ColumbaFest promises Dreams and Visions
COLUMBAFEST 2018, a weekend celebration of faith, culture politics and creativity themed this year on Dreams and Visions, starts in Glasgow on the Iona saint’s feast day on June 9.
ColumbaFest is a weekend festival at the anniversary of St Columba’s death. St Columba is the holy man who came from Ireland to settle on the island of Iona, and, in time, established the religious settlement there. He Christianised Scotland, and the mission work of his followers spread out from there to reach parts of central and southern Europe.
During the festival, workshops and other events will explore themes from Columba’s life, such as learning, mission, exile, prayer, spirituality and political engagement. And in echoes of his and the Celtic Church’s emphasis on incarnation, it will explore issues that are of importance in the contemporary context and culture of Scotland, and which have broader resonance further afield.
There’ll be concerts on Friday and Sunday evening, a ceilidh and concert on the Saturday evening and a liturgy on the life of Columba on the Sunday morning.
Gaelic musician Mary Ann Kennedy performs on the bill alongside country music ensemble Ashton Lane, and Ishbel McFarlane’s one-woman show on the Scots language ‘O Is For Hoolet’. Contributors this year include John L Bell, Iain Bradley, Craig Gardiner, Alyson Hallet, Lorraine McIntosh, Carol Marples, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Andy Thornton, and Alison Phipps and Robert Swinfen, Iona Community members working in the area of asylum-seekers and refugees, education and housing.
The Iona Community website explains: ‘The theme for this year, Dreams and Visions, invites us to consider the protest and poetry of prophecy and apply it to our lives today. Throughout history there have been a number of prophetic voices, from those Old Testament figures crying in the wilderness, to colourful saints such as Columba in the middle ages, and those more recently crying out for civil rights and climate justice. Prophets are varied in style and approach but they tend to be unconventional, vocal, and to speak both from and on behalf of the margins.
‘There are many different kinds of prophets, but as a rule they speak truth to power even when it is inconvenient, provocative, or dangerous to do so. Prophecy often comes from the margins, the fringes, the borders. In the midst of oppression, heartache and despair prophets give us the resources to carry on, push on, or simply hang on. They allow us to protest what is wrong and celebrate what is good. They give us the poetry to lament what is awful and to grasp what is right.
‘The dreams and visions of ordinary, simple people can and do change the world every day. We would love you to join us as we continue to wrestle with these themes, if you are free and able, do consider joining us at ColumbaFest 2018.’