread and cheese to eat. And I got a postcard and wrote and sent it to Friedhelm* [a German theology student who'd spent only Michaelmas Term at Coverdale*] . Friedhelm*, to my recollection, though at times reserved, never acted like a jerk. I miss Friedhelm* a great deal.

After that I made it down to Helensburgh without having an accident, despite more rock walls and being stuck for a long time behind a trailer being drawn by one of those ridiculous three-wheeled mini-cars.

When I got into town I parked the car at the lot by the big Clyde estuary and went and got a cup of tea and another cake (just what I needed, more sugar). Back to the tourist office then and found out the way to Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Hill House.

Still thinking about this thing with Lukas*, though. The only thing I can conceive that I could’ve done to offend him is to be myself, who I am. But you can’t go to another human being and say, "Forgive me for living"-- because that’s not your fault, it’s God’s. They should take it up with Him. Still, I don’t know what’ll be worse-- if we get along terribly once we’re back at Coverdale* or if he’s sweet and nice again and I suppress all my anger at him because I’m afraid this weekend was all my fault or because I don’t want to rock the boat.

The Hill House was swathed in scaffolding and translucent plastic, to repair the exterior surfacing. But it was still open inside. It was thoroughly a matter of "O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!" as in its perfection of proportion and decoration and detailing it is excruciatingly beautiful. Especially when I came into the drawing room, with that white bay window flooded with light, I just wanted to sit down and weep for the sheer loveliness of it.

But you can’t-- all the chairs say "Do not sit!" on them. And the place was flooded with other people, all talking in whispers as if they were in church . . . funny, when you consider all the children the Blackies had, and how they must’ve gone running and shouting up and down those gracefully-ornamented stairs.

Seeing all the custom designed furnishings and fittings, I had to think of Eric* [the architect I'd worked for for over seven years] and the work he does, that I used to do with him . . . And to wonder if the design I did for the Griffons* just before I left Myron’s* [the architect I'd been working for up to the time I left for Oxford] has been built, and if so, how properly.

Because although it costs more now and the craftsmen are hard to find, this sort of thing can still be done. Maybe not the amazing curves in the furnishings, but the inlays and repoussés, yes.

It’s good to have all the rooms I’ve seen in photographs now totally assembled and arranged in proper order in my head. It’s now a house, and not an artifact.

It’s hard to know what to say about it all; let the photographs I took speak for me. But it makes me what to get back to designing myself, and if my work should have a bit of Mackintosh influence in it, so be it. Originality cannot come to life fully blown, it must pass through many stages and influences first. (Or so I tell myself in resolved self-correction, for my lack of productivity as an artist is largely due to my feeling that if what I’m about to do isn’t going to come out a masterpiece it oughtn’t to be done at all.)

It is so wonderful to see how everything flows together to make a total design, and good to know that the clients do exist who are willing to help make it happen.

I wandered round the garden afterwards. The rose bushes were just coming into leaf. Stylized roses within, real roses without. But these were also stylized in their way, being trained to the lines that Mackintosh drew, as individual trees or as intertwined arches. I wondered about the suitability of this, but may not a cultivated rose, which is not strictly a "natural" object after all, rejoice to find itself accorded a part in a great artist’s vision?

Perhaps someday I’ll see it all in bloom. Then I’ll be better able to tell if he was right.

Thereafter drove back down to the city center and waterfront and got the lady at the Tourist Bureau to book me a room at a Helensburgh B&B. No way I was going to make it to Glasgow tonight. Too damn tired.

Before going over I found a place to sell me more 400 Ektachrome. Yes, I’m out again. Six rolls, another minor fortune on the Visa.

Had a dickens of a time finding the place I’d been sent to, and when I arrived the lady apologised but they’d just been painting the walls and her husband had vetoed the idea of taking in any guests till the paint was thoroughly dry. They’d already fixed me up at another place, though, and I set out in search of it.

More fun with that; had to stop at a gas station where one of the clerks called the place and got more specific directions.

So I finally landed around 6:30. Lovely house, lovely hostess, tea and biscuits on a tray-- but God, that room was cold. I suppose I was hungry but I was too exhausted to move. I just put on another sweater and sat huddled in a chair, trying to make sense of this weekend but unable to maintain a continuous string of coherent thought.

Gave up around 9:00 and got into bed but stress kept me awake quite awhile longer. The noise from the TV down the foyer made lightnings go off in my head, just like Daddy used to have after his head injury . . . I wonder if he knew a lot of that was probably stress.

I wonder if I was the cause of a lot of it . . .

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Ten

Sunday, 26 March, 1989
Iona
Day Ten, Easter Sunday

Odd thing at breakfast. For some reason they toast only white bread here, and put it out on toast racks to get cold, while the wheat bread sits in the basket untoasted. A couple days ago I located the toaster in the kitchen and as it worked like the kind we have at Coverdale* I’ve been nipping back to do myself some wheat toast, properly hot. This morning I took orders for some others at the table and came back to do them, seven slices in all. Jeannie Brownlea*, one of the older members of the MacLeod Center party, was back there on the same errand. I told her what I was there for and she said, "I’ve got six in here already. Is that enough?"

"No, I need seven."

"But I’ve got six in here."

"That’s all right, but I need seven. I’ll do more."

"There’s no more wheat bread."

"Oh. Well. Well, don’t worry about it. We’ll make do."

"Is six enough?"

"Well, we wanted seven . . . "

I haven’t recalled this word for word, I’m sure. The point is that she kept making all sorts of suggestions that simply ignored the mathematical realities (especially if she’d been planning any of the wheat toast she was making to go to her own table) and I could not make her understand otherwise.

Whereupon she rounds on me and says, "I think you hate me. I can tell these things and I really think you hate me."

The uncomfortable thing is that I am not entirely innocent of negative attitudes in her regard; she is in her late 60s or so and has the look of the kind of woman who appears in Presbyterianews as having loudly supported some outmoded and anti-Christian liberal cause at the last General Assembly. And I confess I find her hovering, birdlike intensity is a bit wearing. But I also know that many people who have at first struck me unfavorably eventually have been revealed as worthy of esteem. And even if not, "hate" is too personal, energised, and involved a word for her in this situation.

The joke is, that my "hating" her is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. For now I do want to avoid her, if only because she’s the uncomfortable type of person who takes a conversation onto a personal level in the most inappropriate circumstances. If she were my age I would tell her so. But because of her years I need to keep my distance-- and keep my mouth shut.

After breakfast somebody came in and said we were supposed to be doing toilets right then, just like yesterday and the day before. Not bloody likely. I have to get dressed for church.

Wore the gray corduroy skirt and the silk blouse, with silk longies under. Bright pink wool Shetland sweater over, but the only real concession I made to possible foul weather was donning my black suede boots instead of dress flats over my white WinterAlls stockings. Dammit, it’s Easter and I am not wearing my blue corduroy jeans to church. Especially because I am not feeling the impact of the occasion, it’s essential I keep up the ceremonies, to prevent me from degenerating entirely.

Karen* and Therese* conspired to put up my hair and I donned my blue silk Liberty scarf. When I assayed the makeup Karen* said, "Are you trying to seduce the priest?"

