Little Island on the Edge of the Ocean

Iona - Swimming at North Beach I experienced for the first time what it was like to understand an island. A completely different experience to any other sense of belonging that I had ever felt before. Such a small place, and yet so important within the context of everything else. They say no man is an island, yet I believe that it may be a very true metaphor, islands are not places of isolation, but part of a larger picture of sea and sky and rocks and birds and sheep, and of other islands, other countries, other continents.

And of community too. The abby, the pilgrims, all the beautiful people that I met on the Iona Youth Festival. All these small islands at the edge of the huge ocean of life. Buffeted by rain, smiled upon by sun; all separate, yet part of this great earth. Never have I felt more grateful to be an island.

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