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.

"Be Ye Holy . . . . "

Here I am, two-thirds of the way through Lent. With Christ's help I am keeping the Lenten abstinence vow I began on Ash Wednesday. But I don't feel particularly holy withal.

No, I don't expect to go floating six inches above the pavement, my head wreathed in a shining halo. That's not what I mean by holiness.

Holiness is doing what I know God wants me to do, whether I want to or not.

Holiness is keeping a charitable mind towards all I encounter, including the boss who takes my work for granted or the benighted soul who drives 35 mph in the 45 mph zone.

Holiness is using my time wisely, instead of mindlessly surfing the Internet or rereading novels I've been through three times before.

Holiness is not swearing when it hits me I've left my reading glasses up in my 3rd floor study-- again.

Holiness is being cheerful at the office, even though lately I've had to put in an obscene amount of (uncompensated) overtime, I'm not getting enough sleep, and my boss takes my work for granted.

Holiness is looking out for what I can do for others, instead of grabbing for what they can do for me.

Holiness is knowing I can't manage any of the above without Jesus Christ working in me and through me.

Holiness is the constant awareness of Jesus Christ working in me and through me.

Holiness is enjoying the constant awareness of Jesus Christ working in me and through me.

(Which, I suppose, would result in the sensation of floating along six inches above the pavement . . . )

And this holiness is just what I don't have!

But that's the good of Lent, isn't it? That it makes us face what a bad job we make of things when we're left to ourselves, and how we always, everywhere, at every time have to keep turning and turning and turning to face that stark, judgmental, life-giving Cross.