"I’m trying to figure out if there is a priest around here!" Three days of services already and I still don’t know who’s in charge.

More half-baked drama in the cloister beforehand, a somewhat silly updating of the Road to Emmaus story. But I expect that by now.

And there was actually a sermon during the service proper, by a big mucky-muck of the Community who came in from Glasgow or somewhere. Full of the meaning of Easter as it bore on all sorts of bad social and political situations. Not bad for its kind, very applicable and cogent, but I’m starving for some Scriptural exposition. Then he ended up referring to the Holy Spirit as "she" again and what could I do but put up with it?

To do him justice he did mention the plight of people around us, but I-- I feel I have no right to feel any hurt, having been in no wars and no long term deprivation . . . Not physically, at least. Marie* was talking last night (after she’d decided it was her fault Seamus* was acting like a jerk) about the need not to want things as we’d like them . . . Right. So let’s forget about loving or being loved and become Stoics or Buddhists. There is a Christian renunciation but how it works is a mystery to me.

I thought as hard as I could about Nigel*, down in S--, in church, maybe with Emily*? trying to cope with the rotten situation going on in his family, and I was thinking Bless him, bless him, O Lord; since I can receive no blessing, grace him with my share even now . . .

But more I am aware of Lukas*, and unavoidably think of the song "Easy to Be Hard":

How can people have no feelings?
How can they ignore their friends?
Easy to be hard,
Easy to be cold.

’Specially people who care about strangers,
Who care about evil, and social injustice!
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend . . .

And here it is Easter, and there he is, one of three pairs who will administer the Sacrament, and here I am, feeling cold and dead and entombed still, wishing I were a million miles away. But I am gripped cruelly by the stranglehold of present reality, seeing that though we celebrate Christ’s resurrection every Easter, that each Easter I rise with Him less and less, till some time soon I will revive not at all and stay closed in the tomb forever.

And then, O God, the three pairs took up their stations and we were instructed to receive from those closest, and I was in the aisle seat in the crossing, and Lukas* and his partner were assigned to the crossing. I couldn’t convince myself that he hadn’t seen me sitting there, thus freeing me to receive down front. Doing it under his eye would have been a demonstration of personal feeling that even I, degenerate though I am, recognised to be dreadfully out of place.

So I was doomed to be where I was. I let many people into the line ahead of me, trying to put it off as long as possible. But it couldn’t be avoided.

The girl who was distributing the bread gave me much too big a piece. But I confess I probably would’ve choked on it anyway, however small, my mouth was so dry. There was no time to get it down before I’d stepped over and stood in front of-- whom? My friend? Don’t make miserable jokes. This time I won’t comprehend.

I didn’t want to look at him but I had to, to keep from dropping or spilling the chalice. And as I received the wine he stood there with his hands outstretched as if in blessing. And he looked straight into my eyes, the most intimate of smiles in his own, as if he were saying, "Take, drink, I share this with you!"

And I don’t know what mine said back, but they wanted to scream, "Lukas Renzberger*, are you trying to kill me? What is this mockery? You pretend to offer me Communion-- why can’t you maintain it in our daily lives?"

My misery was such that I could hardly stand. I felt very, precipitously, close to committing the unforgivable sin of falling down crying before him, as if somehow I could beg and plead the caring, considerate Coverdale* version of him to please, please take me in his arms and let me cry out all the hurt and turmoil-- not as prelude to any claim upon him, but as a support, till I could stand alone again.

But I controlled myself long enough to get back to my seat, though I couldn’t produce the words of the Communion hymn. I dared not cry; he was too close. I was too exposed.

Then the service was over and everyone went back out into the cloister. The fiddle played, the flutes piped, the little choir sang. And those who were moved to, danced around the daffodil-bedecked cross that had been placed against the Lipschitz sculpture at the cloister garth’s center. I stood there woodenly looking on, but forced myself to understand that if Lukas* should happen to see me there alone, he would probably conclude that I had come up to Iona just to be with him, and was refusing now to be with any other.

So I exerted myself to put on a social façade, a process aided by the suggestion? command? made inside the church that when the remains of the Communion bread went around we were to share it with someone we didn’t know. Fortunately I didn’t have to choose with whom in all that vast crowd of strangers I would share with; an abbey staff person named Fiona*-- I think she’s in the choir-- came up and offered me a bit of hers. There were enough safe topics to talk about there, so that was ok until I felt I’d put in my time and could leave.

There was a seminar afterwards, back at the Center. I was a good girl and went, though for a moment it threatened to be disastrous. The topic today was Joy, and the woman leading was eliciting things each of us were feeling joyful about. I was afraid we were going to have to go around and speak each in turn, and I was hovering so close to the surface of brutal honesty that I wouldn’t’ve made things very pretty.

But thank God, the discussion got off on the difference between joy and happiness, especially as it related to the case of the Tzubeki* family, who are here in Scotland studying in Edinburgh, and trying to get political asylum from South Africa. So Caroline Tzubeki* kept the floor most of the time, talking about life in Soweto, which I found a salutary distraction in more ways than one.

It’s a real temptation for me to want to say to her, "What are you complaining about? You’ve got your nice husband and your beautiful little girl. You don’t have to face your problems alone!" Which shows you what a selfish degenerate I’ve become, and where I think the answer to all my problems lies . . .

Wrote a poem about this morning at Communion during the seminar. Always helps, turning hurt into art. That is if it is art. Maybe that’s what I’ll find out if I can get a creative writing tutor next term. I don’t want my work merely to be the emotional and verbal equivalent of a trip to the toilet. And I’ve seen much so-called poetry that so obviously is.

Easter dinner was pleasant. Great triumph of sentiment over principle-- we had ham. And it was good ham, too.

And they’d scrounged some more construction lumber scraps to build the fire with. I know that’s full of creosote-causing preservatives and isn’t half so hotly-burning as coal, but it has the blessed advantage of being a heck of a lot easier on the nose and the lungs, especially as this fireplace here doesn’t draw worth a poop. (Practically brand-new and there’s soot all the way up the chimney breast.) This weekend’s the first time I’ve ever experienced a coal fire, and I regret to say that it smells like what we would at home call a very bad case of pollution. I can’t believe people put up with it.

But it was wood at dinner today, and that was a relief.

Yesterday evening in the laundry room the housekeeper told me that due to the Easter Monday bank holiday there’ll be only one bus across Mull tomorrow. And to get it we’ll have to catch the Iona ferry at 5:30 in the morning. At dinner, then, I discussed with one of the men here the possibility of hitching a lift with him across Mull a little later, since he brought his car as far as Fionnphort. He says it depends on whether the Mull to Oban ferry is running more than once tomorrow.

To me, it depends upon what Lukas’s* plans are, for in this I do want to accord my actions to his. Perhaps he just wants to spend all the time he can now with his new friends. But when everyone leaves there’s a chance we can have a nice companionable chat on the bus, my tensions towards him can be relaxed, and I won’t go off feeling as I did after I left him in Switzerland last December. And I might find out what happened in Liverpool. There is to be a ceildhe tonight here; I could make myself inquire casually after his plans then.

Wrote postcards to friends in the States after dinner. Funny, but I forgot to take them to the postbox at the abbey when I went over there to buy my obligatory Iona sweatshirt. Not 100% sure why I got one of those, but I did. Burgundy red, medium. And a detailed map of the island. It’ll help me label my slides later.

Still overcast but the wind has died down considerably today. So around four o’clock I set out to do a bit of the hillwalking I actually came to Iona for. Left my skirt on-- a romantic fancy, I suppose-- and simply pulled the blue hiking socks over my winter weight stockings.

Set off more or less to the west. I was actually aiming for the high point north of the MacLeod Center but the fences kept getting in my way. I am told that since this is National Trust land it’s ok to walk anywhere, but you’d never know it from the lack of gates and stiles. There were a lot of other people about, so if they could find ways through, so could I.

Going out was definitely a good idea. I don’t say anything so silly as that the necessity of choosing to which tussock or stone to step next puts one’s interpersonal problems into perspective. But the mental and physical occupation does blunt some of the emotional sting as you run over the problems in your head.

Thinking about it thus, it seems to me that the best explanation may be that Lukas* is one of those people who assigns others to specific times and places, and if a friend steps out of that frame they’re out of place and can legitimately be ignored. As soon as they put themselves back, all again is well. Because I cannot come up with anything I have done to offend him and I refuse to believe he’s being calculatedly mean. I do think he’s being thoughtlessly rude, though. And it doesn’t become him at all.

The barren yet varied landscape with its muted tones and textures played harmony to my overall melancholy, which thankfully was able to be expressed in music. Bless you, Lord, for allowing me my top notes and good wind today, so that I could produce a satisfactory and sustained sound despite the scrambling around I was doing. It was even more satisfactory in that after awhile, as I moved further inland, there was absolutely no one else around to hear me, except for the sheep. They paid strict attention, wanting to make sure this strange noisy creature meant them no harm, and they’d stop grazing and stare and stare until satisfied I was harmless.

Sur les monts les plus sauvages,
Que ne suis-je un simple pasteur?

I tried to sing some Easter hymns but I kept getting the verses scrambled. And so fell back on Berlioz and Schubert. Dear Hector! Why are you dead and gone? I think you would’ve so much enjoyed walking these hills . . . You might even have been able to deal with me. But thank God, your music goes with me, even if you cannot.

There’s so much amazing vegetation out on the moors. There is a lot of a low-growing evergreen sort of groundcover, whose new growth comes up red. And this soft black moss, like velvet, that grows on the rocks. I don’t know if its color comes from the peaty soil (i.e., it’d be green elsewhere) or if it is an example of planned symbiosis between plant and site. Whichever it is, it's marvellous in its subtle beauty.

I wandered as far as the sea at the Mhachair on the west side of the island. The sun was peeking in and out, laying silver bands of brilliance upon the water. Somebody had stamped his initials in the wet sand of the beach, which was a pity. But still I could enjoy the silence that was only augmented by the surging of the waves and the high mewling cries of the gulls.

It was getting up towards 6:00 by now but I wasn’t particularly concerned, since Summer Time came on last night. Still, I felt I’d better head back. Did indulge in a scenario of what if I were benighted and the gales came back and . . . But I decided it wouldn’t be feasible to perish out there tonight. I hadn’t any paper or pen with me to write and apologise to my mother for being such a bother-- and to thank Nigel* (in a discreet manner of course) for how good he’s been to me. As for Herr Renzberger*, he wouldn’t get any coverage, and good enough for him, too.

After awhile, though, increasing fatigue made undivided attention to picking my footing and making sure I was headed in the right direction supersede any such thoughts. The ground, understandably, was thoroughly soaked and two or three times, despite my best care, I slipped on grassy slopes and arose with a glaring souvenir of bog mud on my left side and back. (This was deliberate-- the right side, where I carry my cameras, must be protected.)

Thought I’d make for the beach on the north end of the island and follow it round to the road I took yesterday. But when I got up there I was further to the west of it than I thought and only steep rocks led to the sea. So I headed for the next landmark I knew, the great high point of the Dun, I think it’s called. Wanted to go up it before; now it was the best idea since from its top I’d be able to see the abbey and the Center and I’d know exactly where I was. And so I did eventually reach the summit, and added my stone to its cairn (no one has told me so, but that seemed like the proper thing to do).

Couldn’t stay up there admiring the view, though, for inevitably it began to rain. Straight down rain, thankfully, but not what you want to stand about in anyway. My shoes were long since thoroughly soaked and now the rest of me had a chance to join the party, if I didn’t get moving.

Carefully down the slope, through a few more bogs, across another burn or two, and then, finally, through a gate into a farmer’s field that was so thoroughly squelching with mud that there wasn’t any point in being careful about it. Then out the gate to the road and on through the rain to shelter as quickly as possible.

But I still had breath for what was important, and be hanged to any German-speakers who might hear me as I drew near to the abbey:

Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden
Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
Hast du mein Herz im warmer Liebe entzunden,
Hast mich in eine bessre Welt entrückt,
In eine bessre Welt entrückt!

It was past 7:30 when I got back. There was a wedding in the abbey church at 6:00 with a reception after that that everyone was invited to, which of course I’d missed. But I can go to weddings anywhere. Only in Scotland can I have the exquisite fulfillment of slogging through peat bogs and being a better person for the experience.

First item of importance, take a shower. Second thing, wash out the filthy shoes and clothes and put them in the drying room. And hope they’re ready to be packed by tomorrow.

Changed into my other skirt and made my appearance at the ceildhe after 9:00 (it started at 8:30). By then I was so tired I didn’t really care, but had decided enough of this crap, I had to talk to Lukas*.

The dances were all of the country variety, but unlike at Coverdale* at Christmas nobody taught them. It was like my home church choir director and the "Hallelujah Chorus"-- no rehearsal time because of course you’re born knowing it. It was pretty funny, because the PA system went down and you couldn’t hear the fiddle or guitars at all, but only the thump of the tambour and the shouts of the dancers counting steps in largely-vain attempts to keep themselves straight.

I didn’t dance; you needed a partner and I was too physically tired to make the effort to choose somebody to ask. Lukas* was keeping himself thoroughly occupied on the floor, a fact which at another time I would’ve witnessed with vicarious pleasure and satisfaction. Just now, however, it only filled me with the cynical sense that well, our little world of this weekend is yet proceeding according to its own established order . . .

But I did get a chance to talk to him a little while he was sitting one out. A bit of chitchat about the dancing, then a casual question as to whether he was leaving tomorrow morning or staying till later. He replied that it was tomorrow morning or nothing, so I kept my mouth shut about the possibilities of rides across Mull later in the day. If I appear on the jetty in the midst of the rest of the sleep-benumbed throng tomorrow at 5:30 AM, he will have no reason to impugn my motives.

I told him I’d just been on a three and a half hour hike around the island. He immediately countered with the statement that last Wednesday he, along with the rest of the abbey group, had gone on a six-hour "pilgrimage" around Iona, visiting all the famous hermitages and other religious sites, and, in the process, establishing a wonderful bond among them all. That, I thought, was tolerably obvious.

I wanted to say something that would reveal even to me myself that I could rejoice with him in this, but I couldn’t manage it. So I sufficed with something on the order of "That’s nice," and said we at the Center weren’t so fortunate, as having to spend so much time in services and other activities we hadn’t much chance to form interpersonal relationships. "I’m afraid there was rather more program than I’d bargained for, though I suppose I should’ve expected it . . . "

"But you didn’t have to attend all those things! You could have done other things if you’d liked!"

Oh? Maybe so, but that’s not the way I was raised.

The last dance was played around 10:40 and then the abbey group members took turns taking funny pictures of their assemblage. It briefly flitted through my mind to offer to take one of them all to give to Lukas* at Coverdale*. But just as quickly I knew that’d be meddling impertinence. Besides, I’m sure he’s already got someone pledged to send him a copy of theirs.

So I took off for the laundry room to see to the last bit of wash that was still soaking in the sink, and so much for my first Scottish ceildhe . . .

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Nine

Saturday, 25 March, 1989
Iona
Day Nine, Holy Saturday

Another session this morning, which I wasn’t particularly keen to go to. The handout had a poem in it, and I had to make myself see my apathy in that I couldn’t even identify with it, though the situation the poet described could be considered very close to my own. "That’s his problem," I tend to think.

But the sun was still out afterwards, and I walked to the beach at the north end of the island, joined for awhile by Marie*, one of the other women in my dorm room. Today you could see the peaks of Mull, with one tallish one all covered in snow. And I could observe the horses out running, and the red-feathered chickens, and the sober black-faced sheep, and the shaggy Highland cattle. A lark was singing high overhead, the first I’d ever seen or heard.

Marie* turned back when we approached the beach, as the sea air breezes give her sinus trouble. But I went all the way down to the rocks and looked out at the little islands across the water. There were cattle grazing among the washed-up kelp and sea gulls crying overhead. This is what I came to Iona for . . . instead I’m spending most of my time so far sitting in church and not in particularly satisfying church, either.

After a hurried lunch (I was late getting back; it was vegetarian again) I did more handwash. Only this time the spin-dryer really got off balance and the plastic baffle affair you put on your clothes really got chewed to heck. At least it’s only that and not the machine itself.

Finally got around to writing Daddy a note for his birthday. Took it down to the village to mail it, borrowing a piece of tape from a store clerk when the envelope gum refused to stick.

There were children in the lane playing with pieces of styrofoam insulation that the wind had blown away from the Center construction materials depot yesterday. No telling where the rest of it is now.

Stopped into the Abbey bookstore and only bought a few postcards. Christine MacLean was there and I told her about the spin dryer baffle. She said not to worry; she doubted it could be that bad.

So I came back and did my best to destroy it some more, doing more wash that wouldn’t fit in the first time around. Actually, I have gotten the hang of how to stop the machine before too much damage is done.


I’m not sure what to make of Karen* and Therese*, the two other girls in my dorm. Therese* is a vegetarian but she smokes, so I suppose her motivation for not eating meat is concern for animals and not care for her own health. Karen* puts on the most outrageous airs and tells whopping tales that you simply can’t believe. Where they are as Christians I can’t tell at all, because although they seem to be into things that smack terribly of New Age spaceheadedness I couldn’t say if they’d go along with the rest of the N.A. program or if they simply have certain ecological, etc., concerns in common with New Agers. And I haven’t got the energy to get into a debate about it.

Besides, I find they have a streak of cynicism about the whole programmatic structure here that I find all too easy and amenable to identify with. They cheerfully sleep through anything they please. I have punted a seminar or two already but I don’t feel too confident about it.

But I tell myself I can sit in church meetings anywhere, and these aren’t particularly effective or fulfilling church meetings, I feel so out of fellowship here (Palm Sunday service in March was much better). But only here (in light of my schedule) can I walk along the hills and beaches of Scotland, and that’s what I came here to do.

If it would stop blowing and sleeting for an hour together!

Yes, it started again this afternoon, almost as bad as before. I’m glad I dug out my silk longies at the last minute before I left Oxford.


Saw the film The Mission in the chapterhouse of the abbey this evening. I’d been wanting to see that. Problematic picture. One knows that love is more powerful in the long run but still I found myself wanting to root for the priests who chose to fight, who left the way of peace. Maybe it’s because I’m rather angry right now, at things in particular, and those people were doing what I felt. More objectively, it seems as if the people in the story failed to ask the essential question. And that is, if we have to cease to follow Christ in order to preserve the Jesuit Order, what the hell use is the Jesuit Order?

Or any church institution, for that matter?

Marie*, who also saw it, thinks it was done from a liberation theology viewpoint and of necessity would glorify the priests who chose to fight. I didn’t see it as quite that severely slanted but she has a point, anyway.

She’s a funny person. She’s going through a divorce, or has just gotten one, I’m not sure which, and her emotions are extremely volatile. At one point she’ll be telling you how incredibly high and happy she’s feeling in the experience of being here and two hours later she’s crying her eyes out. Or she speaks of how calm she feels-- but confesses she’s been chain-smoking since she arrived.

There is something in the way of an explanation, though. She also has a friend attending the abbey program, who, like Lukas*, apparently hasn’t been acting all that friendly. But it’s worse for her-- she confesses she has been in love with him and he knows it. And seemingly he’s attempting to squelch it in that disgusting wet-blanket male way.

It was enough like my situation that in the tea time between the video and the vigil service at 11:15 PM I pointed out Lukas* and told her why I could empathise with her problem, even though mine isn’t exactly analogous. I was even so reckless as to admit that though I don’t fancy Mr. Renzberger* in that way there is another Coverdale* student I wish I could, except that he’s thoroughly taken . . .

But I think that was mostly to keep her from thinking I did like Lukas* the same way she likes her recalcitrant friend Seamus*-- as well as for the sheer pleasure of speaking about Nigel* even without actually naming him.

The rotten thing is, the more Lukas* acts like a complete jerk and вопреки, the more important he’s becoming to me. He didn’t come to the video and I found myself regretting his absence. And seeing him across the room with his new friends, acting as if I didn’t exist, made me want to slide into the attitude of a dog eagerly waiting and hoping for the least crumb from its master’s table. I try to shake myself out of this by taking the superior position that well, obviously he hasn’t learned the lesson of the old Girl Scout song:

"Make new friends
But keep the old;
One is silver
And the other, gold."

But in the general frame of mind I brought with me its very hard to maintain that. I keep thinking it’s me, something I’ve done to offend him, and I feel myself craving his notice and approval to reassure me I’m acceptable and forgiven.

It sounds as if I’ve got this all analysed out and intellectually settled, but I haven’t at all. Somehow his present caddish behavior is throwing the memory of what a dear, caring person he can be into bright and high relief, making me want to flee to that Lukas* for comfort and warmth and security-- but instead I find only this cold, heedless, aloof reality, and my sense of loss is doubled. If only he would--! I am tempted to think, and the responding "Never!" falls into the deep pit of all the other "nevers" in my limited life, a pit that threatens to swallow me up with them.

Hope of some vague, unfocussed sort does insist on rearing its head, however. Both last Saturday walking along the Backs behind Nigel's* old college of Clare and now here in this wild weather I am nudged to recall the Robert Browning poem, "Never the Time and the Place." I wonder if the abbey library has a copy of it. God, it would be wonderful if I could be sure that

This path so soft to pace shall lead
Through the magic of May to [him]self indeed!

But how and with whom, I haven’t the least idea.

But now it was time for the Easter vigil service. I can’t say I really like this night-before celebration business, it seems a bit previous to me. I suppose I need the sense of anticipation brought about by sleeping on the thing, both at Christmas and Easter. Anyway, here it was.

The service had more drama and no preaching and little if any Scripture reading, again. I guess they assume everyone here knows the Easter story, because a lot of it was pantomime, in the American sense, and not all that well done.

I was somewhat taken aback when in a Scripture quotation used as part of a litany the Holy Spirit was referred to as "she." I’d be awfully interested in knowing what the exegetical basis of that is. But at the moment I shall assume it is merely a fashionable affectation and like disco and polyester leisure suits will eventually blow over. There’s nothing I can do about it here and now and besides, it is only a ripple in the great pond of my isolation here . . . isolation caused not so much by evident doctrinal disagreement with most people here as by, apparently, some fatal flaw in myself. I seem to be losing all ability to make and keep contact with others, and Lukas* and his avoidance of me is a glaring, blaring symbol of my alienation. If he will not come forward and accept me as a human being and a friend, how can I ever expect anyone else to?

Well, a little early (11:55 PM) but close enough the service got to the point where the Lord could be officially declared to be Risen and the abbey bells tolled and tolled. A great continuing chant of "Alleluia" arose and the church was gradually relit, the candle flame being passed from one person to another. The ornaments were brought back as the black draperies were stripped away.

And last of all, as I’d expected, dear Lukas* himself grandly bore the silver cross back to the altar and placed it there as offstage (appropriate term) cymbals clashed and the altar spots came back on for the first time since Thursday night. And I, neither wanting to succumb utterly to my misery nor to allow myself to feel too proud of him, despite his actions toward me, dragged a bit of grim, cynical humor out of it all, thinking, "Well, his mother obviously gave him a good Swiss upbringing-- he puts things back where he found them."

But it didn’t help a great deal, as the last of the printed songs and responses were sung and the piano banged into "Lord of the Dance" and he and the other people in the worship group began to dance in the aisles. If it’d happened at my home church I would’ve said, "Great!" But here, even though I was singing along with the choruses I was growing more and more distant from it all. If Christ is risen, he is not risen in me, not tonight. Not yet.

My candle blew out at the cloister door, and with it the last of my own warmth and light. Out in the cloister people were grabbing one another in great hugs and crying, "Happy Easter!" If the greeting had been, "He is Risen!" answered by "He is Risen Indeed!" I could have coped with that. That is a statement of fact. But "happy"? That is an emotional state that has nothing to do with me.

The wind and rain were still howling, otherwise I would’ve gone straight back to the Center. But as it was, the prudent thing was to head back to the tea table in the abbey seminar room and wait for the weather to die down.

I was making my way through the crowd in the cloister, not far from where Lukas*, with a very unSwiss lack of reserve, was hugging everyone in sight. Goodie for him. And all of a sudden he was there before me and was enfolding me in his arms, exclaiming, "Happy Easter, Blogwen!" and I-- God help me, I held him tightly as if by the mute pressure of my hands upon his back I could tell him how much I needed him to acknowledge and accept me as a human being and a friend. And then I grew frightened, because if I continued I might not be willing to let him go. So I held him apart from me and asked, "How is it going with you?" meaning this week at the abbey, meaning last week in Liverpool, meaning he himself (when he is himself). He took the first meaning only and politely said, "Oh, the week’s been great. How do you like it?"

"It’s all right," I said noncommittally, knowing my attempt to break through had failed. He released me completely then and turned his attention to others, while I made my way through the painfully joyous crowd, feeling so estranged and alienated but far too present as well. I couldn’t even find any of the people from the Center program. I could no more wade in and embrace those people than if I’d been made of stone.

I am bullheaded in my way, though. I hung about in the cloister passage till Lukas* made his way out of the celebratory embraces and tried again to engage him in conversation. I tried humor, since my emotions had to be kept down at all costs. "I see your mother trained you well. You put things back where you find them."

"It is not a matter of training. It’s a matter of spirituality."

Oh, shit. Does he always have to be so blasted literal? Yes, I realise now it was bad taste to make a joke about something that happened in the service. Just because I was feeling out of it doesn’t mean he was. But he never can tell when I’m joking, and I don’t think it’s the language barrier, I think it’s his lack of imagination. It’s not me. I made another joke in front of one of the Englishmen a little later in the tea room and he got it and laughed immediately.

Hung around in the tea room reading the paper, playing with building blocks, and making polite conversation till 2:30 DST. Lukas* was back to being Mr. Aloof again and I was trying not to give a damn.

Then I and a few others made our way back to the Center. I revised the poem I wrote yesterday . . . Then was in the process of crying myself to sleep with the aid of Schubert Lieder when Karen* roused and informed me the music was leaking out around the headphones and could I please turn it off?

Sure. Right. Whatever you say.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Eight

Friday, 24 March, 1989
Iona
Day Eight, Good Friday

Funny what a creature I am of arbitrary circumstance. I felt much better this morning-- simply because I dreamed of Nigel*. I dreamed he'd adopted me as his sister and put me under his protection. It made me feel so warm and safe and cared for and secure that I could cry recalling it.

This is totally silly, I know. But not absolutely. There is precedent for this in waking life . . . oh, God, protect him!

Everyone is on a chore team here; I am assigned to the toilet-cleaning detail. I have lots of experience at that from my maiding days when I was in Architecture school. Spent much of my stint today cleaning excess grout, sealant, and sanding dust off the fixtures and tile.

10:15 was craft time. As to that, it's become obvious that when Christine MacLean told me on the phone there was a program for people staying at the MacLeod Center, she didn't just mean a special room and board rate. She meant a program-program, with a schedule and meetings and seminars and all. If the weather would behave-- like stop raining horizontally-- I'd maybe say phooey on it and go do what I came here to do. But as it is, I can't go out and there's nothing else really to do up here in the Center. Besides, it feels like since I'm getting such a cheap rate to stay here, I have to "pay" for it by going along with expectations.

Which this morning was a craft session. We were supposed to do a collage sharing the journey of our lives (vs. the life of Christ, which is what I would have expected on Good Friday) and then explain it tonight in a session. Oh, shit. Expose myself in front of all these strangers, with whom I may not even be in basic sympathy? But I decided I didn’t want to suffer another creative block like I did in January† so I made myself go to work anyway, in chalk. (Finding magazine pictures would’ve taken too long.) Depicted the truth, too, since I couldn’t begin to lie about such a thing. Wouldn’t know how.

There was tea at 11:15, then diddling around till time to go to the church for the Good Friday service at noon. It was a Stations of the Cross, thirteen or fourteen of them, with more made-up dramatic language instead of Scriptural passages.

After that there were the Seven Last Words from the Cross, followed each one by ten minutes of silent meditation. I stayed for the first two . . . Lukas* was across the choir. I wondered if he would ever think of praying for me. I’m beginning to gravely doubt it would cross his mind. I prayed for him, and for me, that I would do the right thing by him. And for Nigel*-- all blessings on Nigel*, especially with the troubles he's facing at home with his family back in S-- . . .

It had stopped raining when I left the church, so I walked into the village to see about getting some wash done. But everything was closed for lunch. I could stand on the beach and watch the tide come up, though.

It started to rain before I got back, of course. And blow.

Got myself in for lunch just in time. Soup and crackers with cheese. Soup entirely vegetable-based, very lacking in body-- and soul. I found it a bit demoralising.

Decided to try to get a little Walter Scott read, then did some handwash in the sink in the laundry room here. They don’t have a washer, which is odd, but they do have a spin dryer that takes most of the excess water out of your handwash. It got off-balance once and made the most horrible racket.

I was on the setting up and serving team for supper. Got it done somehow, despite having missed out on the description of the drill. The menu was fish, which was a nice change.

The collage-explaining thing wasn’t as bad as I’d envisioned, mostly because I do feel so out of sympathy with what’s going on here-- don’t worry, I realize it’s my own fault-- that I don’t really care what the people around here think of me. So I can tell them the truth, though of course properly dressed and packaged. One doesn’t want to be tedious, after all.

Another service in the church this evening, of Commitment. More drama, illustrating the people like Peter, Judas, and Pilate, who failed to make a proper commitment to Christ as he was going to the Cross. (Someone had asked me before dinner if I’d be willing to participate and make the noise of the cock crowing offstage as Peter denies Jesus the third time. I said No, for I was feeling too depressed to believe I’d be able to make a sound when the time came. And I couldn’t help believing the Brits were thinking, "Oh, she’s an American, she’s Loud, she’ll do fine." But whoever did it instead did such a piss poor job of it I regretted my decision. I should have gathered all my high school and college drama training about me and let that rooster rip regardless.)

It hit me how ineffective all this liturgical drama is for me when the prayers began and I suddenly realized I was hearing them as still part of the drama, something to be observed and analysed from the outside and not part of an act of worship in which I was to participate.

The burden of the prayers seemed to be towards commitment to one’s fellow man and not to Christ Himself. I suppose you can’t have true commitment to Christ without serving your neighbor. But there’s so many people who think they can achieve commitment to Christ merely by being good to others, with no focus on Jesus Himself, and I don’t think it works. Not that anybody here has said outright they were trying this method . . . One more example of my general ambivalence towards what's going on.

The only time this uncertainty was broken was when in the darkened church some actual words of Jesus from the Scripture were read out, and then the wind of the Spirit began to blow.

Tea in the refectory again. Nothing out of Mr. Renzberger* again. This fact is beginning to assume an importance it shouldn’t have. I could understand him cutting me dead if we’d been very close and quarrelled or if I’d given signs of wanting to be close when he did not, but neither of those things are true. He can't possibly think I've come to Iona just to be with him; we see each other all the time at Coverdale* and besides, I told him last month I'd always intended to come here. I certainly don’t expect him to take great blocks of time out of his fellowship with his new-found friends in the abbey program, but good grief, would it kill him to come and say, "Hi, how’s it going, how are you; well, I have to get back and talk to Whatsername or Whatsisname before they leave"? If he weren’t making me feel as if I had some sort of fatal social disease, I’d say he was being extremely rude.

I wrote a poem about this when I got back to the room, and felt better, a little.
_________________________________
†In January of '89 the married students at Coverdale* College had hosted a progressive dinner. For a party game, at each stop we diners had to execute an assigned art project in a limited amount of time. At the first house, I'd tried to prove my artistic bona fides by working a Masterpiece in the tiny piece of plasticine we were given. I wasn't happy with what I'd made and in my childish frustration smashed it. To make things worse, the host said to me, "That's all right. We can't all be artists!" Crap!

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Seven

Thursday, 23 March, 1989
Glasgow to Iona
Day Seven, Maundy Thursday

It was snowing this morning when I woke up. Lovely.

Breakfast was interesting, as the hostel seemed to have been taken over by a gang of junior high-aged boys, who made a terrible din-- and who insisted on using the women’s bathroom, despite the sign. I’m not sure the food was worth the £1.85-- it was all rather soggy from having languished too long in the bain-marie.

Only 93 miles to the Port of Oban, but I got out of town around 9:30, and good thing I did, too.

First, of course, I have to get lost trying to find the A82 out of Glasgow. But once that was located, I was fine the rest of the way. When the town was cleared you could see the snow-covered foothills of the Highlands, and it was so beautiful! It was "Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen" over and over, and thank goodness I had some decent top notes to sing it with!

The A82 goes along Loch Lomond and where I wasn’t crawling along the queue due to construction work I was hopping out to take pictures. Scotland doesn’t make it easy on you, though . . . No nice designated overlooks as in Nova Scotia.

Got the A85 at Tyndrum and thereafter the weather grew entertaining again. I’m afraid I was becoming thoroughly tense and white knuckled, especially as most of the other drivers were zooming along around the curves as if it were a dry, sunny day. The landscape is beautiful, though, all bathed in mist, and I began to wonder if maybe I should’ve taken the train.

Arrived in Oban a little after 12:00. The ferry to Mull left at 1:00 and I needed every bit of that time to find the ferry pier, buy my ticket, learn where to park the car and park it, assemble my bags, and stagger with them back to the gangway and onto the boat.

On the ferry, I bought a cup of tea and, establishing myself on the upper observation deck, I drank that and ate a bun and a bit of stottie bread. There was a slight swell, though nothing unpleasant. The sea was a beautiful green color under the overcast. You never get out of sight of land on that run . . . I went out on deck despite the flecks of rain and watched the islands with their lighthouses and castles drifting by.

The bus journey across Mull is about 37 miles and takes a long time, along a one-lane road. I couldn’t see much, as the windows were all fogged up. I should’ve brought something on to read. There were a couple of boys, ten or eleven years old, in the back singing popular songs in flat, tinny voices-- they nearly got a paper was bounced off their noggins. Fortunately they were not coming to Iona.

It was raining in earnest at the ferry pier in Fionnphort (pronounced more like "Finnafort"). The Iona ferry is a little thing and I elected not to try to cram into the diminuative cabin with everyone else, but remained out on deck. The sea was indulging in the most lively of leaps and arabesques and making its presence emphatically known over the sides. My umbrella had rather the worst against the wind, so pretty soon I took it down, moved my bags to where they wouldn’t get quite so soaked, and resigned myself to a total-immersion baptism by salt water and fresh.

It’s really a pity my camera isn’t waterproof. The swells were hilarious. And again, that jaw-dropping combination of sea-green and grays and muted blues . . .

The people from the MacLeod Center had brought a blue van down for us and we all piled in. They said the magic words-- "Tea" and "Fire"-- and after a blind journey along a narrow road between rock walls, they made good on the promise.

I suppose the first thing to say is that the Iona Community is not Roman Catholic. After a few questions put here and there, I learned that it’s fundamentally Church of Scotland, which is to say Presbyterian, and was started by the Duke of Argyll fifty years ago [I've since learned that the Duke of Argyll and the Rev. George MacLeod were two different people with different roles in the founding]. But it currently has an ecumenical thrust with emphasis on peace and reconciliation. The members and staff are a mixed group, men and women, singles and marrieds. I’m still not straight on how people join, what sort of commitment they make, or how the community is funded.

The second thing is that the MacLeod Center (named after the aforementioned Duke of Argyll [my misconstrual--see above]) is a brand new building, a replacement for some derelict huts of an old youth camp across the road and up the hill a bit from the abbey, all not far from the Sound of Iona. And unlike a lot of other retreat centers, the owners got an architect to design it. Christine MacLean, the woman who is the Center’s director, told me it was someone named Joe Green, but that sounds highly unlikely in Scotland . . . The detailing of doorframes, pulls, benches and other built-in furnishings, as well as the general proportions and disposition of the spaces, shows a good eye for line, space, and detail. The building isn’t quite finished, as is obvious by the lack of curtains on the windows and all the hooks that aren’t where they should be. But it’s all on order, from what I hear.

The dorm rooms have six berths apiece, with nice new mattresses on the unfinished pine bed frames. Oh, yes, the woodwork still needs to be stained.

After tea and biscuits in front of the fire in what they call the Combination Room (I’d tend to call it the Common Room or the Great Hall), the first order of business was a shower, to wash the highly-evocative but not entirely amenable smell of sea water off my person. After that, I found the drying room (the only warm room in the place) and hung up my wet things. Tempting just to stay in there-- the wind was coming in through every crack and the hardware was not keeping the doors closed at all and the central heating wasn’t working worth a poop. Nothing wrong with that building a little caulk and some revamped hardware wouldn’t solve . . .

Dinner, aka tea, was at 5:30. And I don’t know why, but it bugged me a little that it was vegetarian. Maybe because I associate that kind of thing with political and religious views I’m not entirely in accord with. In fact, I get the strong feeling the whole thrust of this place is a little--ahem--liberal . . . but I’ve learned since coming to Oxford and Coverdale* last October not to automatically brand people heretics just because they have this or that view on isolated topics that happen to be shared with frankly syncretistic or cultish groups. So I’m going to hang loose and see what happens around here. But I really don’t like the ambivalence and find it very hard to relax.

There was a recital down at the Abbey church at 7:15. Goodness, the things I’ll do for music! I have never been out in such wind and rain before in my life, especially not after nightfall. It was sheer labor to make any headway against the gale and the rain was driving so everyone was soaked even before we reached the MacLeod Center gates. And no one in this little group had brought a flashlight with them. You get out in a wild cold dark wet windy blow like that and you’re likely to forget everything except getting in out of it. And it didn’t help that the cloister door down at the abbey has no light over it.

All got in, though, and sat in the choir stalls trying to keep the teeth from chattering while the recital was going on. Various people played: pianists, flautists, a violinist, singers . . . The wind players were rather good but the violinist needs to work on his tone.

Lukas* was not there, but I’ve never known him to be a diehard music lover. There’s time enough to see him and to do that wasn’t the point of coming here, anyway.

The MacLeod Center group had a session in the library over the chapterhouse afterwards. The purpose was to catch us up with what the abbey group has been doing all week, following in Jesus’ footsteps as He moves towards the cross. The avenue to this seemed to be more that of imaginative projection than of direct Scripture-study. And I’m afraid I was rather a вопреки† and inwardly refused to do the ‘quieting’ pre-contemplation exercise, since although quieting is probably just what I need, I associate the prescribed technique with New Age idiocy.

By the time the Maundy Thursday service started in the Abbey refectory I was feeling really out of it. I couldn’t find any of the people I was sharing the room with and Lukas* didn’t come in till the very last and sat quite far from me. And I decided I was going to wait for him to greet me first. It was his prerogative, under the circumstances. He's established his turf here since last Monday and it wouldn't be right for me to push in.

The service proceeded, featuring a bit of drama that may be ok if you know the actual New Testament story but which needed to be taken with a large grain of salt anyway. And a lot of singing. They have a highly skilled a capella choir led by a woman who seems to have perfect pitch. And the acoustics enhance the voices very effectively.

For that matter, I wish I could have gotten my camera down to the abbey without drenching it. The chinks between the stones of the refectory walls were filled with little candles that made a myriad points of light all over the long room.

After the Communion bread (leavened, wheat) and the wine (real, but golden) had gone around and some more singing was done, a chant was begun and everyone proceeded through the cloister for the ceremonial stripping of the church. And behold, Lukas* was holding the door as everyone went out. I saw it would be terribly rude not to acknowledge his presence when face to face with him. So I silently saluted him as I passed . . . he gave me no response . . . and now I’m beginning to wonder if it was a misjudged thing to do. . .

He had his part in the stripping of the church, carrying out the great silver Celtic altar cross. As a recording of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries played, one of the women danced out with a piece of the altar plate in a way that was so effectively barbaric it was almost appalling. How should that sort of thing be done? As if we were mourners ceremonially donning our black clothes, or as impersonators of the despoiling powers of darkness? I’m not sure at all.

There was tea and biscuits back in the refectory thereafter, the cold wind still howling at the windows. Lukas* made no effort to come and greet me, at which I was beginning to be a little irritated. To counteract this feeling I wanted to do something nice for him, like see that he got a cup of tea. But I couldn’t even accomplish that. When he came round to the tea table someone else had the pot and besides, he stated baldly, he was already getting tea for someone else. And that’s all he said to me.

Got wet again coming back to the Center. Stood around with some others in the Combination Room feeding the fire with bits of odd construction wood and cardboard boxes. There’s no proper firewood around here, it seems.

But the heater in the room was beginning to come on, which was encouraging.
_______________________
†"Вопреки" (vopreki), Russian preposition meaning "contrary to"; transmogrified by the characters in my high school Russian class into a noun signifying someone who willfully does the opposite of what's expected of him. It's been part of my personal vocabulary ever since.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: Prelude, Part 3

After my conversation with Lukas* about our respective Iona visits, I realized I’d better make sure I had a place to stay. My plan for my Great Britain tour overall was to book into bed and breakfasts night by night, depending on wherever I happened to be. But I knew of only one lodging place on Iona, the St. Columba Hotel, and it’d be foolish to expect them to accommodate me on the spur of the moment.

I got the number and gave them a call.

Oh, dear, they couldn’t put me up in March. Why, I can’t recall now. Maybe they wouldn’t be open yet for the season. Or they were undergoing renovations. Or they were all booked up already. However it was, there’d be no room at the inn.

"But dinna ye worrit," said the St. Columba’s clerk [Pardon the Scots dialect. I’m going for a wee bit of atmosphere here]. "The Abbey has biggit a luvely new Guest Hoose, an tha’ll be takin ye in. Ye just tak doon this number, an ask for Christine MacLean. She’ll git ye sortit!"

This was before the Internet, of course. You go online now and Google "Iona" and "accommodation" and you’ll get a whole list of places to stay. Maybe they existed back in 1989, maybe not. But from where I sat in late February or early March nineteen years ago, it looked to be the new Abbey Guest House or nothing.

And when I called and spoke to Christine MacLean, the prospect looked very good indeed. I told her when I was tentatively planning to arrive, and she suggested, "Why don’t you come for Easter weekend? We have a lot of things going on and we have a special programme for people staying in the Guest House then." The Guest House, named the MacLeod Centre, wasn’t altogether finished, so they were offering a really good rate for the first group to stay there. I can’t recall now exactly what it was, but my memory urges me that it was around £10 a night with all meals included.

Golly, can’t beat that with a stick!

I would need to stay the entire Easter weekend to get that price, from Maundy Thursday afternoon to Easter Monday morning. But now that she had mentioned it, I liked the idea of being on Iona, the holy isle of Iona, over Easter. I’d attend a service or two, my friend Lukas* would be there to be a familiar face and to compare notes with now and again, and the rest of the time I’d roam the hills and draw and paint and rejoice in God’s creation and Christ’s passion and resurrection, all at once.

So I sent in the prepayment they required. I let Lukas* know our time in Iona would overlap after all, and I began to look forward to what that Easter weekend would bring.

Here endeth the prelude. Let the service, such as it is, begin.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: Prelude, Part 2

"In fact I’m planning on visiting Iona, too," I told my Swiss friend Lukas Renzberger* shortly before Oxford Easter vacation in 1989. "When you’re Presbyterian and you belong to my church, it’s the expected thing."

And that was the simple truth. You were Presbyterian, you went to Scotland, you went to Iona. It’s how I was raised. I’d always assumed I’d get there before I departed Great Britain, and Easter vacation was the ideal time.

But unlike Lukas*, I had no intention of hanging out at the Abbey or doing anything with the Iona Community. In fact, I hadn’t even been aware there was a present-day Iona Community and I wasn’t particularly interested in finding out more about them now.

Yes, I planned to visit the holy sites, ruined and restored. Yes, I planned to reflect on St. Columba and how he brought Christianity from Ireland and planted it on that tiny island back in the early Middle Ages. I planned to appreciate how that seed had taken root and blossomed and spread to the Scottish mainland and back to northern Ireland and, enriched by influences from Geneva, had come over to America and resulted in the tradition I stood in myself.

But primarily I foresaw Iona as a natural retreat, not a religious pilgrimage. On Iona I would have the chance to rejoice in the Scotland I’d yearned for since I was a teenager. It would be a rest from all the driving and sight-seeing I’d be doing up to then. I would wander the peaty hills and breathe the fresh sea air. My ears would drink in the calls of the birds and the crash of the surf; my eyes would be soothed by the spare lines of the landscape.

And maybe, for the first time in ages, I could actually do some art that wasn’t photography.

I’d bought a watercolor kit and paper at the Harrod’s after-Christmas sale. I would pack those. Also my sketchbook and pencils. I’d sit out on the hills and paint and draw en plein air, and feel that my old identity as Artist was not entirely gone.

Sometime during that Easter vacation, I was going to Iona, and on that poetic isle, whether I came across Lukas* there or not, everything would be all right.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: Prelude, Part 1

When I spent the 1988-89 academic year doing a time-warped Junior Year Abroad in Oxford, England, I and several other Americans in my program were lodgers at Coverdale* Theological College. We weren’t the only internationals there: Coverdale* played host to students from Africa, Asia, Canada, and Europe as well.

One of the Europeans was a man from Switzerland whom I’ll call Lukas Renzberger*. Lukas* was ordinarily a student at a Swiss Reformed seminary in Berne, and the fact that we were both from the Reformed tradition and outsiders compared to the Brits made it easy for us to hit it off. Lukas was about 27 at the time, a big, good-looking, well-set-up young man, and single. He would have been very easy for me to fancy, except that my affections were hopelessly, uselessly, but deservedly and thoroughly tied up with the Englishman I’m calling Nigel.*

Not being infatuated with Lukas* made college life with him all the more pleasant. We were friendly enough that it was a comfortable and relaxed thing for him to invite me to spend Christmas with his family in northern Switzerland, but not so close that the invitation and my acceptance carried any awkward implications.

I had a good time there with him and his family, up to mid-day on the 25th. Then, just before Christmas dinner, Lukas* and I got into a debate about the significance and meaning of Holy Communion. Only his father calling us to the table ended it, and after that, Lukas* seemed very distant, only speaking in Swiss German when we were all together, and turning off my attempts to start conversation when we were alone.

This bothered me. Did he think I was a heretic because I didn’t share his Zwinglian views? Maybe he thought I shouldn’t be holding forth on such topics at all! After all, he was the theological scholar and I was only an architect.

But when we both got back to Coverdale* in January, he seemed to be his old amiable self. Our friendship fell back into its usual easy course and I let what had happened in Switzerland go unmentioned.

Fast forward to late February that year, towards the end of Hilary Term. I was in Lukas’* room at college one Saturday afternoon and we were discussing our plans for the upcoming month-long Easter vacation.

"I’m joining some of the Coverdale* ordinands on the inner-city mission to Liverpool," he told me. "We’ll be serving there for a week. After that, for Holy Week I’ll be up at Iona. I’m on a programme at the Abbey with the Iona Community. Have you heard of Iona? It’s up on the west coast of Scotland."

"'Have I heard of Iona?'" I repeated. "Of course I have! I’m Presbyterian, aren’t I? At my church back home in the States, it’s practically a rule that if you get over to Scotland, you have to visit Iona. It's part of our heritage!

"In fact," I went on, "I’m planning on visiting Iona, too. Only, I don’t know exactly when I’ll be there; it depends on where else I want to go first. But maybe I’ll see you there!"

Lukas* agreed that that would be nice. And even if we couldn’t make contact during the vac, we made a date to go out to dinner when we both got back to Coverdale* the second week in April. My treat this time, I told him. I’d never yet had the chance to reciprocate his hospitality in Switzerland.

All very frank, friendly, and free. You will see anon how things actually fell out between us on St. Columba's holy isle.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: A Tentative Introduction

more cat pictures

I haven't posted anything from my 1989 Great Britannic Adventure journal for awhile.

A lot of that is because I've been screamingly busy--with my garden, with activities of organizations I'm involved in, with trying actually to land a full-time job.

But a lot of it is prudence? discretion? cowardice?

All of the above?

I spent Easter weekend of 1989 on the Scottish isle of Iona. In my journal I record the sights and sounds of my geographical experience there. But those four days are also--predominently--the record of an emotional and spiritual journey into my own soul.

And it wasn't pretty. That inward trip was dark, cold, and dreary as the weather that swept down over that little North Atlantic speck of stone and peat that late March weekend.

Ought it be disclosed? True, I'm not who I was nineteen years ago, though I can sympathize with that young woman.

But will my readers understand that? What if I'm interviewing with a church, and a member of the pulpit committee happens on my blog and knows it's mine? Will he judge who I am now by who I was then? What if a pastor member of my presbytery sees it, and thinks, "What a wet noodle! I'm not clueing her in to any vacancies I've heard of!"

But then, if a church is that judgemental, do I really want to serve them? Would I be able to serve them? And any pastor colleague who might be passing me references knows who I am now and wouldn't care!

Besides [she says snarkily] I read all sorts of people who go to Iona and hang out with the Iona Community, and find it the most spiritually uplifting, life-changing experience they've been through.

Oh, really?

So . . . in the interest of full disclosure and for the sake of some cynical entertainment, maybe it's time for me to present the other side.

But first, in a subsequent post [or three], I'll give some background on certain people and on why I went to Iona in the first place.

Right now, however, I need to go out and get my fingernails dirty again. Assuming my own weather isn't acting Scottish and bucketing rain.